Wall Street Money Undermines Our Democracy

July 23, 2012

AFSCME President Lee Saunders sent this letter to the Wall Street Journal in response to an article on political spending by unions which appeared on the front page of the paper on July 10:

To the Editor:

The Journal’s latest attack on unions (“Political Spending by Unions Far Exceeds Direct Donations,” July 10) makes a strong case that reporting requirements for corporate spending on politics must be made as transparent as the requirements made of labor unions. The Journal correctly notes that “comparisons with corporate political spending aren’t easy to make. Some corporate political spending, such as donations to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s political wing, doesn’t need to be disclosed.” In other words, the Journal can’t do a similar piece on corporate spending because, unlike with unions, it would be nearly impossible to discover how much corporations truly spend to influence the political process.

At a minimum, the Securities and Exchange Commission should require corporate political and lobbying expenditures be disclosed to shareholders, the kind of disclosure envisioned by Justice Kennedy in his Citizens United decision. Prompt disclosure of corporate political spending, he wrote, would “provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.” In the absence of that kind of equal disclosure, citizens cannot see which politicians are in Wall Street’s pocket.

AFSCME and other unions have properly reported our involvement in the political process, and it’s no secret that we will invest in candidates who support the issues that everyday Americans care about, from job creation to protecting Social Security to making health care more affordable. However, the Journal mistakenly double-counts some spending by adding figures reported to two agencies and attributing the same expenditure to both our national union and our affiliates.

The Journal is able to outline the spending of unions on our entire political program, most of which is spent on grassroots mobilization for the state and local electoral and legislative campaigns we wage, because we disclose our spending and are accountable to our members for it. Corporations – and the shady front groups created by billionaires to steal the freedom of working people to organize – face no such reporting requirements. Isn’t it time that every dime collected and spent by these groups be made as transparent as union spending so that shareholders and citizens can see how Wall Street works to undermine our democracy and the future of the middle class?

Lee Saunders
President
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Washington, D.C.