On May 27, Congressional leaders in both the Senate and House of Representatives introduced legislation to prohibit federal agencies from collecting or using information about political contributions made by small, family-owned businesses or larger companies that wish to do business with the federal government.
The “Keeping Politics Out of Federal Contracting Act of 2011” reaffirms the fundamental principle that federal contracts should be awarded free from political considerations and be based on the best value to the taxpayers.
U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), and Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) introduced the measure in the Senate. Senator Collins is the Ranking Republican on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which oversees federal contracting. On the House side, Representatives Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Tom Cole (R-Okla.), and Sam Graves (R-Mo.) introduced an identical measure.
Specifically, the legislation would:
- Prohibit a federal agency from collecting the political information of contractors and their employees as part of any type of request for proposal in anticipation of any type of contract;
- Prohibit the agency from using political information received from any source as a factor in the source selection decision process for new contracts, or in making decisions related to modifications or extensions of existing contracts; and
- Prohibit databases designed to be used by contracting officers to determine the responsibility of bidders from including political information (except for information on contractors’ violations already permitted by law).