CORPORATIONS ARE GIVING BIG MONEY TO ELECTION DENIERS
America’s biggest corporations are giving tens of millions of dollars to the 147 members of Congress who voted to deny the 2020 election results. They are making campaign donations to these election deniers, also known as the Sedition Caucus, both directly and indirectly through political action committees (PACs) and business groups. Despite concerns expressed by some corporate leaders about political and business or economic upheaval if Trump were to be re-elected, if one follows the money, it’s clear that these corporations and their leaders care more about their profits and political influence than they care about democracy.
(Note: If you find my posts too long to read on occasion, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)
The billions of dollars flooding candidates’ campaigns for the 2024 elections are not just corrupting policy making and the enforcement of our laws (see this previous post for more detail), they are also undermining our democracy.
In January, senior executives of America’s biggest corporations and other wealthy individuals attended the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the theme for the year was “Rebuilding Trust.” However, their hypocrisy was hard to miss. Some of them expressed fear of what a Trump re-election might mean in terms of political unrest and potential risks for businesses. However, they are providing substantial campaign funding for Trump and his acolytes in the Republican Party.
Since the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection, 228 of the 300 largest American corporations that have political action committees (PACs) have given over $26 million to the 147 members of Congress who voted to deny the 2020 election results. In the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, numerous corporations announced to great fanfare that they would stop making political contributions to members of Congress who were election deniers. However, many of them have quietly resumed making donations to the election deniers, also known as members of the Sedition Caucus.
For example, Boeing suspended contributions but resumed making them four months later and has since given over $650,000 to 85 election deniers. The list of corporations suspending but then resuming contributions to election deniers includes Amazon, FedEx, Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, UPS, Verizon, Walmart, and Wells Fargo. In addition to contributing directly to the election deniers, they are also contributing to Republican Party PACs that support the election deniers. Furthermore, the known contributions are only the ones the corporations’ PACs are making openly and directly; many of them are also contributing to election deniers through vehicles that obscure donors’ identities such as business groups (like the Chamber of Commerce and industry-based associations), super PACs, and dark money groups that do not have to disclose their donors. [1]
If you’d like more detail, check out ProPublica’s database of contributions by Fortune 500 corporations to election deniers. It includes how much they’ve given, what percentage of their total giving it represents, who they’ve given to, and how long they kept their promise not to contribute to election deniers.
If business groups, like the Chamber of Commerce, are added into the calculations, these groups and corporate PACs have given over $108 million to election deniers since the January 6 insurrection. Over 1,400 such entities have given over $91 million directly to election deniers and another $17 million to PACs affiliated with them. The top ten contributors to the election deniers in 2023 are: [2]
· American Bankers Assoc. $430,500
· National Assoc. of Realtors $370,000
· Nat’l Rural Electric Coop Assoc. $272,000
· UPS $269,500
· Boeing $257,500
· Nat’l Multifamily Housing Council $255,000
· Honeywell $251,000
· AT&T $248,000
· Lockheed Martin $239,500
· Nat’l Auto Dealers Assoc. $236,000
The election deniers who received the largest amounts from these business entities in the first three quarters of 2023 are:
· Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) $2,007,185 Chair of the Ways & Means Comm.
(which oversees the budget and all fiscal matters)
· Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) $1,740,000 Former House Speaker
· Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) $1,549,300 House Majority Leader (2nd in command to the Speaker)
The efforts by wealthy individuals and corporations to skew our policies, laws (and enforcement of them), economy, and society to their benefit are nowhere more obvious than in their huge contributions to political candidates. Apparently, they don’t even have qualms about donating to those who voted to block the democratic transfer of power. Needless to say, major reforms of our campaign finance laws are needed, along with the reversal of the 2010 Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision (and related ones). Those decisions equated the spending of money in political campaigns with the right to free speech and have given corporations free speech rights like those granted to human beings.
We must reform campaign financing, which is currently dominated by individuals and corporations with great wealth and, therefore, great power. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis tackled those issues roughly a century ago. As a lawyer, often doing pro bono work in the public’s interests, he successfully took on Boston’s street car and light monopolies and got lower rates and better service. He challenged the power of big railroads, life insurance companies, and banks, as well as their wealthy owners.
Brandeis was a fervent supporter of democracy, saying “The end for which we must strive is the attainment of rule by the people.” He believed that democracy had to include economic freedom, not just political and religious freedom. He supported policies and actions that promoted the general welfare and opposed monopolistic power and special privileges or power for the wealthy.
Brandeis summed it all up by saying, “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” How true these words ring today, almost 100 years later. [3]
[1] Reich, R., 1/18/24, “Davos duplicity,” Robert Reich’s Daily Blog (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/corporate-enablers-of-dictatorship)
[2] Massoglia, A., 1/11/24, “Corporate PACs and industry trade groups steered over $108 million to election objectors since Jan. 6,” Open Secrets (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/01/corporate-pacs-and-industry-trade-groups-steered-over-108-million-to-election-objectors-since-jan-6/)
[3] Dilliard, I., editor, 1941, “Mr. Justice Brandeis: Great American,” with quotes from Lonergan, R., 10/14/41, “A steadfast friend of labor,” Labor (pages 42 – 43) (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015009170443&seq=9)