Center for Justice & Democracy's new report accuses the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of providing over $100 million and strategic assistance to local front groups in order to influence state level elections, including funding illegal smear campaigns against local candidates.
The report, "The Secret Chamber – The Inner Workings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Hijacking of an Election," cites papers, emails and deposition testimony about the Chamber illegally funding a smear campaign against Deborah Senn for Washington State Attorney General in 2004.
Ms. Senn had a reputation for being pro-consumer after she took actions like adding alternative medicine to standard policies, working to protect abused women and children from their abuser even if the abuser was the policyholder, and enforcing the responsibility of the company for "innocent co-insureds".
Ms. Senn was attacked in an advertising blitz put on by the voter's education committee, just before the primaries, which lead to her defeat, according to the report.
VEC, a local front group, revealed the participation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Institute for Legal Reform, ILR, after the the Public Disclosures Commission sued them for the disclosure on September 9, 2004.
The PDC argued that because the ads were anti-Senn, not anti-issue, the group was acting as a political advocate–not an issue advocate–and therefore legally had to disclose their sources.
On September 6 2005, Judge Richard A Jones of the King County Superior Court for the State of Washington ruled on the side of the PDC. And demanded that the VEC showed their financial records.
The report states that the Chamber and the ILR covertly work to elect public officials and judges who reflect a strong political agenda of protecting corporations from liability to the detriment of the civil liabilities system.
"The VEC reportedly spent $1.4 million on the ads attacking Ms. Senn. That ad buy was nearly double what Ms. Senn and the three other primary candidates spent collectively on broadcast advertising," states the report.
"We work on the state level, we work on the federal level," said senior vice president of strategic communications for the ILR Bryan Quigley.
While Mr. Quigley said that the Chamber is, "working for comprehensive judicial reform," he also added that, "unfortunately we don't talk about the specifics or even the generality about what we do politically."
"Robert Engstrom, who heads the Chamber's ILR, says in his deposition that he believes they have spent $100 million, within 'a margin of error,' on 'legal reform.' He does not specify an exact time frame," according to Laurie Beacham the report's author.
At the time of the Senn campaign the Wall Street Journal observed: "The effort in Washington is only the tip of the iceberg. In about 25 states, the business-advocacy group is targeting candidates for attorney general and supreme court justice who are seen as opposed to legal overhaul or other business interests," according to the report.
"The Chamber has had its hands in a lot of elections in the country," according to Beacham, "but they have already been found guilty" in similar scandals and have not changed their policies.
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