This TPM story about Target’s abject apology for donating $150K to a Republican candidate with anti-gay positions illustrates that Citizens United isn’t a slam-dunk for corporations. Corporations have customers, those customers have a wide set of political interests, and companies have to think about how those customers will react when they jam money in some politician’s pocket.
Corporations have mastered the existing framework of industry lobbying groups and PAC contributions that gets them most of what they want in DC. Big, direct contributions are far riskier than paying a few million to whatever trade group represents your industry in DC, and the payoff may not be worth the risk for the Targets of the world.
kommrade reproductive vigor
It’s very interesting that Target has apologized to its employees but (so far as I know) there’s been no apology to the customers.
This can only mean one thing:
Target is in the iron grip of fascist lieberul union thugs who want to force gay marriage down ReaLAMErica’s throat!
Oh, when will the Invisible Hand rescue this poor corporation!?
Albatrossity
Except it really wasn’t an apology. If you read what the CEO said, it’s a classic notpology. He’s sorry that he disappointed people who shop at Target, but expresses no regret for the action itself. He regrets only that people reacted to it…
Scott
I was just reading that Target tends to make a lot of donations to wingnut causes. Their reputation as One of the Good Ones is pretty much unearned.
debit
When this was reported in the Strib and several people commented that they would no longer shop at Target in protest, the wingers went nuts. How dare people not shop somewhere just because they disagree with a political decision of the company? The disconnect was odd, to say the least.
I’m still not shopping there. I don’t care if they apologize to the customers or not, or if they donate to a PAC for whoever wins the D primary here on the 10th. I’m done with both Target and Best Buy. I can get whatever electronics I need from the Apple Store; I can buy crappy clothes and knock off purses anywhere.
Swellsman
I don’t see this as much help at all. Sure, a company’s customers can target and lobby against and boycott a company when it turns out the company is giving to social causes that tick a lot of people off, but that isn’t where the danger of the Citizens United decision lies.
I was never overly concerned that the decision would allow our corporate masters and overlords to sweep in an anti-gay, militant pro-life ruling class. What concerns me is that it now makes it extremely easy for the economic elite that run — they don’t own, but they run — these large corporations to make sure that their economic interests are the only interests Congress is going to consider.
CEOs and other people holding upper-management corporate positions are now able to use the corporate coffers (which, supposedly, belong to the corporation first and, ultimately to the shareholders — but not to management) to lobby for tax breaks for the rich, corporate income tax giveaways, less safety regulation, more “tort reform” to shield them and theirs from liability, etc., etc., etc.
The general public doesn’t care enough about these issues — as important as they are — to keep track of what this management class is now going to be able to pull off, with someone else’s money.
Now, this isn’t the same with social issues. There are a lot of pro-equal rights for gays people and groups out there (I’m one of ’em) and this is a “hot-button” issue because, well, people tend to really care about stuff like this. So you’ll see lobbying on behalf of these issues.
But the real nuts-‘n-bolts economic leverage that Citizens United has placed in the hands of the management class . . . that leverage is very real, and I don’t see how it is realistic to think the rest of us are going to be in much of a position to counterbalance that leverage.
Frank
While they apologized, they didn’t indicate they would demand a refund or that they would make a similar donation to the Democratic candidate (whoever that may be). An apology was nice, but it doesn’t change the fact that they gave $150,000 to the Republican candidate and $0 to the Democratic candidate.
Furthermore, when can we expect apologies from Best Buy, Red Wing Shoes etc who also gave money to the Republican candidate but $0 to the Democratic candidate?
Alex S.
That’s why the DISCLOSE act was of heavy importance, but of course, it didn’t get passed.
p.a.
I thought the main threat of C.U. was the corporate non-disclosure aspect. How was Target ‘outed’? and will it be that easy to get this info in the future?
debit
@p.a.: Minnesota has disclosure laws. Not every state does.
jwb
@debit: I wonder how much longer MN will have this disclosure law. I have to imagine getting rid of it is now high on the priority list for corporate donors. In the particular case of Target I wonder how large a stake the Dayton family still has in the company. If it’s significant that might also explain why the CEO backtracked.
bemused
Steinhafel focused on the diversity angle which is important. However, I am just as furious about Target’s corporate donation and the Steinhafel’s personal donations to Pawlenty, Bachmann, Kline and other R’s. Pawlenty’s agendas with the firm support of MN R’s have devastated Minnesota economically and strangled education, LGA and health care funding. I don’t understand why these issues didn’t get as much attention as the GLBT issue.
Aris
You’re kidding, right? The payoff may not be worth the risk for the Targets of the world, only because Target is a highly visible retailer and can be boycotted. What will happen — and that’s the really scary consequence of Citizens United — is that huge multinationals you’ve never heard of before, and have no clue what they do, will now control US elections and there isn’t one damn thing anyone can do about it.
How do you boycott an investment company, a logistics company, an energy distribution company, etc? Good luck boycotting Koch Industries, for instance, or hundreds of other behind-the-scenes companies with billions in assets and no direct consumer access.
