The Pittsburgh Press (April 5, 1946)
Background of news –
Campaign financing
By R. M. Boeckel
The president of the Senate is expected before the end of the week to appoint the special committee (authorized April 1) to investigate expenditures in the 1946 congressional campaign. It will consist of three Democrats and two Republicans not standing for re-election this year.
The Senate’s committee is under instruction to report its findings and “recommendations, if any for necessary legislation” on the first day of the 1947 session of Congress. Similar instructions were given the committee that conducted the corresponding investigation in 1944.
That committee made two recommendations which were deemed politically inexpedient – and on which no action has ever been taken by either house.
The 1944 committee called for (1) repeal of the $5000 limitation on individual campaign contributions, (2) repeal of the three-million-dollar limitation on expenditures by a political committee.
In 1944, the Democrats had 134 separate committees and the Republicans 155 separate committees, each entitled to spend three million dollars if they could get it. These 289 committees did not include the various groups associated with the CIO Political Action Committee, which together sent $1,327,775 for political purposes in 1944.
Union contributions banned
The CIO-PAC was set up in July 1943, 10 days after passage of the War Labor Disputes Act over President Roosevelt’s veto. That act provided, among other things, that “it is unlawful for any… labor organization to make a contribution in connection with any election at which… a senator or representative in Congress is to be voted for.”
The PAC’s funds came almost exclusively from the CIO and its constituent unions. They were used in the 1944 primary campaigns but were “frozen” immediately after the close of the Democratic National Convention. At that time the National Citizens’ PAC was organized. It solicited contributions outside the trade union field.
Sidney Hillman was chairman of both PACs. He told a House committee investigating campaign expenditures that the new PAC would carry on “political education” and would “make political contributions in connection with the 1944 elections.”
Permanent low considered
The War Labor Disputes Act is scheduled to expire six months after the official termination of the war. A bill to write its prohibition of campaign contributions by trade unions into permanent law was passed by the Senate in February 1944, but was not considered in the House.
Last October, a bill for immediate repeal of the War Labor Disputes Act was favorably reported by the House Military Affairs Committee. It contained amendments to the Corrupt Practices Act which would have placed a permanent ban on trade union contributions to either general election or primary campaigns.
The CIO-PAC is now engaged in a drive to raise five million dollars for use in the 1946 campaign through voluntary contributions of $1 from each member of a CIO union.
The prohibition of contributions in the general election campaign by “any labor organization” will still be in force next November – unless the president declares the war at an end within the next 30 days. It probably would not apply, however, to contributions made out of funds collected individual union members.