Publicly traded companies spend millions of dollars on elections, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has introduced a bill to end that. Hawley’s proposal, the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act, would ban publicly traded corporations from giving money to super PACs and from making independent expenditures, political ads or other electioneering communications.
“I just don’t know why corporations — the people who have monopoly power in our economy, who have sent our jobs overseas, who have cut wages for workers — why should they be able to dominate our elections too? These aren’t individuals, these are for-profit business corporations. I just don’t think there’s any First Amendment rationale,” Hawley told Straight Arrow News.
Here are some examples of corporate spending in the 2021-2022 election cycle:
Blackstone: $42.3 million.
Charles Schwab: $18.6 million.
Alphabet (Google): $15 million.
Hawley said his bill will begin to undo the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, which allowed corporations, nonprofits and labor unions to spend unlimited funds on elections. On this issue, Hawley finds himself aligned with Democrats, including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has described Citizens United as “devastating.”
Democrats have tried to pass bills and a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
“One of the biggest suppressors of the vote is big, dark special interest money in politics,” Pelosi said in 2022 in support of the For the People Act, which did not become law.
Hawley is being met with opposition from the Senate’s top Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
CNN reported that McConnell told Republicans they will face “incoming” from the center-right if they support Hawley’s bill. McConnell then read off a list of candidates that his super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, has supported in recent years. That list included Hawley.
However, according to Open Secrets, McConnell’s spending in support of Hawley didn’t even come close to the $18 million that the Senate Majority PAC — aligned with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — spent against Hawley in 2018.
Publicly, Schumer has called for a ban on this type of spending.
“Citizens United has disfigured our democracy almost beyond recognition,” Schumer said on Sept. 22, 2022.
“I can’t control who spends money,” Hawley said of super PAC spending in his races. “I can control what I do and I don’t take corporate contributions. I don’t take corporate PAC contributions.”
There have been a number of proposals similar to Hawley’s over the years.
In 2022, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., introduced the Ban Corporate PACs Act. The constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United is re-introduced almost every year.
