Unmasking the Chamber of Commerce Networks

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/04/13077/unmasking-chamber-commerce-networks
"new documents showing the role that lobbyists for state chambers of commerce play in thwarting measures that American workers and, as it turns out, the overwhelming majority of CEOs support. Who are these state chamber lobbyists and what are the trade groups they lead? In 1971, when tobacco lawyer Lewis Powell penned his infamous memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he not only called upon the national Chamber to unify and strengthen corporate power in U.S. politics, he also identified other untapped potential for his corporate coup. "Also," the soon-to-be Nixon nominee to the Supreme Court noted in his memo, "and this is of immeasurable merit — there are hundreds of local Chambers of Commerce which can play a vital supportive role." Forty-five years later, many state and local chambers are doing just that: supporting a policy agenda set by the U.S. Chamber and its biggest bankrollers to the detriment of the deep economic concerns of local communities that sustain state businesses. Powell understood that "strength lies in organization," and set out a broad list of targets, from the country's universities to its national media to the judicial branch, that the U.S. Chamber could infiltrate and organize. The vast network of state and local chambers, however, could not organize themselves. And so the U.S. Chamber set out to develop an array of groups to unify them. Some of these entities are special projects of the U.S. Chamber; others are individually incorporated but interconnected to it. All of them are components of a network of special interests that has largely displaced the voices of ordinary people in policymaking in what is supposed to be a representative democracy of one person, one vote. These special interests routinely press elected officials to protect corporate profits from public policies sought by citizens that would make our economy and our environment healthier for all."