A year ago, following the January 6th mob attack on the Capitol we noted in Funding the Insurrection,  “Money in politics is a very powerful force. So is withholding it.”

Back then we wondered how corporate donors and their political action committees (PACs) would react to those 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Would they continue funding their campaigns or would they withhold funding?

Thanks to ingenious and diligent reporting by Popular Information, the investigative and accountability journalism folks who publish the January 6^th Corporate Accountability Index and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)we have the not-so-noble answer.

Here is CREW’s  verbatim report on their findings from tracking corporate support for what they call the “Sedition Caucus” over the past year: :

• Since the insurrection, 717 corporations and industry groups have donated over $18 million to 143 of the 147 members of Congress who objected to the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
• Companies that pledged to stop or pause their political giving to these members have contributed a total of $4,785,000  to insurrectionist political groups, including $2,381,250 directly to members of the Sedition Caucus’s campaigns and leadership PACs.
• Boeing ($346,500), Koch Industries ($308,000), American Crystal Sugar ($285,000), General Dynamics ($233,500) and Valero Energy ($207,500) are the top corporate donors to those who objected to the election and their party committees.
• Some companies resumed giving almost immediately. Toyota, which called the January 6 attack “horrific” and promised to reevaluate its giving criteria, poured $9,000 into the pockets of 9 Sedition Caucus members within a month of the riot. Cigna and AT&T also resumed giving to seditionists within two months of the riot.
• After the attack, corporations rushed to pay lip service to democracy. Companies including Aflac, Ford Motors, and Valero Energy pledged to pause donations and re-evaluate their giving criteria, but these performative statements would soon give way to business as usual. These three companies have contributed more than $300,000 to seditionists, including lawmakers who sit on committees with power over the companies’ business interests.
• Home Depot, JP Morgan, Delta Airlines, UPS, and many others issued statements, speaking out against new voting laws in Georgia as racist, while hundreds of other companies — including American Airlines, Ford, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson — signed a full page New York Times ad condemning discriminatory voting legislation being passed nationwide. Despite taking pro-democracy stances in public, many of these companies have continued to fund members of Congress who voted against a free and fair elections.[Emphasis added by The Agitator]
• Corporate and industry PACs have also continued to support the Republican state attorneys general who attempted to invalidate the election results in four battleground states by falsely claiming that election procedures in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin violated federal law. Twenty companies including Boeing, Walmart, and Home Depot have donated $60,200 through their federal PACs to 12 attorneys general involved in the lawsuit, which was led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall collected the most in donations, bringing in $14,500. He is the head of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a dark money organization that paid for robocalls promoting the “Save America” rally held on January 6 before the insurrection.
• Trade associations have also continued to support members of Congress who objected to the results of the election. PACs affiliated with these groups have contributed $7,678,598 to insurrectionist political groups, including $5,251,098 to campaigns and leadership PACs directly. These contributions undermine the commitments of the groups’ corporate members.
• The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers ($342,000), National Association of Realtors ($303,000), Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America ($270,000), National Electrical Contractors Association ($222,000) and the Credit Union National Association ($217,500) have given the most to insurrectionist members of Congress.
• Some members of the Sedition Caucus have continued to promote the Big Lie, including Madison Cawthorn, Louie Gohmert, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Complicit in these anti-democratic actions are the corporations and trade associations that have continued to bankroll them. McCarthy is the top fundraiser of the Sedition Caucus with $688,000 from 105 corporate and industry donors, including Chevron, Valero, UPS, Merck, Anheuser-Busch, and Ford.

Some Good News

According to both CREW and Popular Information dozens of companies suspended donations in the aftermath of the Capitol violence last year. More than half of the nearly 250 companies that said they would evaluate their political giving in the wake of the attack have not made a donation to seditionists since.

Toyota stopped giving to seditionist members as a result of public pressure. Hewlett Packard and Charles Schwab shut down their PACs entirely. Hallmark Cards went as far as requesting that Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) return its PAC’s donations.

These examples show accountability is possible, but they also highlight the failures of companies who have continued to support the “Sedition Caucus.”

As we noted in Attacking Donors to Save Democracy “Most corporations are notoriously squeamish when it comes to negative exposure.  And it’s hard to imagine a more negative image for an American corporation than being labelled as supporting the rise of authoritarianism and the death of democracy.”

Is it time to turn up the heat and shine a bigger spotlight on corporate political giving, the hypocrisy behind it and it’s threat to democracy?

Roger