{"id":14095,"date":"2023-06-20T04:02:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T09:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14095"},"modified":"2023-06-20T04:02:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T09:02:04","slug":"analysis-republicans-cut-reliance-on-corporate-donors-as-populist-agenda-aligns-them-with-small-dollar-donors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14095","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Republicans Cut Reliance on Corporate Donors as Populist Agenda Aligns Them with Small-Dollar Donors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Republicans are increasingly cutting their reliance on corporate donors and turning to small-dollar donors instead as they push forward with a nationalist-populist legislative agenda, an analysis<\/a> from the Wall Street Journal<\/em> finds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRepublicans are now less dependent on corporate and industry PACs than at any time in the past three decades, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis based on data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics,\u201d the report reveals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) fought<\/a> tirelessly to move the GOP away from its alliance with Wall Street and the United States Chamber of Commerce, toward its voters with a populist agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sessions\u2019 goal was to have Republicans represent the interests of small businesses against multinational corporations, union workers against corrupt Democrat-aligned union leadership, American workers against waves of illegal immigration, working-class communities against decades of outsourcing, and military families against foreign wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, small-dollar donors are a rising fixture with Republicans running for office, aligning them with the populist viewpoints<\/a> of their constituents who, by majorities, say free trade<\/a>, mass immigration<\/a>, and corporate consolidation<\/a> of industries are a threat to the American way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift has been clear for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) where, in 2016, more than 40 percent of his reelection campaign funds came from corporate political action committees (PACs). By 2022, corporate PACs made up less than three percent of McCarthy\u2019s donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, every Senate Republican incumbent has reduced their corporate PAC donations from 2016 to 2022. Since former President Donald Trump\u2019s historic victory in 2016, the Senate GOP has elected a wave of national populists \u2014 including Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Josh Hawley (R-MO), J.D. Vance (R-OH), Katie Britt (R-AL), Ted Budd (R-NC), and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Senate Republicans, elected before Trump\u2019s 2016 win, have made a hard right shift toward populism, such as Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Tom Cotton (R-AK).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGone are the days that Republicans are going to sit on the sidelines as big behemoths take advantage of the American people,\u201d Blackburn told the Journal<\/em>. \u201cWe are going to hold them accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, corporate PAC donations accounted for about 25 percent of Daines\u2019 campaign funds while running for his seat, the Journal<\/em> noted. By 2020, Daines cut his reliance on corporate donors with only about ten percent of his reelection funds coming from such PACs. Instead, he shifted focus to garnering small-dollar donations from Montana voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift is not only playing out with campaign contributions but also legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vance, for example, continues to garner support<\/a> among Senate Republicans for his bipartisan \u201cRailway Safety Act,\u201d which would serve as landmark legislation to protect American communities like East Palestine, Ohio, from train derailments spurred by powerful rail corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rail reforms are co-sponsored by Rubio and Hawley as well as Sens. Mike Braun (R-IN), Mitt Romney (R-UT), and Roger Marshall (R-KS). Conservative beltway groups, some funded<\/a> by the Koch network and rail companies, along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), also funded<\/a> by the rail companies, are opposing the legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are Cotton\u2019s plans to decouple the U.S. from China \u2014 a fair trade initiative that would have been denounced by the party establishment just a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cotton filed<\/a> a bill in January to end the nation\u2019s free trade policy with China, gaining support from Vance, Budd, and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL). A nearly identical bill was also filed<\/a> by Hawley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, Cotton and Britt are authoring<\/a> legislation to ban Chinese nationals and companies from buying up real estate across the U.S. Vance has previously\u2002said<\/a> he supports such rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of reining in corporation consolidation, even establishment Republicans have come on board in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bill<\/a> from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), co-sponsored by Daines and others, would give the Agriculture Department more power to investigate anti-competitive business practices as four meatpacking corporations now control more than 80 percent of the market. The bill gained co-sponsors like Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD), John Thune (R-SD), John Hoeven (R-ND), and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the GOP\u2019s populist shift has been the most profound on the issue of immigration where the federal government\u2019s current policy brings more than a million foreign nationals to the U.S. annually on green cards, another million on temporary work visas, and hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, illegally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months ago, Britt unveiled<\/a> the \u201cAsylum Abuse Reduction Act\u201d which would effectively end the policy of catching and releasing border crossers and illegal aliens into the U.S. interior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, and most prominently, the bill codifies into law a third safe country rule that requires foreign nationals to seek asylum in Mexico before they are allowed to claim asylum in the U.S. The impact would likely be a historic reduction in illegal immigration at the southern border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breitbart<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans are increasingly cutting their reliance on corporate donors and turning to small-dollar donors instead as they push forward with a nationalist-populist legislative agenda, an analysis from the Wall Street Journal finds. \u201cRepublicans are now less dependent on corporate and industry PACs than at any time in the past three decades, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8780,8783,8782,8781,2891,8640,5900,1580],"class_list":["post-14095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-big-business","tag-dependence","tag-donors","tag-economics","tag-politics","tag-populism","tag-reduction","tag-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14097,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14095\/revisions\/14097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}