National Legal and Policy Center Challenges General Electric to Disclose Its Charitable Giving to Jesse Jackson

FALLS CHURCH, Va., April 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Dr. Carl F. Horowitz, Director of the Organized Labor Accountability Project of the National Legal and Policy Center, will speak on Wednesday in support of the group's shareholder proposal asking General Electric to disclose its charitable giving. GE's annual meeting will take place Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Horowitz's statement:

I am Carl F. Horowitz of the National Legal and Policy Center. Our mission is to promote accountability and ethics in public life. Toward that end, one of our activities is the Corporate Integrity Project. I'm urging fellow shareholders to vote in favor of our resolution that asks for a report on patterns of General Electric's charitable giving.

Last year, Jeffrey Immelt personally told our president, Peter Flaherty, that he supports a disclosure of GE's charitable donations. Transparency means not only knowing who recipients of company donations are, but knowing how they spend their money.

Maybe the company opposes this resolution because it asks for a rationale for each gift, a point not even addressed in the company's statement of opposition. But when you consider certain nonprofit groups that GE bankrolls, perhaps it all makes sense. You see, the company is one of the biggest financial supporters of Jesse Jackson and his organizations.

On April 25, 2006 the Associated Press reported, "GE spokesman Peter O'Toole said the company has not given directly to (Jesse) Jackson's organization, but could not rule out that a GE grant recipient might have shared its funding."

So I put to Mr. Immelt: Is the company supporting Jesse Jackson or not? Management has had a full year to address this issue.

Additionally, the GE logo appears on the program of the 2007 Rainbow Coalition/PUSH conference held in Chicago. Now it could be that the company is unaware that its name is being used by Jackson. It could also be that the company supports him out of conviction. Either way, that's not good for accountability.

If GE insists on supporting Jackson, let's consider what some of that money is buying.

1) A year ago, the Duke University "rape" case, belatedly, was exposed for what it was: a hoax. Yet almost from the start, Jackson had been prominently on the scene, aggressively brushing aside suggestions that the three accused lacrosse team players were entitled to a presumption of innocence. In fact, he announced that his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would provide a college scholarship to the accuser, Crystal Gail Mangum.

When pressed, Jackson said, "There's more evidence that violence occurred to her than (that) she's the lead of a hoax."

Well, we now know that the whole case was a hoax, a campaign of racial grievance that Durham County, N.C. District Attorney Michael Nifong rode relentlessly to advance his career. He was disbarred last June.

2) One of Jackson's organizations is Citizenship Education Fund (CEF). Shareholders should be aware of the following:

-- CEF was the vehicle for payments to Jackson's mistress for the purchase of a home, in violation of the group's 501(c)(3) tax status.

-- In 2005, CEF was fined by the Federal Election Commission for illegally coordinating activity with the Democratic National Committee in the 2000 election cycle.

-- CEF sponsored a conference in Chicago in 2005 at which Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan was a featured speaker. GE was a listed sponsor of that event. Even Barack Obama has repudiated Farrakhan. Shouldn't GE do likewise?

-- At the 2006 CEF conference, Jackson called for a boycott of British Petroleum, even though BP was a sponsor of the event, evidence that the "protection" that a corporation gets from funding Jackson's groups may be pure illusion.

3) A decade ago, Jackson leveled highly dubious charges of racial discrimination at mortgage giant Freddie Mac, and urged shareholders to sell their stock. The company responded by becoming one of Jackson's biggest donors, committing itself (among other things) to giving $1 million for a Rainbow/PUSH-operated economic-literacy program. To its embarrassment, reports surfaced that Jackson charged churches $1,000 each to enroll in the program.

Disclosure of GE's charitable contributions will settle once and for all the question of whether the company is bankrolling Jackson. Or perhaps, Mr. Immelt, you can tell us here and now?