Head of U.S. Chamber Vows Tougher Stance

Thomas J. Donohue, the aggressive new president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, takes his road show to California today, seeking to strengthen ties with local business people and boost the organization’s budget by soliciting corporate chieftains for special $100,000-a-year contributions.

In return for the extra money, Donohue promises a tougher chamber attitude, a determination by the venerable organization to be a bulldog for business by mounting special campaigns against trial lawyers, labor union leaders and “radical environmentalists.”

On the job for less than six months, Donohue is seeking to raise the profile of the chamber as the premier force for business advocacy. Both membership and finances at the chamber have been slipping, as many companies turned to their specific industry associations or hired their own lobbyists to argue issues in Washington. And the buoyant economy, Donohue admits, also encouraged business executives to figure they didn’t need to pay attention to maneuvering in Washington.

Donohue is not shy when it comes to asking for money or imploring executives to get more involved in politics.

“I don’t get embarrassed at all,” he said. “It’s time the business community stopped apologizing. It’s the one institution that works.”

Donohue will address the annual meeting today of the Western Assn. of Chamber Executives, officials of chambers of commerce from California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, Utah and Washington, which is taking place at the Doubletree Hotel at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. The visit, the first time a national chamber president has addressed the Western convention, is an encouraging sign that Donohue and other officials at the Washington headquarters “recognize that their relationship with local chambers should be as strong as ours is,” said Alan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce.

Zaremberg has a weekly conference call with 40 or 50 of the most active local chambers around the state, “alerting them as to what is going on in Sacramento and which bills are significant, and which legislators need to be contacted.”

After reaching a membership peak of about 220,000 in the mid-1980s, the national chamber has been steadily slipping, down to a current level of 180,000. Fewer members mean fewer dues, and the budget has dipped to $65 million, from $73 million in 1984. Donohue expects the budget to get back to $73 million this year, and has an ambitious target of $100 million for next year.

Donohue became president of the chamber in September, coming from the American Trucking Assn., where he had been president and chief executive for 13 years. He has hired five new lobbyists, and just authorized the hiring of 10 policy experts on subjects such as labor and the environment.

Donohue is making a special pitch to corporate presidents, asking that they give the chamber $100,000 a year for two years to help underwrite the new activism. “I say, ‘Here is what we’re going to do, and here are the good people we hired. I want you to do this [give us the money] for two years. If we deliver, just keep it going.’ ”

In addition to regular lobbying and advocacy, the chamber will undertake several special campaigns. “We want to be a counterbalance to the trial lawyers--those guys spent $84 million in the last election,” Donohue said. “We want to do the same thing with union leaders.”

The third target is the group Donohue calls “radical environmentalists,” supporters of proposed anti-pollution regulations that would “shut California down.”