Louisiana Voice

In terms of pure chutzpah, you have to hand it to Mitch McConnell.

Corporate CEOs, he says, should “stay out of politics.”

His DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE from corporate influence comes after a couple of dozen corporations condemned a new, more restrictive election law enacted by the Georgia legislature and after Major League Baseball pulled the plug on the 2021 All-Star game from the state in protest of the legislative action.

Among the companies condemning the new law were Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola, both headquartered in Atlanta.

Of course, neither McConnell nor any of his other Repugnantcan colleagues have refused the generous, life-giving teat of corporate campaign largess funneled to them either in the form of contributions from individual corporate executives or through political action committees created in the aftermath of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. I’ll get to the specifics of that in a moment.

“I found it completely discouraging to find a bunch of corporate CEOs getting in the middle of politics,” an indignant McConnell told a press conference in Kentucky earlier this week. “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

But he wasn’t finished. “It’s jaw-dropping to see powerful American institutions not just permit themselves to be bullied, but join in the bullying themselves,” he said.

Unsaid was whether or not he considered Repugnantcans in Congress to be part of that bullying process of which he was so critical.

Then came the not-so-subtle threat: “Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order,” he warned.

I mean, it’s not like Florida’s Repugnantcan Gov. Ron DeSantis awarded the Covid Vaccine distribution contract in Palm Beach County to PUBLIX GROCERY STORES after Publix contributed $100,000 to DeSantis’s campaign.

But that’s not Mitch, you say? You’re correct, of course.

Well then, let’s take a look at ol’ Mitch’s corporate campaign contributions for the election cycle just completed. In federal elections, of course, it’s (ahem) against the law for corporations to contribute directly to campaigns so I’ll list the contributions from corporate individuals first and PACs in parenthesis:

• Blackstone Group: $108,502 ($1,000);
• UPS: $102,570 ($5,000);
• KKR & Co. (global investments): $80,630 ($7500);
• NextEra Energy: $71,091 ($5000);
• Apollo Global Management: $53,575 ($10,000);
• Capital Group Companies: $59,250 ($0);
• Humana, Inc.: $48,383 ($10,000);
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield: $33,984 ($20,500);
• AT&T: $54,137; $0;
• GEO Group: $42,194 ($10,000);
• CC Clark, Inc. (bottlers of Coca-Cola in Mississippi and Kentucky – can you say irony?): $49,461 ($0);
• Eli Lilly & Co.: $48,639 ($0);
• Raytheon Technologies: $28,156 ($18,500);
• American Airlines Group: $46,432 ($0);
• United Health Group: $43,802 $0);
• Foley & Lardner (international law firm): $35,320 ($7,000);
• MetLife, Inc.: $36,938 ($5,000);
• JP Morgan Chase & Co.: $36,727 ($5,000).

Those are pretty telling, but when you look at industry contributions, you get an even better picture of how dependent McConnell and his fellow Repugnantcans are on corporate charity which is returned in the form of massive corporate tax breaks. Again, I list individual contributions followed by PAC contributions from the same group in parenthesis:

• Securities and investments: $1.6 million ($201,000);
• Lawyers/law firms: $1 million ($171,000);
• Health professionals: $912,000 ($217,300);
• Insurance: $705,500 ($354,200);
• Pharmaceutical/health products: $475,200 ($316,800);
• Hospitals/nursing homes: $651,600 ($122,600);
• Misc. finance: $626,600 ($69,500);
• Oil & gas: $486,300 ($197,500);
• Lobbyists: $651,100 ($16,850);
• Leadership PACs: $13,500 ($542,500);
• Education: $532,400 ($11,600);
• Health services/HMOs: $411,500 ($128,100);
• Business services: $500,250 ($12,500);
• Misc. manufacturing & distributing: $414,600 ($83,100);
• Air transport: $370,800 ($122,000);
• General contractors: $463,700 ($26,000);
• Commercial banks: $305,500 ($154,300).

Keep in mind, these are contributions for only one individual, Mitch McConnell, and for only one election cycle, 2019-2020. McConnell, by the way, received MORE MONEY from S&P 500 CEOs than any other candidate in a competitive Senate race in 2020 – more than $258,600 from 37 individual donors. Altogether, he received $67 MILLION in campaign contributions from all sources for the 2020 election cycle. Multiply that by 100 senators and 435 representatives (of both parties) – and a smattering doled out to challengers just to hedge their bets – and you get a picture of what is shelled out every single election cycle just to keep the fat cats fat.

It’s enough to make you wonder if all that campaign money and money spent lobbying Congress could be put to better use like oh, say, education, infrastructure, health care, the environment.

But then, that would necessitate corporate CEOs getting involved in politics and we just can’t have that.

Just ask Mitch.