Big business shuts wallet after riot

Skittish about Trump and GOP, Ford and others put political donations on pause.

Corporate America is quickly distancing itself from President Trump and his Republican allies, with many of the biggest names in business — Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Coca- Cola Co., Ford Motor Co. and Comcast Corp. — suspending political donations after a Trump- inspired mob ransacked the U. S. Capitol in a deadly and violent attack Wednesday.

For now, the move is about affirming the rule of law and the clear results of an election that will elevate Democrat Joe Biden to the presidency. But it also signals that companies are growing skittish about lawmakers who backed Trump’s false claims of election fraud, possibly depriving Republicans of public backing from business groups that until recently were the heart of the GOP’s political brand.

“This is spreading like wildfire,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s management school who consults with chief executives. “The U. S. business community has interests fully in alignment with the American public and not with Trump’s autocratic bigoted wing of the GOP.”

Yet the pausing of donations announced by many companies — including Marriott International Inc., American Express Co., AT& T Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Dow Inc. and American Airlines Group Inc. — was unlikely to deliver a serious blow to the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted to overturn Biden’s win.

“These are symbolic pledges,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that traces the role money plays in politics. “This is just one source of revenue, and for some it’s vanishingly small, particularly in the Senate.”

Corporate- sponsored political action committees are limited to donating $ 5,000 per candidate each year. In races that often cost incumbents millions of dollars, such contributions account for just a small fraction of overall fundraising.

Take Sen. Josh Hawley. The Missouri Republican has drawn widespread scorn, including from longtime supporters and Senate Republican leadership, for becoming the f irst senator to announce he would oppose the certification of Biden’s victory.

Since 2017, when he launched his Senate bid, only about $ 754,000 of the $ 11.8 million he raised came from corporate PACs and trade groups. That accounts for about 15% of his total fundraising haul, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures.

What’s more, Hawley wasn’t the biggest spender in his race. Outside conservative groups, including those affiliated with Republican leadership, were the ones who dropped the lion’s share of money that helped him oust former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Such groups are largely insulated from the corporate pause on donations.

Still, greeting card maker Hallmark went a step further than most companies. The Kansas City, Mo., company has asked both Hawley and recently elected Sen. Roger Marshall ( R- Kan.) to return its contributions because of their votes opposing Biden’s win.

“Hallmark believes the peaceful transition of power is part of the bedrock of our democratic system, and we abhor violence of any kind,” spokeswoman JiaoJiao Shen said in a statement.

A PAC for the company has donated $ 7,000 to Marshall, Federal Election Commission records show. The company says it has also donated $ 5,000 to Hawley.

In many cases, though, most companies are only suspending their giving for several months, leaving ample time to ramp up donations before the 2022 elections.

“They are going into hiding until the news cycle moves on,” said Erik Gordon, a law and business professor at the University of Michigan. “They will be back with their checkbooks, and politicians who already are gearing up for the 2022 congressional contests are waiting at the back door.”

Even if Trump sold himself to voters as a billionaire guru with a Midas- like grip on the economy, many business leaders had already quietly backed away from a president who had cracked down on trade, inf lamed racism, curtailed immigration and failed to contain a deadly pandemic.

But the rejection accelerated after he egged on a crowd at a Washington rally and urged them to march on the Capitol on Wednesday.

Since then, technology companies have denied the use of services to Trump’s political operation.

The payments f irm Stripe has stopped processing donations for Trump campaign committees, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because the decision hadn’t been made public. The move could cut off Trump’s fundraising arm from what has been a steady stream of small- dollar donations often solicited through emails and text messages. Stripe’s decision was f irst reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Shopify, an e- commerce platform for merchants to sell goods, shut down the Trump campaign’s merchandise website as well, as other tech companies — including Twitter, Facebook and Amazon — are putting new restrictions on Trump’s use of their services because of Wednesday’s violence.

Leading business groups such as the National Assn. of Manufacturers, the Business Roundtable and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce condemned the insurrection. Yet these same groups also worked in support of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and will face a Biden administration that wants to increase corporate taxes, a sign that they may not fully align with one political party.

What surprised some ethics watchdogs was how quickly companies suspended their donations.

“It looks like it is sincere for many of the corporations,” said Craig Holman, a campaign f inance expert at Public Citizen, a liberal consumer advocacy organization. “There was no big public push or pressure to get Marriott and others to announce they would no longer make campaign contributions. They did it on their own — they shocked everyone in the campaign finance community.”

Corporations’ responses have not been uniform. Dow, the chemical company, said it would suspend contributions for the next two years to any member of Congress who objected to the certification of the electoral college. Airbnb also said it would withhold support to those lawmakers.

Some companies are trying to avoid politics completely in the riots’ aftermath. Citigroup confirmed Sunday that it is pausing all federal political donations for the f irst three months of the year, including those to Democratic lawmakers.

“We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law,” Candi Wolff, Citi’s head of global government affairs, said in a memo. Once the presidential transition is completed, she said, the country can “hopefully” emerge “from these events stronger and more united.”