Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Big companies disclosing more could-be-secret political spending, analysis shows

Hewlett Packard headquarters

Computer company Hewlett Packard received a perfect score from the index for its policies on political spending disclosure.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

An increasing number of the country's largest publicly traded companies are disclosing more than ever about political spending habits that the law permits them to keep secret.

That's the central finding of the fifth annual report from a group of academics and corporate ethicists, who say the average score among the biggest companies traded on American exchanges, the S&P 500, has gone up each year since 2014.

Though corporate political action committees must disclose their giving to candidates, those numbers are very often dwarfed by the donations businesses make to the trade associations and other outside groups that have driven so much of the steady rise in spending on elections. Conservatives say robust disclosure of these behaviors is the best form of regulating money in politics and is working fine, and this new report reflects that. Those who say campaign finance needs more assertive federal regulation will argue such corporate transparency is inconsistent and inadequate to the task, and the new report underscores that.


The most recent report, out late last month from the nonprofit Center for Political Accountability and the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the University of Pennsylvania, assesses two dozen different behaviors by each company, including their direct giving to sway elections, who runs their political operations and how easy it is to learn about the company's political behavior.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The companies are rated on a 70-point scale. The average score this year was 47.1, a three-point bump from a year ago.

Seventy-three companies were dubbed "trendsetters" this year for scoring 90 percent or higher on their disclosure and accountability policies — 16 more than last year. The four who received perfect scores were computer make Hewlett Packard, defense contractor Northrop Grumman and medical device companies Edwards Lifesciences and Becton Dickinson. Others in this top tier included Google parent Alphabet, AT&T, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and Visa.

At the other end of the scale were the 59 with a score of zero. Well-known brand names on this list included Netflix, TripAdvisor, Expedia and MGM Resorts International.

The CPA-Zicklin Index also singled out 16 companies for big improvements in their transparency, including Ford Motor, Lowe's, Chubb and Kohl's.

Only a dozen companies in the S&P 500 say they spend nothing to directly influence elections — among them Accenture, Goldman Sachs Group, IBM and Ralph Lauren. Several dozen others said they limit their participation in politics to certain types of giving.

Some of this increase in disclosure can be attributed to companies aiming to repair reputations after public backlash for political involvement. There was a boycott of SoulCycle this summer, for example, after customers learned a major investor in the company intended to hold a fundraiser for President Trump. This reactive political atmosphere "will only become more volatile" in the year before the presidential election, the report says.


"With election spending again expected to set new records and the shadow of anonymous or so-called political 'dark money' growing, U.S. companies will further be in the crosshairs, whether under attack from the White House or under scrutiny by media, shareholders, workers and consumers," the report says.

Read More

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump
text
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump

Donald Trump wasted no time when he returned to the White House. Within hours, he signed over 200 executive orders, rapidly dismantling years of policy and consolidating control with the stroke of a pen. But the frenzy of reversals was only the surface. Beneath it lies a deeper, more troubling transformation: presidential elections have become all-or-nothing battles, where the victor rewrites the rules of government and the loser’s agenda is annihilated.

And it’s not just the orders. Trump’s second term has unleashed sweeping deportations, the purging of federal agencies, and a direct assault on the professional civil service. With the revival of Schedule F, regulatory rollbacks, and the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the federal bureaucracy is being rigged to serve partisan ideology. Backing him is a GOP-led Congress, too cowardly—or too complicit—to assert its constitutional authority.

Keep ReadingShow less
One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

A roll of "voted" stickers.

Pexels, Element5 Digital

One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

The analysis and parsing of learned lessons from the 2024 elections will continue for a long time. What did the campaigns do right and wrong? What policies will emerge from the new arrangements of power? What do the parties need to do for the future?

An equally important question is what lessons are there for our democratic structures and processes. One positive lesson is that voting itself was almost universally smooth and effective; we should applaud the election officials who made that happen. But, many elements of the 2024 elections are deeply challenging, from the increasingly outsized role of billionaires in the process to the onslaught of misinformation and disinformation.

Keep ReadingShow less