Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell bluntly warned Republican senators in a private meeting not to sign on to a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley aimed at limiting corporate money bankrolling high-powered outside groups, telling them that many of them won their seats thanks to the powerful super PAC the Kentucky Republican has long controlled.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
(CNN) - Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell bluntly warned Republican senators in a private meeting not to sign on to a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley aimed at limiting corporate money bankrolling high-powered outside groups, telling them that many of them won their seats thanks to the powerful super PAC the Kentucky Republican has long controlled.
According to multiple sources familiar with the Tuesday lunch meeting, McConnell warned GOP senators that they could face “incoming” from the “center-right” if they signed onto Hawley’s bill.
But there’s also no love lost between McConnell and Hawley, who has long criticized the GOP leader and has repeatedly called for new leadership atop their conference.
Just on Tuesday, Hawley told CNN that it was “mistake” for McConnell to be “standing with” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, in their push to tie Ukraine aid to an Israel funding package.
Hawley’s new bill, called the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act, is aimed at reversing the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that loosened campaign finance laws – an effort that aligns the conservative Missouri Republican with many Democrats.
According to a list of senators obtained by CNN, McConnell singled out a number of lawmakers who benefited from his outside group over the last three cycles: Mike Braun of Indiana, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Ted Budd of North Carolina, JD Vance of Ohio and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
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Let them eat their own faces. Corruption of these folks Tammany Hall level is where we are again.
Did you see that hawley basically wants to over turn Citizens United? That could be major!
He doesn’t though. It is all culture war posturing:
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Hawley bellowed this summer, “Corporations are not people.” The crowd, this one gathered in Washington for the social conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition summit, barely stirred. But then they erupted when the populist senator continued, “I’ve got news for these woke corporations: We are not going to surrender this nation to the cultural Marxists in the C-suite.”
This is typical conservative behavior. The moment the status quo does not benefit themselves, they become stridently progressive on that one issue.
Notice the subtext. Woke corporations and C-suite Marxists. He’s opposed to corporations funding his opponents, and he finally got around to doing the math on Citizens United and realized that most corporations aren’t run by fundamentalists and bigots.
Money isn’t speech, and corporations aren’t people. I’ve always said that. But the only reason Hawley agrees with me now is that the “people” are “saying” they don’t want to be associated with fascists and terrorists.
It pisses me off that I agree with Hawley about anything, but here we are.
I think it’s always important to remember that people like him aren’t evil incarnate they just have radically different worldviews, the majority of which I vehemently disagree with, but there’s always some commonality out there somewhere. Cory Booker is working with Hawley on child labor prevention.
It’s hard to believe a Republican is pushing a piece of non-terrible legislation for a change.
Yes! I’m confused! Hawley has always been a shithead. What’s changed!!?! I’m not complaining, just curious… and a little suspicious.
He’s still a shit head, he just probably thinks this will limit corporate money to Dems, plus most of the Republican party takes donations from shady or compromised sources like the NRA, so it doesn’t hurt them as much to limit corporate contributions.
He may actually be dumb enough to believe that such legislation would hurt Democrats more than Republicans.
Yes just keep handing our democracy over to the highest bidders and see how this all ends
You make it sound like that’s not the express aim of the mainstream republican politicians. This isn’t a bug to them, it’s a feature.
One of the most successful con-jobs ever was convince people that all Democrats and all Republicans are the same because all it does it create apathy among democratic voters and help Republicans get elected.
The Leadership PAC has unlimited contributions.
