Group seeks companies' pledge not to use corporate money for campaigns

Several prominent Democratic politicians announced a new coalition aimed at pressuring major companies not to use corporate money for political campaigns.

The Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, spearheaded by New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio (D), aims to secure promises from major corporations to fully disclose political spending and, ideally, to avoid spending corporate money directly on elections. The effort marks the latest response to the Supreme Court's landmark ruling early this year in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allows corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections. The ruling has helped fuel a record year for spending by outside interest groups, mostly in favor of Republicans, records show. The new coalition springs out of a successful effort by de Blasio, who serves as a trustee for New York City's largest pension fund, to persuade Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley to adopt policies that forbid spending money from their general treasuries on campaigns. The firms can still run their political action committees, which are operated independently, officials said.