Based on key indicators, the report released Friday ranks the top 10 S&P 100 companies for their political transparency and accountability.

The top companies were:
  • Colgate-Palmolive Company
  • Exelon Corp.
  • International Business Machines Corp.
  • Merck & Co., Inc.
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Pfizer Inc.
  • United Parcel Service, Inc.
  • Dell Inc.
  • Wells Fargo & Company
  • EMC Corp.
Two of those companies— IBM and Colgate—prohibit corporate political spending completely. Fifty-five others disclose their spending on their websites and have adopted board oversight for it, according to the CPA-Zicklin Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability Index.

The report was written by Bruce Freed, CPA president; and Karl Sandstrom, CPA counsel and of counsel with Perkins Coie; along with others. Sandstrom, a former Federal Elections Commissioner and longtime counsel to state and national Democratic Party entities, said he was surprised to see so many companies recognizing the risk of contributing to outside groups, such as PACs. “More companies want to know how the money is going to be spent, and are restricting how it can be spent,” Sandstrom said. “And they are dong that even when they are being promised anonymity.”

The index was launched “at a time when corporate political transparency is slowly emerging as a convention of good governance, corporate responsibility, and accountability,” explained Prof. William S. Laufer of the Zicklin Center, in a released statement.