[EL] Pay-to-play will thrive in budget debate

[Joseph Birkenstock]

Craig, stop being silly.  Everyone knows corruption in government
contracting only comes when political spending of the prospective
contractors is broadly disclosed to the public, not when that
information is privately known only to a subset of activists and
politicians.  For example, I recall several long chains of commentary
attacking the way that public disclosure (but only public disclosure)
will lead to the enforcement of an "enemies list" of business partners
that are presumptively unwelcome as government vendors.  

 

In fact, it seems to me that every instance of reconsideration of the
DISCLOSE Act or policies toward the same effect has launched a
mini-flood of tweets under the #enemieslist hashtag - but never any
consideration of whether a private list of political help from companies
known only to friendly public officeholders could have any similar
corrupting effect.  

 

To be sure, there haven't been any tweet floods at all, large or small,
under the #friendslist hashtag.  Haven't you been paying attention?

 

 

________________________________
Joseph M. Birkenstock, Esq.
Caplin & Drysdale, Chtd.
One Thomas Circle, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 862-7836
www.capdale.com/jbirkenstock <http://www.capdale.com/jbirkenstock> 
*also admitted to practice in CA

 

 

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of
Craig Holman
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 11:36 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Pay-to-play will thrive in budget debate

 

Colleagues:

Below is a snippet of an op-ed I published in Roll Call today on the
supercommittee and pay-to-play corruption. It would have been
appropriate to mention the Solyndra issue (but the story broke after I
wrote the piece), in which many congressional Republicans are beginning
to realize -- in contradiction to their opposition to Obama's proposed
transparency executive order -- that the lack of full disclosure of
political spending by government contractors may result in pay-to-play
favoritism in the awarding of contracts.

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_33/craig_holman_pay_to_play_will_thriv
e_budget_debate-208921-1.html



Pay-to-play corruption thrives in the shadows. As long as the public is
generally kept in the dark as to how much a corporation is spending on
behalf of super committee officials and their respective parties,
pay-to-play can be an exceedingly effective tool in shaping the budget
debate.

 

There is a viable solution that could take effect almost immediately: a
proposed executive order under consideration by President Barack Obama
that would require government contractors to fully disclose their
campaign contributions and expenditures to the public, including
corporate funds for spending on elections laundered through third-party
groups.

 

 

Craig Holman, Ph.D.
Government Affairs Lobbyist
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Avenue NE
Washington, D.C. 20003
TEL: (202) 454-5182
CEL: (202) 905-7413
FAX: (202) 547-7392
Holman at aol.com


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