If you’ve been wondering how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce could have gotten to a point where the policy positions it advocates are so out of sync with the realities of our times that companies like Apple, Nike, PG&E, and Exelon have felt compelled to distance themselves from them by bolting the Chamber’s board or terminating their membership altogether, then I commend to you a new report we released yesterday.
Preaching Principle, Enabling Excess: How Tom Donohue Compromised the Credibility of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lays it all out:
Tom Donohue has hijacked the Chamber’s agenda away from serving the interests of the business community to serving corporate CEOs. Under his direction, the Chamber now rewards corporations that write large checks with specific lobbying on their behalf. Donohue’s Chamber also expends significant resources defending CEOs whose conduct harms their own corporations as well as the business community.
Under his leadership, the Chamber:
- Opposes regulating the markets, products and practices that generated massive payouts to Wall Street executives, but ultimately devastated their companies and caused the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
- Fights reforms that would make executive compensation more transparent, financial statements more reliable and accounting fraud more difficult to conceal.
- Attacks the ability of government agencies to investigate and hold accountable executives who may have engaged in wrongdoing.
- Defends executives accused or convicted of breaking the law, including ousted AIG head Hank Greenberg, who contributed $24.5 million to the Chamber; ex-Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio who is serving six years for insider trading that took place while Donohue was a Qwest director; and billionaire Philip Anschutz, perhaps Donohue’s closest ally.
These activities are not in the interests of either the small businesses that make up 96% of the Chamber’s members or American business generally. Rather, they are nothing more than attempts to defend discredited practices that enable executives to enrich themselves at shareholders’ expense.
You can download the full report and the executive summary at http://www.changetowin.org/chamber.