campaign contributions | The Contracting Education Academy

January 26, 2016 By AMK

Of politics and procurement

How best to say this? “Here we go again?”

Once more, a group of well-intentioned members of Congress are pushing the president to issue a directive that would mandate that contractors disclose all of their political contributions upon being awarded a government contract. Transparency, we are told, is essential to the integrity of the procurement process.

Odd as it may sound, they are half right. The integrity of the process is essential. But in this case, the “transparency” being discussed actually risks opening the door to the very kind of malfeasance the acquisition system is designed to avoid. It is a poorly conceived proposal that should be set aside — for good.

So, what is the big deal? There are several reasons to strongly oppose the proposal.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/01/politics-and-procurement/125053/

August 9, 2013 By AMK

The drone that wouldn’t die: How a Defense contractor bested the Pentagon

With large budget cuts looming in the next decade, top Air Force officials knew last year they needed to halt spending on some large and expensive programs. So they looked for a candidate that was underperforming, had busted its budget, and wasn’t vital to immediate combat needs.

They soon settled on the production line for a $223 million aircraft with the wingspan of a tanker but no pilot in the cockpit, built to fly for a little over a day over vast terrain while sending imagery and other data back to military commanders on the ground. Given the ambitious name “Global Hawk,” the aircraft had cost far more than expected, and was plagued by recurrent operating flaws and maintenance troubles.

“The Block 30 [version of Global Hawk] is not operationally effective,” the Pentagon’s top testing official had declared in a blunt May 2011 report about the drones being assembled by Northrop Grumman in Palmdale, Calif.

Canceling the purchase of new Global Hawks and putting recently-built planes in long-term storage would save $2.5 billion over five years, the service projected. And the drone’s military missions could be picked up by an Air Force stalwart, the U-2 spy plane, which had room for more sensors and could fly higher.

But what happened next was an object lesson in the power of a defense contractor to trump the Pentagon’s own attempts to set the nation’s military spending priorities amid a tough fiscal climate.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/the-drone-that-wouldnt-die-how-a-defense-contractor-bested-the-pentagon/277807/

May 18, 2012 By AMK

Obama procurement chief nominee clears Senate panel

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved President Obama’s choice to be administrator of the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Committee members present for the vote unanimously approved Joseph Jordan, a current Office of Management and Budget adviser. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who weighed in by proxy, registered the sole vote against the nomination.

Keep reading this article at http://www.govexec.com//contracting/2012/05/obama-procurement-chief-nominee-clears-senate-panel/55770/?oref=govexec_today_nl.

May 10, 2012 By AMK

No leeway on contractor campaign gifts

A district judge’s rejection of a request by three federal contract employees to temporarily relax a long-standing ban on contractor campaign contributions likely prolongs the uncertainty on the issue during the first full election cycle since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling on corporations and politics.

On April 16, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied a request for a preliminary injunction filed by three corporate employees — two under contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development and one who supports the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent agency that uses research and private sector expertise to improve the government’s rule-making.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com//contracting/2012/04/no-leeway-contractor-campaign-gifts/41850.

May 16, 2011 By AMK

Opposition builds against Obama on disclosing contractor campaign gifts

House lawmakers are at odds with the Obama administration over whether requiring contractors to disclose campaign contributions would increase transparency in the procurement process while insulating companies from charges that awards are politically motivated.

During a joint committee oversight hearing Thursday, lawmakers criticized a draft executive order, released in April, that would require companies bidding on agency contracts to release a list of contributions or political expenditures that total in excess of $5,000 made on behalf of federal candidates, parties or political action committees. Contractors also would be required to disclose contributions to third-party nonprofit groups — known as a 501(c)(4) organizations — in which the company has the “reasonable expectation” that the funds would be used to pay for electioneering communications such as paid advertisements. The proposal is “shameful” and could have a negative impact on federal procurement, several lawmakers said.

Daniel Gordon, administrator for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget, declined at the hearing to discuss the details of draft order, but said the administration is committed to ensuring that acquisition in government is transparent and based solely on the requirements listed in contract solicitations.

“There simply is no place for politics in federal acquisition,” Gordon said. “The process must ensure … that no political considerations are allowed to bear on federal contracting at any point during the acquisition process.”

According to Gordon, contributions that are disclosed would not be a factor in contract awards, and such information actually is unnecessary to the procurement process. The idea is to increase public trust in the federal procurement system, which in turn would increase participation, boost competition and lower prices, he said.

Many lawmakers say the draft order is politically motivated and requires businesses to submit unneeded information that could negatively affect the awarding of contracts. “It is not necessary for you to do your job, and your office will not look at it,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. “It’s very clear this executive order is outside the procurement process.”

“The agency doesn’t need that information, so I still fail to see what purpose it serves in that determination,” said Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., chairman of the Small Business Committee. “Can the public get that information after you’ve awarded the contract? It is fully available. The simple idea that you want that information ahead of time disturbs me in a big way.”

Industry officials also oppose the proposal, arguing that it does not address the realities of the federal procurement system and increases the burden on contractors to collect and submit contribution data.

“This type of political information has been intentionally kept out of source selection to ensure a merit-based evaluation and award process, but the order would make disclosure a condition of award,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel of the Professional Services Council, a contractor trade group, in written testimony to the joint committee. “The result will be to create the very ‘pay-to-play’ environment on the federal level where none exists.”

The draft order also has drawn ire in the Senate. A bipartisan group of senators Thursday sent a letter to Obama expressing concern that the directive would politicize the award process and place an unnecessary burden on the federal acquisition workforce that oversees the contracting process. Twenty-seven Republican senators in April sent a similar letter asking the president to drop the proposal.

Small business owners, however, have applauded the transparency that would be required by the draft order. In a call with reporters on Thursday, representatives of small business groups said the directive would prevent the awards process from tipping in favor of heavy hitters at the expense of smaller organizations and taxpayers.

“If a new disclosure rule is enacted, it won’t be small businesses that are burdened,” said Frank Knapp, chief executive officer of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce and steering committee member of the American Sustainable Business Council. “We aren’t writing big checks, so we won’t have much to disclose . . . The only ones that do are those that have something to hide.”

— by Emily Long – GovExec.com – May 12, 2011 at http://www.govexec.com/story_page_pf.cfm?articleid=47800&printerfriendlyvers=1

How best to say this? “Here we go again?”

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