Why BP Should Pay Attention To Best Buy's and Target's Political Donations
Target is sick of being a big, fat bullseye for gay rights advocates, and today issued a rather tepid apology to its employees for its $150,000 dollar donation to Minnesota GOP candidate Tom Emmer -- a radical anti-gay conservative.
But what about Best Buy? As I wrote about last week, Best Buy gave nearly as much -- $100,000 -- to Tom Emmer as well, a candidate who wants to end the state's electronics recycling law, banish its pollution agency, and scoffs at green jobs, renewable energy and manmade climate change. Minnesota will be a very different state if he becomes governor.
Now, I don't have the inside track on the notes Best Buy sends its employees, but so far there hasn't been a peep. For a company that likes to burnish its green credentials as much as my dad shows off his latest Best Buy gadget, this donation deserves at the barest minimum an explanation.
Yet despite what this donation says about Best Buy, there are even bigger issues to worry.
That's because it's not normal for Target or Best Buy to give that much money to a political candidate. In fact, before the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision this year, which now allows corporations to give unlimited funds to political candidates, donations in such huge sums would never have been possible.
These days, not only can companies like Best Buy and Target shower vast amounts of what, to them, is like pocket change, they are doing so under the guise of vaguely-named political action committees, such as Minnesota Forward.
What's even worse, from an environmental standpoint, is that Target and Best Buy will not be the only corporations to take advantage of this ruling.
Consider this: in the last 20 years, BP has given $6 million dollars to all federal candidates. Now, don't get me wrong, that's a lot of money, and it clearly earns them influence. But if your break that down, that's only $300,000 a year, or $600,000 for every two-year election cycle. So, with campaign spending limits: $600,000 a year to all federal candidates combined. That's compared to Target's $150,000 to one single political candidate, at the state level, now that unlimited contributions are allowed.
Now, just imagine what BP -- a company that has a hell of a lot more at stake in government policies than Best Buy and Target right now -- might be giving to political action committees all around the country. According to MoveOn.org, some of America's largest corporations are gearing up to spend more than $300 million before this November.
And as much as Best Buy's and Target's donation fly in the face of their professed social values, the reason these companies support Tom Emmer has nothing to do with his thoughts on gays or the environment. It's because he's pro-business. Which candidates will benefit from Citizens United? You can bet many more with radical pro-business views. I shudder to think about it.
For now, I think the best thing to do is to keep the pressure on Best Buy and Target (even despite the apology) -- boycott the stores to make sure all corporations get spooked by the public consequences of these large donations.
In the case of BP, however, that strategy is problematic. BP is not nearly as accountable to its customers as Best Buy or Target. In fact, thousands of people are already boycotting BP, but it's the individual gas station owners who mostly feel the pain, not BP the corporation. And while the company's stock price has plummeted given the immense cleanup and compensation costs, its looking like BP will come out floating on top.
This is why we also need states to figure out a legal way to put corporations back in their place. A group called Move to Amend is working towards amending state constitutions to do that, so you can sign on to their cause here as well.
Photo Credit: Fantaz, Flickr User
Jess Leber
is a Change.org editor. She most recently covered climate and energy issues as a reporter in Washington, D.C
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