Major Corporations Have โ€˜Broken Promises and Funded Seditionistsโ€™ Since Jan. 6, Reports Reveal

One critic said continuing to give to lawmakers โ€œwho tried to overthrow the will of the people makes clear that these companies were never committed to standing up for democracy in the first place.โ€
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By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams. Originally published on Common Dreams under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.

A pair of watchdog groups on Monday called out companies and trade groups that continued to financially support the 147 congressional Republicans who voted last year to overturn the 2020 presidential election results even after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The government watchdog group Accountable.US released an interactive report entitled In Bad Company, which focuses on 20 Fortune 500 companies and 10 industry groups that have contributed over $3.3 million to the eight senators and 139 representatives collectively dubbed the โ€œSedition Caucusโ€ since a right-wing mob stormed the Capitol last year.

Companies profiled by Accountable.US range from fossil fuel and pharmaceutical giants such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Merck, and Pfizer, to the shipping companies FedEx and UPS, to six major military contractors: Boeing, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon Technologies.

โ€œMajor corporations were quick to condemn the insurrection and tout their support for democracy โ€” and almost as quickly, many ditched those purported values by cutting big checks to the very politicians that helped instigate the failed coup attempt,โ€ said Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig.

Herrig argued that corporations continuing to donate to lawmakers โ€œwho tried to overthrow the will of the people makes clear that these companies were never committed to standing up for democracy in the first place.โ€

Some members of the Sedition Caucus still cling to former President Donald Trumpโ€™s โ€œBig Lieโ€ that the 2020 election involved widespread voter fraud and was stolen from him โ€” a baseless claim that led to the Capitol attack and, ultimately, Trumpโ€™s historic second impeachment.

Meanwhile, American voters, progressive lawmakers, and experts within and beyond the United States continue to sound the alarm about the state of the โ€œbackslidingโ€ U.S. democracy.

โ€œEven as democracy continues to be in the crosshairs of powerful purveyors of the Big Lie,โ€ Herrig said Monday, โ€œthese CEOs would rather amass political influence than stand up for their customers, shareholders, and employees.โ€

The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) also released a new report โ€” authored by Angela Li and Areeba Shah โ€” detailing how corporate donors have โ€œbroken promises and funded seditionistsโ€ in the aftermath of the Capitol attack.

โ€œSince 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,โ€ according to CREW.

Li and Shah found that despite pledging to stop or halt donations to the Sedition Caucus, reviewed companies โ€œhave contributed a total of $4,785,000 to insurrectionist political groups, including $2,381,250 directlyโ€ to lawmakersโ€™ campaigns and political action committees (PACs).

โ€œBoeing ($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,โ€ the report says.

The report also blasts trade associations, noting that โ€œPACs affiliated with these groups have contributed $7,678,598 to insurrectionist political groups, including $5,251,098 to campaigns and leadership PACs directly.โ€

While slamming the companies that โ€œhave failed to stick to their commitments to democracy,โ€ CREWโ€™s report also stresses that โ€œit isnโ€™t all bad news,โ€ explaining that โ€œmore 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.โ€

โ€œToyota stopped giving to seditionist members as a result of public pressure and after receiving pushback from CREW. Hewlett Packard and Charles Schwab shut down their PACs entirely,โ€ the report notes, adding that Hallmark Cards even requested that Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) return its PACโ€™s donations.

โ€œThese examples show accountability is possible,โ€ the report says, โ€œand highlight the failures of companies who have continued to support the Sedition Caucus.โ€

Leading up to the first anniversary of the Capitol attack, demands for accountability and scrutiny of political contributions to Big Lie supporters have increased. However, as Judd Legum pointed out Monday in his newsletter Popular Information, a false narrative about the overall state of corporate giving post-insurrection has emerged.

In response to recent reporting that โ€œrelies on anecdotal evidence,โ€ Popular Information revealed that based on Federal Election Commission filings in 2021 and 2019, โ€œsince January 6, corporate PAC contributions to Republican objectors have plummeted by nearly two-thirds.โ€

Legum focused on House members who ran as incumbents in 2019 and were seeking reelection in 2021, and found that โ€œthese 94 Republican objectors raised $11,052,925 from corporate PACs through November 30, 2021, the most recent data available.โ€

โ€œThe same 94 Republican objectors raised $27,205,290 from corporate PACs through November 30, 2019,โ€ he explained. โ€œSo while the media narrative is that corporate PAC contributions to Republican objectors have returned to normal, the reality is that theyโ€™ve dropped by 60%.โ€

While exposing that โ€œmost corporate PACs have not โ€˜moved beyondโ€™ January 6 and, as a result, many Republican incumbents face fundraising deficits,โ€ Legum also emphasized that if they โ€œshift their normal donations to Republican objectors from 2021 to 2022, the freeze will not be meaningful.โ€

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