President Obama, now is the time to sign an executive order requiring all companies receiving government contracts to disclose all the money they put into the electoral process.

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Open the books: U.S. contractors should disclose political spending
By the Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 1, 2015

President Barack Obama is currently faced with an opportunity to force government contractors to make public their campaign contributions to candidates and political parties.

The way it stands now, private sector companies receive nearly half-a-trillion dollars per year in contracts from the federal government. Twenty-five of those companies receive about 40 percent of the contracts, an estimated $184 billion in 2014.

It would be naive to imagine that the companies in question do not attempt to influence the awarding of these government contracts through campaign contributions to candidates of both parties, to the parties themselves, and to the various organizations that undergird America’s political world.

The kicker is that, as of now, there is no requirement for these companies and their senior executives to disclose their political contributions to any oversight body. What they do with their money can remain in the dark, out of sight of the taxpayers who put up the money that goes to pay them through the government contracts they receive.

What that means in effect is that taxpayer money can be channeled through companies, to the companies’ advantage, without the taxpayers having any idea how much or to whom the cash flows.

President Obama could fix this piece of injustice easily, with an executive order requiring all companies receiving government contracts to disclose to the Federal Election Commission, or — given the toothlessness and tardiness of the FEC in acting — to the Department of Justice, all the money it puts into the electoral process.

What is remarkable is that he has not done this yet, having been in office more than six years already. An earlier draft of just such an order was shelved after push-back from the business community. Not facing election again himself removes any venal or partisan constraints there might have been on his doing so. Now is definitely time for him to act, quickly, before the 2016 campaign proceeds further.
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