[Peace-discuss] Corporate money in politics

[Szoke, Ron]

Corporations Donated Millions to Lawmakers Who Voted to Overturn Election Results
One year after the Capitol riot, many businesses resumed corporate donations to lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/congress-corporate-donations-2020-election-overturn.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces_impression_cut_3&alpha=0.05&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=689415017&impression_id=2754b561-6f5c-11ec-bbbf-bb55a96d2640&index=1&pgtype=Article&pool=more_in_pools%2Fpolitics&region=footer&req_id=29841068&surface=eos-more-in&variant=0_bandit-all-surfaces_impression_cut_3

By Alan Rappeport, Madeleine Ngo and Kate Kelly
NYT  Jan. 6, 2022
WASHINGTON — 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.

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 lawmakers who 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.
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