Foundations Call for Transparency in Corporate Political Spending
Rockefeller Brothers Fund President Stephen Heintz is among nearly 70 foundation leaders asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to require corporations to disclose their political spending. “Shareholders have a right to know what public companies are spending to influence the political process,” Heintz said on NPR.
Although companies are not required by law to disclose political spending, the Center for Political Accountability, an RBF grantee, has been working with corporations to voluntarily embrace transparency as part of their governance standards. Bruce Freed, president of the center, said 140 companies have committed to disclose their political spending, including a majority of the Standard and Poor's 100.
The landscape of political fundraising changed after Citizens United, a 2010 Supreme Court decision to loosen restrictions on political spending by corporations and other groups. This allowed an influx of spending beyond the existing committees of political parties. According to data from RBF grantee The Center for Responsive Politics, total non-party outside spending on the 2012 presidential election was triple that of the 2008 election.