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It's beyond elitist for wealthy donors to a president who openly incites violence and hate to complain of "harassment" when they face criticism. (Photo: Screenshot)
Name and Shame Big Political Contributors
Donors don’t like it, but using this publicly available information is one of the best ways to fight corruption.
Aug 28, 2019
This August, a phony controversy erupted over wealthy donors to President Trump's campaign and political action committee being publicly named.
After Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) tweeted the names of San Antonio contributors who'd made large donations to support Trump, some reported receiving angry phone calls. A few residents said they would boycott businesses tied to the donors.
Now, the New York Times reported, "Republicans have accused the congressman of 'doxxing' private citizens and trying to incite harassment of the president's supporters."
Of course, campaign contributions are publicly available information. And it's beyond elitist for wealthy donors to a president who openly incites violence and hate to complain of "harassment" when they face criticism.
Under this administration, entire communities have faced traumatizing harassment -- including in the form of white supremacist violence in El Paso and elsewhere. Compared to that, or to a child ripped from their parents and caged, what's an angry phone call?
We need more, not less, of a public spotlight on people who corrupt our political system for their own private gain. So let's keep naming names.
Beyond this, the episode points to a longer-standing issue: the massive amounts of money sloshing around our political system.
For the 2016 presidential election alone (not counting the primaries), campaigns and outside groups raised a staggering $2.1 billion. The average cost of a campaign for a House seat is about $1 million, and for a Senate seat it runs into the tens of millions.
Where does all this money come from? Often from corporations and their trade associations, and from wealthy individuals, like the late billionaire David Koch, and their networks. In the 2016 cycle, the oil and gas industry alone contributed $113 million to campaigns and outside groups.
It's either naive or willfully disingenuous to think that this staggering amount of money comes with no strings attached.
Here's a story: The largest and second largest political contributors among oil and gas companies in 2016 were Marathon Petroleum and Koch Industries, who gave $3.3 million between them. Turns out, the Trump administration's ongoing push to eviscerate automobile fuel efficiency standards was driven by lobbying from these same two companies.
Auto fuel efficiency regulations are common-sense. They cut greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxide pollution, and prices at the pump. But the Trump administration is gutting them to enrich the oil and gas industry, at the behest of two companies who essentially bribed them.
One of the best instruments we have to fight this system is to publicly name and shame the politicians and contributors who corrupt our democracy this way. I'll take my own advice and name a few.
One is Robert Murray, a coal baron who gave Trump $300,000 and a policy agenda to go with it -- one the Trump administration is dutifully implementing.
Another politically prolific coal baron is Joseph Craft, who's spent several million dollars on political contributions over the years. He's been rewarded with an unabashedly pro-coal federal policy agenda and an ambassador position for his wife. (Meanwhile the rest of us get terrible human consequences of coal.)
Trump's Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, meanwhile, is a former partner of the lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck -- which gave almost $1 million in contributions over a six-year period to senators who voted on his confirmation.
As Interior Secretary, Bernhardt has held secret meetings with representatives of industries regulated by his department. And his department has systematically stonewalled Freedom of Information Act requests, hiding corruption from the public eye.
We need more, not less, of a public spotlight on people who corrupt our political system for their own private gain. So let's keep naming names.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
This column was distributed by OtherWords.
Basav Sen
Basav Sen is the climate justice project director at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and writes on the intersections of climate change and social and economic justice. Prior to joining IPS, Basav worked for 11 years as a campaign researcher for the United Food and Commercial Workers.
This August, a phony controversy erupted over wealthy donors to President Trump's campaign and political action committee being publicly named.
After Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) tweeted the names of San Antonio contributors who'd made large donations to support Trump, some reported receiving angry phone calls. A few residents said they would boycott businesses tied to the donors.
Now, the New York Times reported, "Republicans have accused the congressman of 'doxxing' private citizens and trying to incite harassment of the president's supporters."
Of course, campaign contributions are publicly available information. And it's beyond elitist for wealthy donors to a president who openly incites violence and hate to complain of "harassment" when they face criticism.
Under this administration, entire communities have faced traumatizing harassment -- including in the form of white supremacist violence in El Paso and elsewhere. Compared to that, or to a child ripped from their parents and caged, what's an angry phone call?
We need more, not less, of a public spotlight on people who corrupt our political system for their own private gain. So let's keep naming names.
Beyond this, the episode points to a longer-standing issue: the massive amounts of money sloshing around our political system.
For the 2016 presidential election alone (not counting the primaries), campaigns and outside groups raised a staggering $2.1 billion. The average cost of a campaign for a House seat is about $1 million, and for a Senate seat it runs into the tens of millions.
Where does all this money come from? Often from corporations and their trade associations, and from wealthy individuals, like the late billionaire David Koch, and their networks. In the 2016 cycle, the oil and gas industry alone contributed $113 million to campaigns and outside groups.
