The United States Chamber has always been a political organization, but this year’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United case allowed organizations like the Chamber to go further by getting directly involved in the advocacy of candidates. The Chamber has jumped into the fray in a big way and is spending $75 million to elect candidates, most of whom are Republicans, to Congress.

John Ruan, III is serving as vice chairman of the United States Chamber of Commerce and will be its next chairman. He used his clout with the organization to convince Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s president and C.E.O., to come to Ruan’s hometown of Des Moines and address the Rotary Club. It was a timely presentation.

On Tuesday the left leaning Center for American Progress released a report detailing how the United States Chamber of Commerce was getting “dues” payments of tens of thousands of dollars from foreign companies in countries such as Bahrain, India and Egypt and mingling the money with funds from U.S. members to advocate for or against candidates in the midterm races. The report was summarized in the Center’s online blog, Think Progress. The New York Times offered an opinion on the matter as well.

I am a Rotarian and I took the opportunity to ask Mr. Donohue about this matter at lunch Thursday during the question period. Specifically, I asked, “The recent Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case allowed corporations and organizations like the U.S. Chamber to participate in the political process by funding ads. And, I don’t know the facts in particular in this case, but I think the U.S. Chamber is running some ads and it collects money from foreign nationals and corporations into their 501(c)(6). Does the perception bother you that foreign nationals are participating in the political process and, if so, what would the U.S. Chamber do to correct that perception or practice?”

If you want to save some time, Mr. Donohue’s answer to my question appeared to be that the U.S. Chamber was not going to do anything different to change the perception that the Chamber is mingling foriegn with domestic political funds, nor change its actual practices. He just talked about how liberals are out to sink the Chamber. That is my take, for what it is worth.

But, if you wish to read Mr. Donohue’s entire response, here it is: “It is against the law for foreign nationals to participate in the political process. And, that thing appeared first on a blog supported by George Soros and followed by an irresponsible editorial in the New York Times and then jumped into all the blogs driven by people who are very, very upset about what is going to happen in this election.

So, we don’t bring any money…they claim we did it through our American Chambers of Commerce Abroad. They’ve been going on for a hundred years. That’s absolute rubbish.

The second thing is the Citizens United thing. That rule didn’t say we could run ads. We’ve been running ads for years. What it said is if we wanted to, we could say instead of educate – go call up your Congressman and ask him where he stands on this issue – that we could say actually elected him or defeat him. Which, we’re not doing, by the way. It’s much easier to do it the other way.

But, what we have here – and then they tried to pass legislation keeping us out of the political process. I mean, you know, we’re going to spend, I don’t know, $50 to 75 million in this election. The unions alone are going to spend 200 or so million dollars. But, they would like to have an uneven playing field even more. They would like to keep us out.

So that it is very unfortunate that somebody, you know, a bright person out here this far away from the New York Times gets the impression that we’re doing stuff like that. It’s just simply political hogwash trying to get us off the field. And, I just got our guys together and said ‘OK, we’re going to put more money in.’

And, so, we’re out trying to…when I sat down to speak to you they were picketing our building in Washington and I like it because it is a clear indication that what we are doing is working.”

I wish Mr. Donohue would have said the Chamber would not mingle funds from those outside the United States with those within when running the Chamber’s political efforts. He did not and that is troubling.

(Graham Gillette can be reached at [email protected])