No Corporate Accountability: The Real ‘Enemies Of Democracy’ Are The Corporations Funding The Sedition Party And Its Insurrectionist Candidates

In the days after the failed MAGA/QAnon attempted coup d’etat on January 6, 2021, corporations suspended political donations to the insurrectionist Sedition Party and promised to be more responsible corporate citizens. They sent out press releases to a gullible media proclaiming that they would not support a political party and GQP insurrectionists who would engage in such anti-democratic and un-American conduct. I called bullshit at the time.

It did not take long for these corporate citizens to start contributing big bucks again to the insurrectionist Sedition Party and its candidates who either participated in the insurrection (the 147 Republican lawmakers who still objected to the election results even after the Capitol attack), or who swear fealty to Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

The Hill recently reported, Corporations seek to rebuild bridges with GOP objectors ahead of midterms:

Major U.S. corporations are looking to quietly restore ties with Republicans who objected to certifying the 2020 election results following the Jan. 6 insurrection, believing that they cannot afford to burn bridges with the party that is favored to win back the House in the 2022 midterms. [Only if they have unlimited corporate campaign contributions.]

Companies that froze PAC donations to the Republican objectors were met with outrage from GOP leaders, prompting many to reverse or soften their stance [This is bullshit, they have done no such thing]. More firms are preparing to resume giving this year, according to lobbyists at corporations and K Street firms.

In total, corporations and trade groups have already made more than $8 million in PAC donations to GOP objectors’ reelection campaigns since last year’s Capitol attack, according to a report released by liberal watchdog group Accountable.US this week.

Another tally from left-leaning watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that companies that initially pledged to pause their PAC donations to the 147 Republicans have since given $2.4 million to those lawmakers’ campaigns and leadership PACs.

Industry giants such as Boeing, General Motors, Raytheon Technologies, Altria Group and UPS rank among the top corporate PAC donors to those Republicans. Most of those checks are going to House Minority Leader “Traitor” Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is eyeing the Speaker’s office, and House Republicans who would take control of key congressional committees if the GOP wins the lower chamber.

“When Republicans run committees, they will have the power to call the administration up to the Hill, flex their muscle over agency budgets, issue subpoenas, and much more,” said Jonathan Slemrod, a former Senate GOP and Trump administration aide who lobbies for Harbinger Strategies. “Oversight will be very important to the business community when priorities align with Republicans.”

Corporate America often allies itself with anti-democracy Republicans to fight Democratic proposals to regulate private industry and increase taxes on large companies. But Republicans, including McCarthy, have publicly warned that the party won’t be as friendly to corporations that have cut off donations or publicly criticized GOP-led bills to tighten voting restrictions.

“Both parties have become increasingly populist and it presents a challenge for corporations and trades who would like to focus less on partisan politics and more on coming out of the pandemic and growing the economy and shareholder value,” said John Stipicevic, a former top McCarthy aide and lobbyist at the all-Republican lobbying firm CGCN Group.

The CGCN Group and Jeff Miller, a lobbyist with close ties to former President Trump, will hold a high-dollar fundraiser for McCarthy and other influential House Republicans on Jan. 19. The event, which will feature election objectors in line to lead key committees such as Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), represents an open invitation to corporate donors to rejoin the fray.

Not all corporations…

Some of the nation’s largest companies, including Comcast, Walmart and Microsoft have stuck with their pledge to freeze donations to election objectors, while hundreds of smaller firms have mostly steered clear of the 147 Republicans.

That’s impacted House Republicans’ PAC fundraising. McCarthy, for example, saw his 2021 haul from corporate PACs fall by 86 percent compared to the same period in the 2020 election cycle, according to nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets.

But greed for money and power is eternal…

But even some corporations that have held out this long contemplated a giving restart after Republicans won big in Virginia’s elections. The recent flurry of Democratic retirements sparked renewed warnings from corporate lobbyists that they cannot make inroads with GOP lawmakers if they aren’t authorized to make donations.

