Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, in April a draft Executive order was circulated that would force companies, as a condition of applying for a Federal contract, to disclose all Federal campaign contributions. In my opinion, if implemented, this Executive order would lead to a significant politicization of the Federal procurement process. Instead of judging companies on the basis of their past work performance, their demonstrated ability to do the job or their price, we would actually introduce potentially the element of their political participation and contributions and activities into the consideration process.

This Executive order would not, in fact, lead to more objectivity in the evaluation process. It would, instead, chill the constitutionally protected right of people to donate politically to whatever candidate or cause or political party they choose to. Those very same people would fear repercussion to their bottom line as, frankly, I'm sure this Executive order intends to do.

The draft order claims that these burdensome and intrusive disclosure requirements are necessary to ensure that contracting decisions, quote, deliver the best value to the taxpayer and are free from the undue influence of extraneous factors such as political activity or political favoritism. If one accepts this rationale--and I certainly don't--then delivering the, quote, best value to the taxpayer would require such disclosure by anyone receiving Federal dollars.

This Executive order would not apply to Federal employee unions that negotiate with the government to provide billions of dollars in benefits for their members, nor would it apply to many nonprofits that receive Federal grants, many of whom have strong political agendas of their own.

My amendment would prevent any funds from this act going towards the implementation of any rule, regulation, or Executive order regarding political contributions that takes effect on or after the date of the enactment of the act. It is important to recognize, Mr. Chairman, my bill does not change Federal campaign law in any way. It does not change the current disclosure requirements.

My amendment has already been agreed to on three previous pieces of legislation: the Defense Authorization bill for FY 2012, the Homeland Security appropriations bill, and also the Defense appropriations bill.

Mr. Chairman, ``pay-to-play'' has no place in the Federal contracting process. Requiring the disclosure of campaign contributions for government contracts in my opinion does just that.

Congress considered the proposed Executive order, something like it, during the 111th Congress as part of the DISCLOSE Act and rejected it. This Executive order is a backdoor attempt to implement the DISCLOSE Act by executive fiat.

For those reasons, Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of the amendment.

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Mr. COLE. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would just remind my friend from California that when Republicans brought disclosure, they didn't link it to the contracting process, which this potential Executive order does. I think that's out of bounds.

I would also remind my friend the Democrats opposed that and when Democrats were in the majority, and overwhelmingly in the majority, they failed to enact legislation similar to what she suggests in the DISCLOSE Act.

I think this is something that this legislative body has looked at. If my friend from California wants to introduce a bill to do this, that's perfectly appropriate to it, but doing it in the context of the contracting process is simply wrong. People that are submitting bids will somehow think inevitably that they will be helped or hurt by their political activity. That has no basis in judging the quality of a bid for a Federal contract.

In addition, frankly, my friends have never wanted to apply that same standard to labor unions or to affiliated groups applying for Federal dollars. I would actually agree with them on that. I don't think it has any place in a disclosure in those areas either. There's a place to do this, and there's a place not to do it. Doing it on a contract is inevitably meant to try and use the Federal dollars to impact, one way or another, what groups do politically. That's wrong, we shouldn't allow it, and we should never, never risk politicizing the procurement process.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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