Hearing to Investigate Forged Letters

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing [1] on the fraudulent letters [2] sent to Congress on clean energy and climate legislation. Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) wanted to know why congressional offices were not notified until after the vote occurred, even though the existence of the fake letters was discovered beforehand. The letters were sent out by Bonner & Associates, a subcontractor hired by Hawthorn. American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCE) paid Hawthorn, who then hired Bonner to carry out a grassroots lobbying campaign.

Most of the hearing focused on the chronicle of events whereby a temporary employee at Bonner sent out the forged letters on behalf of ACCE. Jack Bonner took the blame and repeatedly apologized when asked questions from the committee. During the hearing, both ACCCE and Bonner focused on how they are improving internal policy, developing action plans, and requiring ethics training among the various strategies to move forward.

However, getting rid of one employee and implementing various procedures and will not completely solve the problem. This is a perfect example of an Astroturf campaign, where lobbying efforts give the impression of real grassroots citizen mobilization on an issue. Under the current disclosure law, there are no requirements for grassroots lobbying campaigns. To get a visual, some attending the hearing were actually wearing Astroturf suits. [3]

Lisa Maatz, Director of Public Policy and Government Relations for the American Association of University Women (AAUW) was one of the witnesses. AAUW's letterhead was used in some of the fake letters. Maatz's testimony [4] went to the heart of the matter; "This is about who gets heard in the halls of power. This is about the fact that we, as REAL grassroots, don't necessarily have the astroturfers' resources and corporate funding. According to media accounts, ACCCE spent over $11 million in lobbying in the second quarter of this year alone. That’s on pace to spend roughly $44 million for the year alone. AAUW and similarly affected groups spend a fraction of this amount; we simply cannot hope to compete with corporations in the money department. But what groups like AAUW have always had is the honest, earnest voices of our members.

"If corporate-driven astroturf campaigns start corrupting the integrity of THAT commodity – the power of constituent voices – what tools are concerned citizens left with to improve the lives of our communities? Precious little."

Image by Flickr user purpleslog [5] used under a Creative Commons license.