After 147 Republican lawmakersVoting to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election result, major corporations such as Amazon and Google pledged not to donate to election objectors or to give money to political causes. New reporting from Politico finds that many of these companies technically kept their promises – because they dispatched their lobbyists to make donations for them instead.
Lobbyists for Amazon. Microsoft. Google. Meta (formerly known under Facebook), Allstate. Toyota. Nike. Dow Chemical Company. and many more publicly announced that they would stop donating to election objectors or that they would reviewTheir donation policies after some Republican lawmakers voted not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, following months of former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him.
However, corporations are able to do so because they have the resources There are many benefits to this.Donating to politicians who will in turn reverse policies such as keeping corporate taxes low. They used their lobbyists for this purpose; individual lobbyists are able to make personal donations on behalf companies without being officially affiliated to the companies in campaign filings.
In total, at least 13 employees from companies that have pledged to donate to election objectors in 2021. Politico found, totalling over $28,000.
Some of the Republicans who received these donations are likely to run for leadership positions in their party’s upcoming midterm elections. The donations could also play a role in shaping legislation in Congress over the next few decades.
According to Politico’s analysis, lobbyists for Microsoft gave the mostMajor tech companies included Microsoft Congressional Affairs director Allison Halataei, who gave $2,500 and $1,000 respectively to Kevin McCarthy (R.-California), as well as Fred Humphries, the corporate vice president for U.S. government relations. Rep. Chris Stewart (R. Utah), received $1,000 from Allison Halataei as director of Microsoft Congressional Affairs.
In spite of those donations – or perhaps because they thought the donations would ultimately fly under the radar – Microsoft reiteratedIt pledged to end all political donations by 2020.
Lobbyists for tech companies donated over $16,000 to 11 different Republicans. PoliticoThey were able to keep their promises in the public eye, they were found out.
“It clearly is a workaround,” government ethics expert for Public Citizen Craig Holman told Politico. “If a company is serious about not giving a campaign contribution to insurrectionists, then they can’t allow people who are in senior executive positions who represent the company to make those same contributions. And that would include the CEO as well as the lobbyists of the company.”
Although it seems that some companies may be trying to hide donations to election objectors last year, many others broke their pledges. Companies include General Motors and Lockheed Martin, UPS and Duke Energy. You can find out moreThey broke their promises and gave thousands to protestors. Some of these broken pledges are especially egregious – Toyota, for instance, gave $55,000 in the first seven months of 2021 alone.
Popular Information has reported that company pledges against political donations have been largely successful – corporate PAC donations to election objectors are down about 60 percent in comparison to the last election cycle.
However, many companies may have simply shifted their donations onto lobbyists, meaning that it’s difficult to know exactly how these pledges have changed the donation landscape – and it’s possible that they’ve even pushed An already opaqueFurther darkness is added to the election finance system.
