Undisclosed private donations have enabled the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce to hire everyone’s favorite local lobbyist, Ken Messerle to influence legislation in Salem. The local chamber, just like the national organization has enter the world of political activism and has launched an entire Legislative Action Team to promote their own special interests agenda. Because they are a non-profit organization they do not have to list their donors allowing the businesses that funded Ken Messerle’s legislative soiree this session to remain anonymous. Nevertheless, the chamber is bought and paid for and like any hired gun is delivering on the very narrow interests of its benefactors.

The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.

The chamber is spending big in political races from California to New Hampshire, including nearly $1.5 million on television advertisements in New Hampshire attacking Representative Paul W. Hodes, a Democrat running for the United States Senate, accusing him of riding Nancy Pelosi’s “liberal express” down the road to financial ruin.

“When you become a mouthpiece for a specific agenda item for one business or group of businesses, you better be damn careful you are not being manipulated,” said James C. Tyree, a former chairman of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, who has backed Republicans and Democrats, including Mr. Obama. “And they are getting close to that, if not over that edge.”…

“They’ve raised it to a science, and an art form,” he said of the chamber’s pitches to corporate leaders that large contributions will help “change the game” in Washington.

As a nonprofit organization, the chamber need not disclose its donors in its public tax filings, and because it says no donations are earmarked for specific ads aimed at a candidate, it does not invoke federal elections rules requiring disclosure.

Large contributions will help change the game in Salem, as well, even those single minded self serving contributions made from Canadian LNG firms or Australian strip miners.

Last fall we learned that undisclosed donations made to the national organization were received from foreign companies. The chamber dutifully ran attack ads on Democratic candidates and promoted Republicans based upon the interests of these foreign companies. Al Qaeda in Yemen could have backed campaign donations to the chamber to influence the outcome of the elections. Many of these interests include outsourcing American jobs! More on that here.

The local chamber is no less indiscriminate and no less bought and paid for. For some reason representatives of the chamber expect to or already have attended an executive session with the county commissioners to facilitate signing a mineral lease with ORC. The general public are excluded. Now that Fred Messerle is on the commission it should be noted that in addition to his brother Ken consulting for the chamber, wife Sandy is on the chamber board of directors. All the more reason for Fred to recuse from voting on ORC leases.

Channel 14 has posted the video of the June 1 chamber luncheon at The Mill Casino. Mark Wall, forestry manager for Roseburg Forest Products presents a sales pitch on behalf of ORC to reopen negotiations with the county and declares that the county is in no position not to accept the mining company’s terms.

Wall shows a picture of the processing plant and remarks this is what it looks like to “spend $50 million” in Coos County. Again, it is been pointed out here and at The World, ORC did not spend that money in Coos County. They spent that money elsewhere and have parked the purchase on a hunk of dirt located in an area where they do not pay property taxes for five years. In an ironic twist, Wall uses this as an excuse to sign new leases saying the county will then finally take in some property tax revenue.

Another bit of irony is Wall’s claim the county is “risk intolerant”. First, elected officials are not supposed to take risks with public assets but the irony is that ORC chose to socialize its risk by taking tax exemptions without showing any dire need and the chamber fully supported that position.

It is clear where the idea for some of these advisory committees the new commissioners are pushing for have come from as well as the $50,000 allocated to re-inventory county timber. Wall accuses county “staff” of a “lack of financial understanding” and “not being well versed in forestry economics”. Whoa! Surely, he is not speaking of recently retired county forester, Bob LaPort… Bob has kept this county going for years with far fewer layoffs than Roseburg Lumber. If LaPort is who Wall is referring to this is a very impolitic move on his part.

The chamber plans to stack these committees with as many “business people” as possible. What that really means is chamber business people because there are plenty of business people around who don’t ascribe to the chamber agenda.