It's either naive or willfully disingenuous to think that this staggering amount of money comes with no strings attached.
Here's a story: The largest and second largest political contributors among oil and gas companies in 2016 were Marathon Petroleum and Koch Industries, who gave $3.3 million between them. Turns out, the Trump administration's ongoing push to eviscerate automobile fuel efficiency standards was driven by lobbying from these same two companies.
Auto fuel efficiency regulations are common-sense. They cut greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxide pollution, and prices at the pump. But the Trump administration is gutting them to enrich the oil and gas industry, at the behest of two companies who essentially bribed them.
One of the best instruments we have to fight this system is to publicly name and shame the politicians and contributors who corrupt our democracy this way. I'll take my own advice and name a few.
One is Robert Murray, a coal baron who gave Trump $300,000 and a policy agenda to go with it -- one the Trump administration is dutifully implementing.
Another politically prolific coal baron is Joseph Craft, who's spent several million dollars on political contributions over the years. He's been rewarded with an unabashedly pro-coal federal policy agenda and an ambassador position for his wife. (Meanwhile the rest of us get terrible human consequences of coal.)
Trump's Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, meanwhile, is a former partner of the lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck -- which gave almost $1 million in contributions over a six-year period to senators who voted on his confirmation.
As Interior Secretary, Bernhardt has held secret meetings with representatives of industries regulated by his department. And his department has systematically stonewalled Freedom of Information Act requests, hiding corruption from the public eye.
We need more, not less, of a public spotlight on people who corrupt our political system for their own private gain. So let's keep naming names.
Basav Sen
Basav Sen is the climate justice project director at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and writes on the intersections of climate change and social and economic justice. Prior to joining IPS, Basav worked for 11 years as a campaign researcher for the United Food and Commercial Workers.
This August, a phony controversy erupted over wealthy donors to President Trump's campaign and political action committee being publicly named.
After Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) tweeted the names of San Antonio contributors who'd made large donations to support Trump, some reported receiving angry phone calls. A few residents said they would boycott businesses tied to the donors.
Now, the New York Times reported, "Republicans have accused the congressman of 'doxxing' private citizens and trying to incite harassment of the president's supporters."
Of course, campaign contributions are publicly available information. And it's beyond elitist for wealthy donors to a president who openly incites violence and hate to complain of "harassment" when they face criticism.
Under this administration, entire communities have faced traumatizing harassment -- including in the form of white supremacist violence in El Paso and elsewhere. Compared to that, or to a child ripped from their parents and caged, what's an angry phone call?
We need more, not less, of a public spotlight on people who corrupt our political system for their own private gain. So let's keep naming names.
Beyond this, the episode points to a longer-standing issue: the massive amounts of money sloshing around our political system.
For the 2016 presidential election alone (not counting the primaries), campaigns and outside groups raised a staggering $2.1 billion. The average cost of a campaign for a House seat is about $1 million, and for a Senate seat it runs into the tens of millions.
Where does all this money come from? Often from corporations and their trade associations, and from wealthy individuals, like the late billionaire David Koch, and their networks. In the 2016 cycle, the oil and gas industry alone contributed $113 million to campaigns and outside groups.
It's either naive or willfully disingenuous to think that this staggering amount of money comes with no strings attached.
Here's a story: The largest and second largest political contributors among oil and gas companies in 2016 were Marathon Petroleum and Koch Industries, who gave $3.3 million between them. Turns out, the Trump administration's ongoing push to eviscerate automobile fuel efficiency standards was driven by lobbying from these same two companies.
Auto fuel efficiency regulations are common-sense. They cut greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxide pollution, and prices at the pump. But the Trump administration is gutting them to enrich the oil and gas industry, at the behest of two companies who essentially bribed them.
One of the best instruments we have to fight this system is to publicly name and shame the politicians and contributors who corrupt our democracy this way. I'll take my own advice and name a few.
One is Robert Murray, a coal baron who gave Trump $300,000 and a policy agenda to go with it -- one the Trump administration is dutifully implementing.
Another politically prolific coal baron is Joseph Craft, who's spent several million dollars on political contributions over the years. He's been rewarded with an unabashedly pro-coal federal policy agenda and an ambassador position for his wife. (Meanwhile the rest of us get terrible human consequences of coal.)
Trump's Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, meanwhile, is a former partner of the lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck -- which gave almost $1 million in contributions over a six-year period to senators who voted on his confirmation.
As Interior Secretary, Bernhardt has held secret meetings with representatives of industries regulated by his department. And his department has systematically stonewalled Freedom of Information Act requests, hiding corruption from the public eye.
We need more, not less, of a public spotlight on people who corrupt our political system for their own private gain. So let's keep naming names.
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