Companies cannot give directly to political campaigns or parties. Instead, they must set up political action committees, or PACs, funded by voluntary donations from employees. Those PACs already must disclose political spending.

The bill goes to the Senate after passing the House 322-96.

Legislation introduced yesterday by Cole and Republican Representatives Darrell Issa of California and Sam Graves of Missouri responds to the draft order by proposing to bar federal agencies from collecting political expenditure data from contractors, said Emily Murphy, senior counsel for the House Small Business Committee chaired by Graves, in an interview.

'On Board'

The House Republican leadership is "on board, but we haven’t discussed floor action yet," said DJ Jordan, a committee spokesman.

Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Rob Portman of Ohio, introduced a similar bill in the Senate yesterday.

Democratic lawmakers who have said they were opposed to the draft order include House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

A Supreme Court decision last year struck down decades of law and precedent prohibiting companies and unions from using their general treasuries to support or oppose political candidates. After the ruling, President Obama urged Congress to pass legislation requiring additional disclosure to limit the impact of anonymous political spending.

Outside groups that do not disclose the names of their donors are playing a larger role in federal elections. They reported spending $137 million in the 2010 elections, 25 times the amount they spent in the previous mid-term elections. Republican-leaning groups that don’t disclose donors outspent Democratic-supporting organizations by 7-to-1.

White House spokeswoman Moira Mack declined to comment yesterday on when or whether Obama’s draft order, circulated in April, will be signed.

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