“We know the precedent. We see the retirements. We see the same polls everyone else does,” said a lobbyist at a Fortune 500 company that is currently pausing PAC donations to GOP objectors. “Our strategy needs to align with the current political reality that Republicans are almost certainly taking the House in November.”

There is no “certainty” in politics. A political party which engaged in a violent attempted coup d’etat to overthrow American democracy in a seditious insurrection has forfeited any claim to legitimacy. The Sedition Party and its candidates should not receive one dime of corporate money from “responsible” corporate citizens – and therein lies the rub – there are almost none.

Some companies, like Google and AT&T, continued to cut off election objectors but made large PAC donations to Republican party committees that support their reelection campaigns. Others asked their executives to personally make their own individual donations. Those moves drew appreciation from GOP leaders but largely flew under the radar.

Just 13 percent of corporate PACs continue to pause donations to the Republican objectors based on their Jan. 6 vote alone, according to a recent survey from the Public Affairs Council. They’re instead taking into account each lawmaker’s actions and public statements on the issue.

K Street lobbyists expect most companies to resume donations to Republican objectors, with the exception of lawmakers who helped plan the Jan. 6 rally on the National Mall or actively spread election lies, such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).

That would be a disappointing outcome that would likely encourage further attacks on free and fair elections, Leadership Now Project CEO Daniella Ballou-Aares told The Hill. Her organization is made up of business leaders worried about the future of U.S. democracy.

“If you’re a company that said that objecting to the election results is unacceptable, if you go back on it, that’s a problem. It shows that like with any other commitment, there’s not a real stickiness,” Ballou-Aares said.

“This year is going to be very telling, because a lot of the dollars typically flow in an election year,” she added.

The group is encouraging corporate giants to throw their weight behind Democratic-backed bills to increase voting access with the same vigor that they used to defeat corporate tax increases initially included in Democrats’ social spending and climate bill.

“The bottom line is that it is hard to argue that companies individually and collectively don’t have real influence,” Ballou-Aares said. “It’s bad for business to have democracy floundering. I fully believe that with a concerted effort, business leaders and companies could push back on what we’re seeing.”

The New York Times adds, Corporations Donated Millions to Lawmakers Who Voted to Overturn Election Results:

At its annual summit on the state of American business last January, officials from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce expressed disgust at the siege of the Capitol that had unfolded days earlier, and declared that lawmakers who discredited the 2020 election would no longer receive the organization’s financial backing.

“There are some members who, by their actions, will have forfeited the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Period. Full stop,” Neil Bradley, the executive vice president and chief policy officer for the chamber, said at the time.

Less than two months later, the nation’s biggest lobbying group reversed course. “We do not believe it is appropriate to judge members of Congress solely based on their votes on the electoral certification,” Ashlee Rich Stephenson, the chamber’s senior political strategist, wrote in a memo.

The Chamber of Commerce has long been the most anti-democratic institution in America.

In the year since the riot at the Capitol, many corporate giants and trade groups have moved from making stern statements about the sanctity of democracy to reopening the financial spigot for lawmakers who undermined the election. Millions of dollars in donations continue to flow to what watchdog groups deride as the “Sedition Caucus,” highlighting how quickly political realities shift in Washington.

A report published this week by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit watchdog group, showed how corporate money continued to support most of the 147 lawmakerswho voted to overturn the election results.

In the last year, 717 companies and industry groups gave more than $18 million to 143 of those lawmakers. Businesses that pledged to stop or pause their donations to those lawmakers have since given nearly $2.4 million directly to their campaigns or leadership political action committees, according to CREW.

Many of the corporations that have donated are household names, including Boeing, Pfizer, General Motors, Ford Motor, AT&T and UPS. Trade groups such as the Chamber of Commerce have also continued to be big donors, with such associations, or their political actions committees, giving $7.67 million to political groups associated with lawmakers who voted to overturn the election or to PACs that support them.

