but the idea of transparency in many ways fall directly on every board of directors and its accountants whether it is public or private. we are responsible for assessing the risk to the enterprise as officers and directors and lawyers and accountants. what are the risks to the enterprise? the risk to the enterprise of this cash for influence, those risks are enormous. wiki leaks was only a precursor of the transparency that will exist in years to come. there's almost no way to conceal ultimately what these contributions are, where the money comes from. it may take a while but it is

inevitable. we have too many around us who want to expose these contributions. those of deep pockets are spending their money. so it is sensible for boards and their advisers and sensible for legislators to worry about these disclosures. it is better not to be involved. that is a highly not leave assessment in many ways. because the cash is so tempting. you have to have gatekeepers. you have to have the gatekeepers that bruce freed and the center of accountability is being so aggressive in trying to identify and put in place for the reasons we talked about earlier. we have to come out of this whole thing setting standards

for worldwide marketplace and worldwide free enterprise system. what we are seeing at citizens united is the ultimate corruption of those ideals and standards that we set for this country many decades ago. we leave this room pledged, we are all pledged to undo the evils of citizens united. we may have difficulty doing so but we can using the techniques and has talked about and ced has talked about. that ced identified and requires discipline and ingenuity on your part. since all of you came here having signed the pledge card charles kolb gave you to identify yourselves i look forward to working with every single one of you in this great mission. that is it. [applause]

>> if you will remain here i am going to ask our panelists and moderator, jeanne cummings to join us. if you will come up now, as they are joining us, i would like to ask bruce freed if he would like to comment, give him two minutes, there you are. and bert brandenberg, if you would like to share with the audience your thoughts and your activities. come up here. sit here. >> we need one more chair.

>> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you very much. i have been working with both of them and the money and politics subcommittee at ced and it is a pleasure to work with them on the issue of disclosure and the role of corporations and politics and how to deal with money and politics. i want to thank charlie and ced for incorporating political accountability disclosure and accountability agenda as part of ced's agenda. that is important because the approach of using corporate governance and risk to address this problem of hidden money and

to bring transparency and accountability is extremely important. with the gridlock we have seen with the problems with the regulatory agencies and enforcement agencies with a hostility of the courts toward facing limits on political spending the corporate governance and issue of risk has been the areas where the most progress has been made and where the issue can be addressed and tremendous progress is being made. 88 companies, half of the s&p have adopted political disclosure and accountability. that is important as companies that standards and best practices for how political spending will be handled. the center will be released next month its new cc index on october 28th at the wharton's school and it will be the first portrait of how our companies engage, managed and oversee

their political spending. this will be important because it will focus on the s&p 100 and lay out policies and practices of political disclosure and accountability and focus on companies that are the most influential that are the trendsetting companies. the center will engage more companies in 2012. we have a more accurate proxy season and what we will see in this proxy season is political disclosure and accountability moving toward becoming the norm and that is critical to be able to make progress where progress has been difficult. thank you very much. >> i would like to introduce bert brandenberg, president and ceo of justice at state. >> thank you and good afternoon. i am the executive director of justice at stake.

we are nonpartisan partnership of 50 organizations working to help and these issues are the issues we deal with every day. we are thrilled to work with ced. one of our partners for a decade and proud -- one of our board members is landon rowland. i will give the news from recent findings and throw out an issue and question i hope the panelists may discuss. we are getting ready within a number of weeks to read -- release the latest in a periodic series of reports on spending and interest group money and judicial elections. it is save to save the headline continues cents a decade ago. we have seen this explosion in interest group money pouring into elections. more and more judges dialing for dollars frequently from the very parties who appear before them in court. the problem has gotten worse and worse and i am pleased to see ced updated its findings in this area. we have taken a special look at

independent expenditures and noted if you look four years ago to the last relevant on presidential cycle because they are often different from non presidential cycles. we noted four years ago outside groups represented 18% of total spending in supreme court elections around the country. this past cycle the percentage jumped to 30%. we are seeing increasingly interest groups almost working to take over elections in michigan. you have an election where the amount of money spent and raised by the candidates is exceeded by a factor of 2-1/2 times by interest groups to the point where judicial election is complicated when you add the formula and have this increasing fear on the part of the public that justice is for sale and all this cash could be affecting decisions that hurt confidence in the courts.

so i would love as part of the discussion if -- in particular if we are going to see more outside money coming in what we think about this in terms of trying to protect court. we know courts are supposed to be different. how do we make sure that is the case? in particular the rise in interest group money is making disclosure a profound issue for the courts in ways that ad to the system as we described. just as there are legislative and executive solutions to things around disclosure there could be solutions where a court is asked to step up and change rules. perhaps in a particular case the parties need to disclose particular information as part of the filing. with that said i will hang up and listen as they say and appreciate being invited here today.

