My democracy reform work at CAP has involved scholarship in the areas of greater transparency of political-related spending, as well as preventing election-related spending by foreign-influenced U.S. corporations. The bill would achieve these goals by stopping political spending by foreign entities, including foreign investors who own appreciable levels of stock in U.S. corporations. These bright-line thresholds would not bar political spending in Washington by all U.S. corporations but rather U.S. corporations that have levels of foreign ownership appreciable enough to influence the decision-making of corporate managers, either explicitly or implicitly. 1885 accurately provides another important reason for a ban on political spending by foreign-influenced U.S. corporations. For the report, I analyzed data on foreign ownership of 111 U.S.-based publicly traded corporations in the S&P 500 stock index.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 29, 2024 14:02 UTC