I spent an hour of this morning on a conference call with the Main Street Alliance, the American Sustainable Business Council and the American Independent Business Alliance, where they urged President **Obama** to sign his draft executive order mandating contribution disclosure from government contractors. According to existing campaign finance regulations, government contractors are already required to to disclose campaign contributions made by their political action committees, as well as their own direct expenditures. This new measure is meant to extend that disclosure to contributions made by government contractors to third parties with the intention (or reasonable expectation) that they will spend the contributions on political activities. This executive order would have little effect on small businesses, who tend not to make large contributions to political campaigns or PACs, but would affect large contractors who receive billions in federal contracts. These contractors have ample [representation](http://www.fixtheuschamber.org/tracking-the-chamber/icymi-us-chamber’s-44-billion-reasons-fight-corporate-political-transparency) within the Chamber of Commerce, and as such the body has come out strong [against](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/politics/27donate.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y) the draft executive order: >After a brief truce of sorts between the White House and business leaders, the top lobbyist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce took aim at President Obama on Tuesday over an as-yet unannounced plan to force government contractors to disclose their political giving. >The lobbyist, R. Bruce Josten, said in an interview that the powerful business bloc “is not going to tolerate” what it saw as a “backdoor attempt” by the White House to silence private-sector opponents by disclosing their political spending. Likewise, in support of their corporate contributors, House Republicans have [scheduled](http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1284%3A5-12-11-qpoliticizing-procurement-would-president-obamas-proposal-curb-free-speech-and-hurt-small-businessq&catid=12&Itemid=25) a hearing for today, where they will discuss whether the president's proposal will "curb free speech and hurt small business." The GOP's small business angle is interesting, if only because it illustrates an important point about these discussions: despite their affiliation with the Chamber, the interests of small businesses and the interests of large corporations are wildly divergent, and often at odds. That Republicans have been able to conflate the two is both a real success of messaging, and an illustration of the lopsided balance of power between large corporations and virtually everyone else.
