Senate Republicans have sent a letter to President Obama urging him to scrap his nasty disclosure executive order. The order would force contractors bidding on work for the federal government to disclose political contributions. Unions aren’t included, of course. Oddly, his decision coincided with the launch of his re-election campaign. It’s too much even for some of the more left leaning Republican Senators. Kimberly Strassel explained:
Ever audacious, the White House is spinning this as “reform,” claiming taxpayers deserve to know how federal dollars being paid to contractors are being spent in campaigns. This might hold (a drop of) water if the executive order also required all the (liberal) entities that get billions in taxpayer dollars via federal grants and funding—unions, environmental groups, Planned Parenthood—to disclose also. It doesn’t.
The whole reform language is “Orwellian,” says Ms. Collins. It’s a measure of the order’s naked political nature that she’s leading the pushback—spearheading a GOP letter to the president and briefing Republican senators at a policy lunch this week. This is the same Susan Collins who has bucked her party in the past on campaign-finance issues, voting for McCain-Feingold.
The administration’s argument that this is about disclosure is “a fraud,” she declares. The very notion “offends me deeply,” she says, since the order undermines decades of work by her and others to ensure federal business is free of corruption of political influence.
The politics of the order have been so ugly that she argues the media has missed the equally profound policy implications. It’s the “equivalent of repealing the Hatch Act,” she argues, the seminal 1939 law designed to weed out federal pay-to-play.
It has taken decades to create a federal contracting system based on “best prices, best value, best quality,” Ms. Collins says, and the effect of the Obama order is to again have “politics play a role in determining who gets contracts.” Companies may choose not to bid, which will reduce competition and raise government costs. And the order puts “thousands of civil servants” who oversee contracting “in an impossible situation.”
The White House hasn’t bothered to respond to Ms. Collins’s letter, though Mr. Obama has had plenty of time for campaigning. …
The Hill reported that House Republicans have also sent the president a letter. No word on whether or not he’s responded.
Republican leaders in the House are urging President Obama to nix an executive order that would require federal contractors to disclose their political contributions.
In a letter sent to Obama on Friday, 21 Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), called the proposed executive order “a blatant attempt to intimidate, and potentially silence, certain speakers who are engaged in their constitutionally protected right to free speech.” …
House Republican leaders and committee chairmen, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), expressed “grave constitutional concerns” about the draft executive order in their May 6 letter to Obama.
“We are very concerned that the net effect of this proposed EO would be stifled political speech, as potential and current federal contractors decide to limit their political speech in order to protect their livelihoods,” according to the letter. “In the interest of free speech and the liberties protected by the First Amendment, we strongly encourage your administration not to issue the proposed executive order.”
Something tells me their pleas are falling on dear ears. He’s got a billion dollars to raise, and doesn’t want whoever the Republican candidate may be to have any chance at catching up.
Tags: contractors, disclose, executive order, free speech, government, obama
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