There’s been a lot of talk this week about “woke corporations,” so let’s go through it step by step:

• Last month, Georgia’s Republican state legislature passed, and its Trumpist governor signed, a massive voter suppression bill that will make it harder for people — especially and intentionally people of color — to vote.

• Some businesses have since weighed in.

• Delta Air Lines — the largest employer in Georgia — and Coca-Cola issued statements criticizing the bill. But, notably, not until after the governor had already signed it into law.

• Republican legislators in Texas are rushing through a voter suppression bill of their own.

• American Airlines and computer titan Dell Technologies have issued statements opposing it.

• It’s not just Georgia and Texas.

• In fact, Republican legislators are pushing at least 361 voter suppression bills in 47 states.

• Mitch McConnell — the top Republican in the United States Senate — chimed in as well.

• “My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics.”

• Pretty rich from a guy who has been more vocal than anyone in pushing the absurd notion that corporations should be able to spend without limit to influence politics — including his devotion to the Supreme Court’s disastrous, anti-democratic Citizens United ruling back in 2010.

• A few people pointed that out.

• McConnell then clarified: it’s not that corporations should stay out of politics, it’s that they are wrong to oppose these racist anti-voter laws.

All of this has created the misperception that corporations are suddenly at the cutting-edge of social justice.

Look, every American and every American institution should speak out against the wave of horrifying voter suppression bills now being proposed, and it’s a good thing when corporations affirmatively denounce these proposals.

But let’s get real.

First, by and large, companies are speaking out after they have been pressured to do so, not because they are guided by some moral compass.

Second, many of the companies now speaking out against these racist voter-suppression bills have bankrolled the very legislators pushing those proposals.

As a new Public Citizen report reveals, Corporate America spent $86 million in just the past six years on campaign contributions to the almost exclusively Republican state legislators around the country who are pushing those 361 voter suppression bills in all but three states.

Third — the nice propaganda notwithstanding — corporations are still doing corporations.

• They are trying to sabotage President Biden’s proposal for a modest increase in corporate taxes that would pay for a desperately needed infrastructure plan that would supercharge the economy (helping their businesses).

• They are interfering with efforts by their employees to unionize and blocking federal legislation that would make it easier for working people to organize.

• They are demanding that ever more money get funneled into the Pentagon budget.

• They are maneuvering to maintain monopoly protections to charge sky-high prices for medicines.

• They are slow-walking the transition to clean energy when every day of delay increases the odds of a full-blown climate catastrophe.

None of this should be surprising. And we must let ourselves be fooled about what’s going on, not even for a minute.

Join Public Citizen in sending this message to Corporate America:

If you are *truly* offended by the anti-democratic and discriminatory bills that reactionary Republican legislators are pushing in 47 states, how about you stop giving them money to get elected in the first place? If you want to show a modicum of civic-mindedness, how about you end your campaign contributions altogether and let democracy function as intended — rule by the people, not corporations?

Add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

For democracy,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

P.S. For half a century, Public Citizen has been advancing policies that put the needs of everyday Americans before the greed of billionaires and Big Business. That legacy of progress and that ongoing work could not matter more right now, as our nation transitions to a Joe Biden presidency that will be as progressive as we — you and Public Citizen, together — make it. We’re also busy undoing all the damage Trump did. And, like so many nonprofits and small businesses, we continue to experience financial strain related to the coronavirus pandemic. If you can, please make an emergency donation today to support the critical work we’re doing together or even join our popular Monthly Giving program. Thank you.
 
 
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