Obama May Spotlight Contractors’ Political Spending President Obama is considering requiring federal contractors to disclose political contributions, an idea immediately denounced by industry groups. Under a draft executive order being circulated by the White House, when submitting a bid, a contractor and the company’s directors and officers would have to disclose all contributions of more than $5,000 in one year to political parties, federal candidates and any independent third-party entity trying to influence an election. The information would be made public. White House press secretary Jay Carney confirmed that the order is in the draft stage and said specifics could change. The draft, obtained by Federal Computer Week, says, “The Federal Government must ensure that its contracting decisions are merit-based in order to deliver the best value for the taxpayer. It is incumbent that every stage of the contracting process—from appropriation to contract award to performance to post-performance review—be free from the undue influence of factors extraneous to the underlying merits of the contracting decision making, such as political activity or political favoritism” Carney said the president “believes very strongly that taxpayers deserve to know” how federal contractors are spending the money they receive. “And his goal is transparency and accountability. That’s the responsible thing to do when you’re handling taxpayer dollars,” he said in an April 20 briefing. The Professional Services Council, a contractor group, said the information is already available elsewhere, such as through the Federal Election Commission. “The draft order says it is necessary to ensure that politics are not allowed to impair the integrity of the procurement process,” said Stan Soloway, the group’s president. “But by force-feeding irrelevant information to government contracting officers, who would otherwise never consider such factors in a source selection, the rule would actually do precisely what it is intended to stop: inject politics into the source selection process.” The chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Rep. Sam Graves, R-MO, echoed that objection. “This order will either intimidate contractors not to get involved in politics, or make them believe that they need to contribute to the party in power if they want to compete for contracts,” he wrote in a letter to President Obama. “Right now, contracting officers do not have ready access to the history of a company’s political activities…. This takes political contributions and puts them directly in front of the contracting activity.” Other Republicans attacked the order as politically motivated. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, “Under the guise of ‘transparency,’ the Obama administration reportedly wants to know the political leanings of any company or small business, including those of their officers and directors, before the government decides if they’ll award them federal contracts.” Carney denied that the president’s motives are political. Last year Democrats in Congress unsuccessfully tried to pass the Disclose Act, which would have required disclosure of contributions to third-party interest groups. Those groups have become an increasingly powerful factor in election campaigns since the Supreme Court struck down limits on contributions to such groups by corporations and labor unions. Many of the groups do not disclose the names of contributors.