DAILY BEAST: … In 2009, Obama refused to take any corporate donations for the presidential Inaugural. Although, by law, it is legal for corporations to give unlimited money to fund the inauguration and accompanying festivities, Obama refused, laying a marker down for what was supposed to be an administration held to a higher ethical standard. After all, corporations that gave huge sums of money before he was sworn in, might expect quid pro quos afterwards. This year though, as Politico first reported, the inaugural committee has reversed itself and will take direct corporate contributions.
Although the inaugural committee is imposing “a vetting standard” designed to filter out problematic contributions. However, the inaugural committee has not made clear what that standard is, besides the relative handful of companies that have yet to fully repay TARP money and donations from foreign individuals and corporations, which is against federal law for the inaugural committee to accept,
This change in policy met with outrage from campaign finance advocates. Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, was distraught at what he saw as “an unnecessary step backwards for the administration.” He saw this decision as “the wrong thing to do, it allows corporations to curry favor with the administration by providing large sums to benefit the interests of the administration from companies that no doubt have major interest pending before government.” What made this particularly galling to Wertheimer was that “they ran an inauguration in 2008 without any of this money.”… (more)
