Chamber Controversy

Our goal in this blog is to show you where a candidate’s campaign money is coming from.  There are other ways to support a campaign financially than directly donating money to the campaign.  Certain organizations can endorse a candidate and run their own ads about that candidate or attack ads, benefiting the campaign.

One of Roy Blunt’s major endorsers is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  We decided to focus on this endorser because of the recent controversy concerning where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is receiving money from.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce currently has foreign members and receives foreign money.  It is illegal to use any foreign money for campaign funds. Blunt was recently seen ignoring the press when asked questions concerning the foreign donations to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

According to thinkprogress.org, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has funneled all donations from foreign organizations into one general account.  After this the money is not kept track of.  The general account money is then used to run attack ads and the chamber doesn’t need to reveal where the money came from.  The Chamber has run over 8,000 ads against Democrats and has spent 85 percent of its allotted 75 million dollars on Republicans.

As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of Roy Blunt’s supporters and has endorsed him we feel it is necessary to know about the controversy the Chamber is involved with.  One of the main issues the Chamber supports Blunt on is his campaign for more jobs.  The U.S. Chamber has recently sponsored ads such as the one below that promote Republican candidates in support of more jobs.

As a voter it is important to understand that a candidates endorsers could have foreign monetary supporters.  Roy Blunt when confronted about this issue denies having any idea about the situation and directed the press to speak to the chamber.