To be sure, many companies have kept their word and maintained their pause on donations. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of leadership at the Yale School of Management, said his own research showed that a majority of corporations that pledged to slow or cease their PAC donations to election certification objectors had followed through with those promises.

According to the CREW report, more than half of the nearly 250 companies that said they would evaluate their political giving after the attack have not made a donation to the lawmakers who tried to stop the certification of the election. Microsoft has held firm on its pledge to cease donations to those lawmakers, and Hewlett-Packard decided to shut down its PAC entirely after Jan. 6.

But many companies have restarted campaign donations, with some saying they are doing so in the spirit of nonpartisanship.

It is Democracy v. Fascism. Choose a side (they are).

“Our employee PAC program continues to observe longstanding principles of nonpartisan political engagement in support of our business interests,” said Trent Perrotto, a spokesman for the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which contributed $145,000 to 72 lawmakers who voted against certifying the election.

Sharon J. Castillo, a Pfizer spokeswoman, said in a statement that “following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, the company adhered to its commitment to pause political giving to the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying the election for six months.” She added that “monitoring elected officials’ conduct and statements is a part of our governance process, and we will continue to do so as we consider future Pfizer PAC disbursements.”

CREW noted that some lawmakers who had downplayed the riot or sought to sow doubts about what happened on Jan. 6 had continued to be magnets for corporate money. Representative Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican who has blamed Democrats for instigating the violence and has called those taken into custody in connection with the riot “political hostages,” received $2,000 in donations from the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors and the Farmers’ Rice Cooperative Fund.

Representative Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican who has said there is no evidence that an “armed insurrection” took place, received $1,000 from the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors.

In the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, associating with lawmakers who appeared to abet it was viewed by many companies as a political liability. But in many cases, those concerns did not last.

Charles Spies, a Republican campaign finance lawyer who helped run Mitt Romney’s presidential super PAC, said that while the initial shock of the attack made corporate donors risk-averse, their thinking shifted with the politicization of the Jan. 6 congressional inquiry. Republicans have sought to downplay the attack and have accused Democrats of using the investigation to hurt the G.O.P.’s image.

“It’s now a bit more politicized, which makes it harder for companies to just pick one side,” Mr. Spies said.

It is Democracy v. Fascism. Choose a side (they are).

Melissa Miller, a Ford spokeswoman, justified the carmaker’s donations by explaining that they were not driven by a single issue.

“Our employee PAC makes bipartisan contributions based on a variety of considerations important to customers, our team and our company. They span things like manufacturing, mobility, innovation and trade,” Ms. Miller said. [Note that a coup d’etat to overthrow American democracy with a violent seditious insurrection is not a consideration.] “We resumed contributions in April after refining our process based on input from PAC members.”

I will never buy a Ford thanks to you, lady.

After the riot, JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank by assets, vowed not to use funds from its corporate PAC to support lawmakers who had objected on Jan. 6 to certifying the election results at least until the end of the current donation cycle. Still, it has given money to groups that support Republicans for both the Senate and the House, contributions that are likely to find their way to individual objectors.

“A PAC is an important tool for JPMorgan Chase employees to engage in the political process in the United States,” the bank’s political action committee wrote in a note that was distributed to workers in June, when a temporary ban on all PAC contributions from JPMorgan employees was first lifted.

Citigroup, which had also paused its PAC giving in the immediate aftermath of the riot, reopened the doors to PAC contributions to lawmakers around the same time, saying it would evaluate candidates to which it donated on a case-by-case basis rather than committing to any blanket prohibitions.

Crisis communications experts said the resumption of donations was not surprising, particularly given President Biden’s weak poll numbers and the prospect that Republicans might retake control of Congress in 2022. [Only if they have unlimited corporate campaign contributions.]

“Companies will need to do business with Republicans, period, so they’ll give them money,” said Eric Dezenhall, a Washington expert in corporate damage control. “Heavily regulated companies need to defend themselves from multiple threats -— hostile legislation, boycotts, shareholder actions.”

