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

Fri Sep 23 08:00:24 PDT 2011

I'll play: yes, I want procurement officials to have this information, not as a means to further politicize the procurement process but to help those officials better appreciate the context of other already existing pressures and influences over that process.  For someone buying commodities like blue pens, none of these pressures may matter much (Do I hold in my hands a proposal to sell us pens?  Are they blue?  Are the pricing and delivery terms in line with what a buyer should command for an order of this size?), but the government has to buy *lots* of things that aren't commodities, and which therefore are much harder to subject to a more plainly objective buying process.  

Procurement of big ticket items like refueling tankers, or even professional services, are especially subject to the terms of the RFP - only two companies could sell refueling tankers to the Air Force, for example, and so the way the procurement terms are set up ex ante can often more or less dictate the outcome of the procurement.  

So when the procurement agencies get that helpful "oversight" from Capitol Hill, suggesting that one process or another is insufficiently sensitive to the unique value available from a tanker with longer range, or greater payload, or whatever characteristic would tend to tilt the procurement toward a favored company, I think those officials would be better off getting information like this to help them make their own judgments about whether there are motivations for that oversight beyond just a sincere fascination with the relative merits of and tradeoffs between range vs. payload vs. cost vs. whatever else.  It would also help the public make similar judgments about the conduct of the government it elected, and the use of the tax receipts that government collects.  

At bottom, I think this issue marries up with a lot of broad concerns about delegated authority within democratic government: do we want procurement officials to be independent, or accountable?  It seems to me that there's a balance to be struck, whereby the entire government remains accountable but the specific business transactions between government and its vendors are as independent as possible of the political pressures through which the broader accountability is accomplished.  So the question, as I see it, is whether publicly disclosing information about political activities of those vendors would tend to make any specific procurement process more independent of political pressure - and to my eye, for the reasons described above, the answer is yes.

________________________________

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu on behalf of Smith, Brad
Sent: Thu 9/22/2011 5:59 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Pay-to-play will thrive in budget debate

So as I understand it, you want to make sure that federal procurement officials have access to this information so that they can more readily consider it. Is that correct?

Bradley A. Smith

Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault 

  Designated Professor of Law

Capital University Law School

303 East Broad Street

Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 236-6317

bsmith at law.capital.edu <mailto:bsmith at law.capital.edu> 

http://www.law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.asp <http://www.law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.asp> 

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 3:57 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Pay-to-play will thrive in budget debate

Trevor correctly points out that laundered contributions by government contractors are not disclosed at all, not even to political scientists. But it is also very time-consuming and difficult for political scientists and reporters to connect the dots between the itemized contribution database in the FEC files, with the level of occupational employment of each itemized contributor with a company, and with whether that company is a government contractor. The executive order would make all this information available in one database easily accessible by the public.

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Trevor Potter <tpotter at capdale.com>
To: Smith, Brad <BSmith at law.capital.edu>; Joseph Birkenstock <jbirkenstock at capdale.com>; Craig Holman <holman at aol.com>; law-election <law-election at UCI.EDU>
Sent: Thu, Sep 22, 2011 2:00 pm
Subject: RE: Re: [EL] Pay-to-play will thrive in budget debate

How , exactly, do we know that  Solyndra gave no money to C4s or C 6s or other 

non-disclosing groups to finance political expenditures?? That information is 

exactly what is currently not disclosed by federal contractors...

Trevor Potter

Sent by Good Messaging (www.good.com <http://www.good.com/> )

 -----Original Message-----

From:   Smith, Brad [mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu <mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu?> ]

Sent:   Thursday, September 22, 2011 12:55 PM Eastern Standard Time

To:     Joseph Birkenstock; Craig Holman; law-election at UCI.EDU

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

Solyndra wouldn't have been affected at all by the type of disclosure Craig and 

Joe seek. The company's unknown spending was on lobbying, not campaign 

contributions. The contributions of executives were already disclosed; the 

company itself did not make campaign expenditures, which were, we note, illegal 

at the time it got the loan guarantees anyway. Indeed, it is the fact that these 

disclosures are already required that allowed Prof. Zullo to conduct his 

research uncovering the "suspicious pattern."  

The question is not whether companies inform "officeholders and party officials" 

whom they support or oppose but whether we insist that they include that 

information, including data on the activities of their employees and data on 

giving that is not necessarily related to politics at all, on their applications 

to be reviewed by purchasing officials.  Craig and Joe still offer no reason for 

requiring that disclosure.

Bradley A. Smith

Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault 

  Designated Professor of Law

Capital University Law School

303 East Broad Street

Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 236-6317

bsmith at law.capital.edu <mailto:bsmith at law.capital.edu <mailto:bsmith at law.capital.edu?> > 

http://www.law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.asp <http://www.law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.asp> 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu?> ] 

On Behalf Of Joseph Birkenstock

Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 12:41 PM

To: Craig Holman; law-election at uci.edu

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

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

*also admitted to practice in CA

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto: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_thrive_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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