>> it is my pleasure to turn the program to our moderator, jeanne cummings, who served as deputy editor of bloomberg news. before joining bloomberg jeanne cummings served as assistant managing director of politico. she had a major coup in 2008 when she wrote the story of the republican national committee's unusual editorial on behalf of one candidate. well done on that. she has also reported for the wall street journal and the atlanta journal constitution and won tells awards for her work and i must say in the years i have been working this issue is a pleasure to get a call from you asking questions. i want to salute your commitment to staying with these issues as a journalist. we are pleased to have jeanne cummings with us this afternoon.

the floor is yours. [applause] >> mike petrie and i were joking that charlie and mike and i got to know each other when i was at the wall street journal and mccain feingold was before the hole and now we get to start all over again. it is amazing what a circle is. when you talk about disclosure in terms of its importance, the story i did about sarah palin's out fit was just that. late october i was there on october 20th flipping through these reports and i was looking at obama's spending and mccain's spending and that is not fair. mccain is broken. i should go over the report and

see what they are doing at joint spending and when i opened up that report are said to the person next to me oh my gosh, i found sarah's wardrobe. there was at macy's and the rest of it. it was a matter of disclosure and the reason i got that story i was the last standing money politick reporter who was still up at 11:00 at night reading the report. disclosure is terribly important for everyone involved. i am going to moderate the panel. we have four distinguished guests and we are lucky landon rowland and as. >> kangas is still on call. >> you want to join us. there is a chair. still have a few opening remarks. we are open to questions from

you, the most important questions because we hear -- we're here to address your questions. we will allow time for that. if you want to throw a hand up or come to the mike feel free to engage in the conversation. i will do some introductions. barbara bonfiglio is senior corporate counsel adviser specializing in federal and state election law and provide counsel on matters of the senate ethics rules which could be a really interesting subject to get into. and the author of how to cross the potomac without falling in. second from the end we have the vice president of state government affairs policy at

merck and co.. he manage responsibility for state government affairs in the washington office on federal health care policy. he is a member of merck's corporate responsibility council and the leader of activities in the area of public policy advocacy. on the far end, tony kavanagh, vice president of government affairs at american electric power. he works with senior executives and seven operating company presidents to coordinate and implement the company's legislative and regulatory agenda at the federal and state level. he has been active in electric utility since 1983. in the center a familiar face to everyone mr. wertheimer, founder

of democracy 21. an organization that works to strengthen our democracy and report accountability and transparency measures. he spent four decades working on democracy in government and is recognized as a national leader on money and politics including campaign finance, ethics, lobbying and transparency. frank has turned up in many stories written by me and the new york times, washington post, the boston globe and he knows every reporter who covers money and politics in this town. just a brief understanding of who you have before you. i will start with barbara to make a few remarks and we will go down the line. >> thank you for inviting me to participate. the topic of political contributions is important to our company and our board and

shareholders and we are highly engaged in discussions on the topic. i am happy to share insights about pfizer's involvement in public policy and engagement on the issue and our commitment to transparency. our philosophy on public policy participation. as the company in a highly regulated industry it is essential we engage on public policy issues that affect our ability to meet patient needs and provide for shareholder value. central aspect of our business are being challenged by barriers to access, illegal importation and challenge to intellectual property protection. we actively participate in public policy dialogue so decisionmakers have the information to make the best decisions. we are happy to provide that information much of which comes from annual investment in r&d and industry expertise. we have extensive knowledge of health care and many ideas about

its efficiency as well as the global perspective on public health, disease prevention and health education and it is critical we have the opportunity to educate lawmakers whose decisions will affect not only our patients but all our stakeholders as well. we believe public policy engagement is an important and appropriate role for companies in an open society and must be conducted in a legal and transparent manner. in addition pfizer makes contributions to candidates for state and federal office and contributes to state and local candidates in states where corporate contributions are permitted. federal candidates, political action committee. an employee run bipartisan organization of the board committee made of colleagues within pfizer. the steering committee reviews and improved political contributions requests both corporate on a monthly basis. second is our engagement with the owners of publicly traded

company. our shareholders. shareholder engagement is an essential component of a corporate government philosophy. in my role at pfizer i work with corporate governance and been involved in numerous discussions with shareholders about these issues. i can assure you we have always had an open-door policy with shareholders and shareholder advocates. we meet with our investors to discuss questions or concerns they may have regarding our involvement in the political process and other government matters. as far as the evolution of disclosures in policies it happened over time with reactive and proactive standpoint. pfizer reevaluate its reporting practices to ensure it meets the needs of our stakeholders. over the years shareholder engagement has helped to expand our level of disclosure and we created or modified our policies on expenditures when appropriate. in 2004 we receive the shareholder resolution asking

