Financial Times: Powerful US business lobby group under the spotlight

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c57768a8-3c53-11da-94fb-00000e2511c8.html


Powerful US business lobby group under the spotlight
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Published: October 14 2005 03:00 | Last updated: October 14 2005 03:00

<snipping first paragraphs about Deborah Senn's campaign for Washington state attorney-general>

Today, a year after the race, the ad campaign against Ms Senn lies at the centre of a legal tussle between the former candidate and the most powerful pro-business lobby group in the country, the US Chamber of Commerce.

<snip>

A complaint filed to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission this week containing testimony from officials at the chamber alleges that the group conspired to oppose Ms Senn's candidacy by using a "front organisation", the VEC, in order to conceal its funding of the campaign. It also alleges that the chamber failed to register its activities and concealed its expenditures.

The secret funding of shell organisations like the VEC was, the complaint also alleges, part of a systematic campaign by the chamber to inject millions of corporate dollars in state attorneys-general and Supreme Court races to further the group's pro-business agenda.

Rob Engstrom, senior vice-president for political affairs at the Institute for Legal Reform, a subsidiary of the chamber, said in testimony that the chamber had targeted 43 Supreme Court and attorney-general races since 2000, much of which had been done through "third party partner organisations". Mr Engstrom also said the chamber had spent $100m on legal reform in targeted states and that the anti-Senn effort was the first time the group had been identified as a partner in a state race.

<snip>