Revealing Corporate Largesse

This underground pipeline is a dream come true for corporations. It lets them elect anti-consumer, anti-worker, anti-environment governors without having to let their customers know they’re doing it.

But — oops — in September, the group made a coding error in its database of dark-money donors, exposing the names of a mess of the GOP’s secret-money corporations. Suddenly, the chieftains were buck-naked in front of their customers, employees, and stockholders.

And all those folks were startled and angered to learn that the companies they supported were working against their interests. Here are some of the corporate dreamers that were pulling the wool over our eyes: Aetna, Aflac, Blue Cross, Coca-Cola, Comcast, ExxonMobil, Hewlett-Packard, Koch Industries, Microsoft, Novartis, Pfizer, Shell Oil, United Health, Verizon, Walgreen, and Wal-Mart.

Fred Wertheimer, a lifelong champion of campaign finance reform, noted that this boo-boo offers “a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the (Republican) Governors Association is selling it.”

Originally posted at OtherWords.Org.

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This has been reposted from the Campaign for America’s Future.

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Image from Jeff Gates @ Flickr.