Republicans try to justify non disclosure by shadow GOP groups by falsely claiming unions do it too

[ProSense]

Union disclosure unlike other groups'

Defenders of the outside Republican groups that don't disclose their donors -- the Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads GPS are the biggest this year -- have sometimes made the argument that Democrats have no right to gripe about this, because the unions that support them don't disclose their donors either either.

"(U)nions are (501)(c)(5)s and don’t disclose...is that the business as usual? Or does that make them shadowy?" Jim Dyke, one of the GOP consultants on the board of American Crossroads, asked on Twitter today.

There are elements of this comparison that make sense. The same collapse in campaign finance restrictions that allow unlimited corporate spending allow unlimited union spending.

But when it comes to disclosure, talk of unions is a red herring. While they aren't required by the FEC or IRS to disclose donors, a separate piece of federal law, the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, requires that unions disclose all sources of income that adds up to more than $5,000, a requirement overseen by the Department of Labor. As a result, unions disclose more than many political groups about their internal operations, and certainly more than than do 501(c)(4) nonprofits like Crossroads GPS or 501(c)(6) groups like the Chamber.

In theory, a donor could write a check to a union, which would then spend the money on politics. But nobody I've talked to could think of what the advantage to that would be, or of an instance when it's actually occurred.

AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale called the union angle "phony" and a spokeswoman for SEIU, Michelle Ringuette, emails:

There are strict legal limits that help make our political efforts transparent. Most of our political funding comes from SEIU COPE, which reports its donors on a monthly basis, which cannot accept more than $5000 a year from any one donor, and whose donors overwhelmingly are a hundred thousand low wage workers contributing around $10 a pay period. To the extent we do political work funded by our general treasury, most of which is member to member work funded by and accountable to those same low wage workers. We don't - and can't - solicit contributions from non-members. And of course it is disclosed.

The Chamber and the shadowy 527 and c4 groups that have sprung up after Citizens United - perhaps more aptly called corporations united - are conduits for undisclosed corporate money, pure and simple. We are a union of working people, and the money we spend on politics is money donated by workers. Their attempt to liken us to them in this regard is at best ignorant and frankly wrong.

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[Ikonoklast]

1. 19 to 1.

That is the ratio of business/front groups/GOP shadow orgs money to union contributions.