Political Quotes

“The amendment before us is a legislative attempt to circumvent a draft Executive order which would provide for increased disclosure of the political contributions of government contractors. The draft Executive order being developed by the Obama administration would require Federal contractors to disclose more information about their political contributions than they currently provide. Particularly, those contributions given to third-party entities. Some have said they oppose this effort because additional information could be used nefariously to create some kind of enemies list. In other words, they argue that companies should not disclose more information because people in power could misuse that information to retaliate against them. I just think there are fundamental problems with this premise. Under this logic, all campaign disclosures would be bad, not just the new ones. Government contractors already disclose contributions and expenditures by their PACs and those who contribute to them. Contributions by the officers and directors of government contractors are also required to be disclosed. Should we eliminate those provisions, too? Of course not. The information is required to be provided already in law, and the Executive order that the amendment would circumvent simply enhances the quality of that information.…”