GSK to Stop Political Donations ... Or Not

GlaxoSmithKline is to "voluntarily stop" its direct political contributions to U.S. elected officials. The move is a continuation of CEO Andrew Witty's attempt to transform his company's image from the angry-political-string-puller role it adopted earlier this year in Massachusetts to the kindler-gentler-more-transparent company that this move represents.

GSK, however, is keeping its political action committee, which actually spends more on pols than GSK itself. GSK spent $585,425 in 2008 on political contributions. GSK PAC spent $992,264. If the PAC spends more than the company, it begs the question of whether "ending" the company's spending is a distinction without a difference.

BNET readers will remember that GSK has relied on such sleights of hand before. It was GSK that threatened to blackmail Massachusetts by yanking its R&D facilities from the state if a new law passed that would reveal which doctors the company funded. At the exact same time, GSK acquired Sirtris, in order to gain its longevity research assets. Sirtris was based in -- you guessed it -- Cambridge, Mass.

Then, five months later, GSK announced it would publish lists of all its payments to doctors, and cap those payments at $150,000 -- pretty much what the Massachussets law was asking it to do.

Most drug companies have PACS to direct their political donations. Here's Pfizer's. And here's AstraZeneca's. And as you can see from this list, the majority of Big Pharma's donations come from their PACs, and a majority of that money goes to Republicans (except for this last presidential election, where McCain was the anti-pharma candidate).

So the news here is not that GSK is to "voluntarily stop" donations, but rather that it is continuing to do them through a slightly different legal mechanism.