disclosure of political compensation and annual shareholders meeting that year we announced pfizer would accept increased disclosure including publishing of biannual report on company external web site. we began this practice in 2005 and shareholders were pleased at father's responsiveness. it is a practice we continue today. we remain engaged on the issue with government community. father's corporate secretary is a member of the conference board committee on political spending. the committee was formed earlier to advance issues related to disclosure and accountability of corporate political study. following citizens united decision the need for a model framework for disclosure and accountability of corporate political spending has increased. the committee's report will be released in october. our commitment to transparency. pfizer is committed to being transparent about corporate political contributions. we fully comply with all federal, state and local laws

and reporting requirements on political contributions and have corporate policy that requires we compile and publish political contributions in a report we provide the board of directors and post externally on our web site every six months. we request from trade associations that receive $100,000 or more in a given year a portion of our dues used for political activity so we can disclose that amount on our web site as well. we have been providing disclosure reports that our annual meeting since 1997 and began posting on our web site in 2005. cheryl words -- shareholders have any views. we realize we can't improve every one of majority are satisfied with our level of disclosure. we were also pleased to learn recently that corporate political disclosure released on

september 15th recognizes fighter's contribution that's one of the most transparent among the s&p companies. six other companies got the highest marks for disclosure on political contributions. pfizer is committed to advancing patients have access to the medicine they need by engaging with shareholders and implementing clear policies and procedures for about political contributions and providing information to the public about political activities. we feel we have addressed many of the concerns raised. we will continue to engage and insure we have the right processes in place to protect the company's reputation and minimize shareholder risk. thank you again. >> let me start out by congratulating ced for taking on the campaign finance issue. as many of you know, ced played a pivotal role in the last major

campaign finance battle in congress to end the soft money system. ced brings critical business leadership to very tough battles on behalf of many of us who work for reform legislation and other kinds of reforms. we greatly appreciate what ced brings to this panel. this country long recognized the importance of transparency. if you go back to 1974 the supreme court put it simply. when they held the disclosure requirements of the 1974 campaign act it simply said disclosure requirements deter actual corruption and avoid the appearance of corruption by

exposing large expenditures. we had a consensus for disclosure in this country for decades and a consensus at the political level for decades until last year when it broke down over efforts to pass new disclosure legislation. in the 2010 elections tax-exempt groups spend $135 million in secret contributions to influence the 2010 congressional races. that will increase in 2012 in the presidential and congressional raises. the supreme court and citizens united decision which opens the door to widespread corruption in my view through the use of unlimited expenditures,

corporations and groups accepting corporate contributions also reaffirmed by 8-1 vote the value and importance of disclosure. this court is hostile to other campaign finance laws, they firmly support disclosure. in that decision justice kennedy wrote a campaign finance system that has corporate independent expenditures with effective disclosure has not existed before today. he got that wrong. it didn't exist then and doesn't exist now and the court does not have any notion of how the disclosure laws were working. soaker a dysfunctional federal election commission we end up

with a return of secret money in our elections at a level that will exceed watergate and hasn't really existed since the watergate scandal. it is dangerous. it is corrupting. it destroys public confidence. and it is with us until we change it. there are multiple efforts going on to address these problems. democracy 21 in the campaign legal center have turned to litigation and legal efforts. a lawsuit challenges as improper contribution disclosure regulations which would have disclosed -- required disclosure of much of a secret

contributions that took place in 2010. we are bringing actions of the irs where the irs regulations improperly interpreted the campaign finance laws to allow tax-exempt organizations to spend more money on campaign activities than the internal revenue code and court decisions allowed. organization will be filing a new complain that the irs listing several c 4 organization that is not entitled to tax exemption for their campaign activities. one of the things we face in the context of what the court authorized is a failure of

administrative agencies to properly enforce the laws that are on the books. there are also efforts, bruce's efforts and others are pursuing a best practice approach to convince corporations on their own if they are going to participate in this activity to disclose the information there is a campaign going on coordinated and led by public citizen dealing with the question of corporate shareholder approval being required for political expenditures that also is approaching the security and exchange commission asking to require public companies to

disclose their campaign activities. then the group's democracy 21 and the campaign legal center, ced and a number of other groups are working to pass legislation to end this problem. we came very close in 2010, passed legislation in the house that would have required the disclosure that is necessary here, got within one vote of the 60 necessary to break a filibuster, to pass the legislation but the legislation failed for various reasons, one of which is the consensus broke down. republicans almost unanimously opposed the legislation for various reasons. as you can see on any issue in the united states congress it is hard to get bipartisan support

for anything. in 2000 when disclosure laws were needed to deal with a new problem with 527 groups the congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support that included 48 out of 54 republican senators voting for disclosure. ten years later we had no republican senator voting for disclosure. part of this was a strong campaign by the chamber of commerce to make sure there wasn't new disclosure laws but we are going back to congress with two goals. one to narrow this legislation and focus it on disclosure and to overcome the gridlock and polarization to build bipartisan