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Seanly
Hmmm, my choices are Wal Mart or Target. Think I’ll stick with Target. Not many choices where I live.
JGabriel
mistermix:
I’m sure the Targets of the World will eventually figure out ways to obscure their donations. For instance, until this happened, no one noticed that Target had also donated to supporters of Prop 8.
Furthermore, there probably needs to be something said about Target’s special brand of cluelessness here: a retailer with a focus on home design and decor decides to support politicians and organizations targetting gays?
What were they thinking? Our fuschia bathtowels SO don’t go with the homosexual agenda?
.
malraux
@Seanly: Amazon. Typically better prices, no sales tax, free shipping, better customer service, etc.
ksmiami
I am turning my back on most of corporate America anyway well and corporate china. F**K em. People today have too much crap anyway
Mayken
Yeah, that was one weak-ass apology. Characterizing it as “abject” is pure BS. Should I have had my sarcasm meter cranked up on that one, Mistermix?
JR
You’ve only got half of the problem for corporations.
The other half is that they can be pushed into contributing to a strong-arm candidate.
Corporate assholes like Don Blankenship (who bought both the WV Supreme Court and the WV legislature by paying himself an excessive amount and then contributing the excess to attack campaigns) are a separate problem from political assholes who want to auction themselves.
Say you’re the owner of a midsize, regional company based mostly in one district. Your Congressman is a jackass, but one who’s always been astute enough to throw you some government contracts in order to keep jobs in his constituency, so you’ve always given him $2k every cycle and posted a campaign sign in front of your headquarters. Now, he’s in a closer-then-usual race, or wants to build his power base by backing candidates in other races, or wants to run for Senate. Suddenly, your pockets are deeper than $2k and a sign. He uttered to a mutual friend “will no one rid me of this meddlesome debt?” and now you’re expected to make your business pony up tens of thousands of dollars. The burden has shifted from him trying to buy your gratitude to you being dependent on his grace and tax-dollar largesse.
That’s the “micro” problem.
The “macro” problem is when an industry leader realizes that it needs to scuttle an investigation or bill that could cost the company billions in the long run, making the expense of hundreds of millions in the short run a necessary business decision. Hell, the difference between Chairman Waxman and Chairman Barton alone could be worth billions to Exxon or BP in some contexts. (Last year, Exxon made a net profit of $17 billion–its lowest total in seven years. They can afford massive investment in any and every race they want.) So a party leader or committee chairman subtly lets them know that they can scuttle an inquiry, end a new task force proposal, or destroy a regulatory bill, if The Price is Right. Given the right contexts, corporations could now be both “free” and compelled to spend huge sums on campaigns.
Paul in KY
I don’t think they got the 150K back, so the place they sent the money to still got it (due to the odious Citizens United decision).
skeeball
this works fine for a retailer with target, but most people have no chance at having day-to-day interactions with goldman sachs, nor would goldman care about people getting upset
angler
Maybe Target and other consumer reliant corps have a downside here but a lot of others care less. Will ADM worry that people suddenly stop eating corn-based products? Goldman Sachs get the heebies about small deposits walking away? GE fret about losing toaster sales in exchange for more mil contracting?
CalD
I just keep finding myself unable to get all that excited about Citizens United. The problem is that I’m hard pressed to point to a single concrete example of how the actual quality government or the tone of our national political discussion has really improved since the advent of McCain-Feingold or public campaign financing or any of the other stuff we’ve tried so far that was supposed to give us cleaner elections and get the money out of politics. I mean who knows what the world would look like otherwise but it remains that the overall trend seems to have been generally downhill both before and after.
One could also argue that organized labor has lost a lot of power since then and general tone of how congress operates has gotten generally less professional, if one were so inclined. Not to necessarily infer causality from the correlation or suggest in any way that we should stop looking for solutions, but whatever the solution might be I don’t think we’ve found it yet. I still think the best idea I’ve heard so far is banning all campaign advertising, as they apparently do in Great Britain.
Paul in KY
@CalD: Target was able to give $150,000 to that organization, due only to the Citizens United decision. Is that good?
Gen. Jrod and his Howling Army
@CalD: Because the previous limitations on political bribery were too weak to be effective, we shouldn’t worry now that those limitations have been abolished?
The real problem here is that we have to depend on the same politicians who are collecting the bribe money to outlaw political bribery. Besides getting laws through congress and the President, our only option is to call a Constitutional convention, which requires a super-majority of state legislatures to call for it. State legislatures which are notorious for being bought off so cheaply that even the whores with the eight-balls are a bit embarrassed.
So we’re fucked.
DanF
@angler: That’s exactly right. We can boycott retail and specific businesses, but we can’t completely boycott coal, oil, agri-business, steel, lumber, the financial sector, etc…
mark k
Guess we’re all consumers now? instead of citizens?
and bullshit on Target. Did they contribute an equal amount to the other side? An apology? Bullshit!