MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

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A December report by the national consumer advocacy group Public Citizen bluntly concluded that "the U.S. Chamber of Commerce waved its dark money wand on the 2016 elections and elected a slew of GOP politicians beholden to big business." The report found that the Chamber spent 100 percent of its campaign funding on Republican candidates for the first time in its history. Furthermore, because of the Citizens United decision, it did not have to disclose the identities of the donors who supplied its campaign contribution funds.

The Public Citizen analysis found:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the second largest overall non-disclosing (or “dark money”) outside spender in 2016 congressional races after the National Rifle Association, and it was the largest non-disclosing outside spender in 75 percent of the races in which it spent money. The Chamber involved itself most heavily in races for the U.S. Senate, spending a total of $25.8 million in 10 Senate races. This deluge began with a $10 million ad buy in swing states last spring as a part of their “Save the Senate” campaign, a campaign organized jointly with leading Republicans whose goal was to prevent a Democratic takeover of the closely-divided body. Moreover, for the first time, 100 percent of the Chamber’s general election spending benefited Republican candidates, suggesting that rather than being a nonpartisan voice for American business, the Chamber has become a voice solely for the Republican Party.

The Chamber works closely with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as well as with the Koch brothers' agenda. This bolsters its impact on both the state level and in Washington, promoting an anti-regulation, pro-fossil fuel agenda Congress. In this most recent election, the Chamber's agenda was synergistically matched with President-elect Trump's business and energy platforms. Trump's Cabinet appointees' beliefs reflect the Chamber's goals, too. Furthermore, as noted earlier earlier, the money sources behind the Chamber's campaign donations are undisclosed because it is a 501(c)(6) organization, which now has the right of "personhood" to support candidates through shadowy parallel campaign organizations.

The Chamber's financial support, along with other undisclosed Republican "dark money," is extremely important as an indicator of election trends. The greatest impact of the Chamber contributions, representative of a much larger pool of "dark money," is in the Congress -- both the House, where the districts are configured to favor suburban and rural populations, and the Senate, where big money can have a significant effect on elections outcomes.

As ThinkProgress recently noted, "In 2012, Democratic House candidates won nearly 1.4 million more votes than their Republican counterparts. Yet Republicans won more than 30 seats more than Democrats in the House of Representatives, thanks to congressional districts that advantage the GOP." That is due largely to gerrymandering: States with Republican-controlled legislatures and Republican governors have engineered congressional districts to give a minority of white GOP voters in the country a majority in Congress.

As for senators, PolitiFact evaluated the votes for the 2014 Senate:

The Democrats accumulated 67,355,217 votes [for senators in the 2014 election]. Put another way, Republicans earned 70 percent of the votes earned by Democrats.

Why would a majority of the senators be elected by a minority of the United States population? The US's founders allowed for that when, in a gift to the slave states, they decided that every state -- with populations large and small -- would only elect two senators. So there's nothing extraordinary about having a group of senators (in this case, the Democrats) who are in the minority even though they were elected by the most votes, because they won seats in large states such as California and New York.

Taken together, gerrymandering, the "equal representation" of small states in the Senate, and non-transparent campaign money such as the funds coming from the Chamber enable the production of a federal government led by white Republicans on all sides. The electoral college operates according to a small, rural state bias as well. All of these institutions combine to bolster Republican power.

In a December 7 news release, Public Citizen condemned the US Chamber of Commerce's exclusive support of Republican congressional candidates:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has abandoned any claims it once held to bipartisanship or working across the aisle to get things done after it placed all its financial support with Republicans in this year’s congressional elections, a report (PDF) released today by Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch shows.“The Chamber’s 2016 election spending makes it clear that rather than being a voice for American business, the Chamber has become an arm for the Republican Party. Companies that are Chamber members should ask themselves if such a partisan voice really represents their best interests,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, which houses U.S. Chamber Watch. “Companies also should engage in some soul-searching to determine how their customers and shareholders might react if they knew that company money was going to fund an extremist, partisan organization with a reactionary anti-environmental, anti-worker, anti-consumer agenda.”

The Public Citizen report is another indication that democracy is being sold to the highest bidder, not determined by policies that represent the best interests of the majority of Americans.