How about a nationwide boycott of companies funding anti-democracy Sedition Party insurrectionists? You like that, big boy?

The donations also reflect the fact that, over time, lawmakers are a more influential constituency for companies than consumers.

“Consumers have short memories, but lawmakers have long memories,” said Gene Grabowski, who specializes in crisis communications for the public relations firm Kglobal. “Doing business with the ‘Sedition Caucus,’ as distasteful as it might be, is a political reality for many companies.”

Although companies that have continued to halt donations to some Republicans could be burning bridges with those lawmakers, there is also an economic logic behind not donating to those who have demonstrated a willingness to undermine elections.

Bruce F. Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability, argued that firms that resumed the donations were being shortsighted and suggested that there was a strong business case that the health of America’s democracy should take precedence over political access.

“Companies need a healthy democracy to compete and grow and thrive,” Mr. Freed said. “They still look at political spending too narrowly as a matter of access. They’re not looking at what the broader interests and broader risks are.”

Truer words were never spoken.

It will be more important than ever to review campaign finance reports this year. Amy corporations contributing to the Sedition Party and its candidates who either participated in the insurrection (the 147 Republican lawmakers who still objected to the election results even after the Capitol attack), or who swear fealty to Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, need to be publicly called out: name them and shame them. And then boycott these companies. They need to pay a price for funding a crypto-fascist authoritarian political party in thrall to the personality cult of a mad man, Donald Trump. They are un-American.

As Angella Carella warned a decade ago, Founding fathers worried about corporate clout:

Soon after the American colonies won their fight to separate from the British Empire, the Founding Fathers warned of another threat to government by the people.

Corporations.

The threat does not come from corporations that do business and amass wealth. It comes from corporations that use their wealth to build power for themselves by putting political candidates in office, dictating public policy and evading the law.

In his book “Corporations Are Not People,” attorney Jeffrey Clements explains the history of corporate power in America. Clements, a Greenwich High School graduate and former Massachusetts assistant attorney general, wrote the book as part of a nationwide effort to overturn a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to secretly give unlimited money to candidates through Super PACs.

Clements quotes early American presidents on corporate power.

In 1816, Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, said he hoped to “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

In 1827, James Madison, known as the father of the Constitution, wrote that “incorporated companies with proper limitations and guards may, in particular cases, be useful; but they are at best a necessary evil only.”

Clements explains how President Andrew Jackson became concerned about the political clout of a corporation called Second Bank of the United States. In his 1833 message to Congress, Jackson asked whether the American people are to govern through their elected representatives or “whether the money and power of a great corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their judgment and control their decisions.”

In his 1837 message to Congress, President Martin Van Buren warned of “the already overgrown influence of corporate authorities.”

* * *

In 1971, a corporate lawyer from Virginia, Lewis Powell, whose client was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, outlined a plan for how corporations could strike back. Powell, a director of several international corporations including the Philip Morris cigarette manufacturer, wrote a memo to the Chamber saying corporations had to organize and plan long term and pool their money. Most significantly, corporations had to find “activist” Supreme Court judges to grant them rights, Powell’s memo said.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed Powell to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Corporations did what Powell recommended. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce established a National Chamber Litigation Center. Corporate executives funded “legal foundations” around the country to pound their message into every court — the Constitution gives corporations the same rights as people.

Finally, in 2010, the Supreme Court decreed just that.

It overturned decades of campaign-finance laws and ruled that Citizens United, a Virginia corporation that advances conservative causes, could air an anti-Hillary Clinton documentary during the 2008 presidential race. But the court didn’t stop there. It said that corporations, in protection of their free speech rights, may contribute unlimited “independent expenditures” to candidates’ Super PACs.

[In] “Corporations Are Not People,” Clements quotes President Theodore Roosevelt in a 1920 speech. “There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains,” Roosevelt said.

Perhaps fascism is the natural consequence of corporatism run amok, its corrupting influence on government unchecked by the courts and the law.