Who financed Rep. Mike Kelly’s reelection campaign?
By: Nate Craig
Tags: Elections, Corporate Citizenship, Congress, Campaign Finance, Election 2020

Who financed Rep. Mike Kelly’s reelection campaign?

Rep. Mike Kelly held onto national attention for several weeks by filing lawsuits demanding that the PA Supreme Court -as well as the US Supreme court, throw out 2.5 million mail-in ballots from PA voters. His decision is no spurprise. By petitioning to disenfranchise thousands of his own constituents -and millions throughout the state- he merely continued his long-time habit of blindly marching to President Trump’s orders, and parroting his altered facts.

The incumbent won a 6th term in Congress this year with substantial help from corporate allies. Two of the top contributors to his reelection were CVS Health ($17,000), and Bank of America ($15,600), as hundreds of others gave his campaign similar amounts, which doesn’t include the unlimited -and unreported- amounts of money these companies and their executives can give through super PACs.

CVS’s support for Rep. Kelly, shouldn’t be surprising. They did not report their outside spending because Citizens United has made reporting optional. Their contributions to the candidates were only a slice of what they’ve given to the Republican National Committees for US Senate and the US House.

Rep. Kelly received a $17,000 contribution, which was only slightly higher than CVS’s support for Sen. Mitch McConnell at $14,000. How the decision was made to give the maximum PAC support to Rep. Mike Kelly is unclear. Employees are often given a vote as to how the company is going to use some portion of the company’s PAC spending. That’s how an additional $7,000 above the PAC’s direct contribution limit was given.

Photo found at Goerie.com’s Nov 28th article: “Pa. Supreme Court dismisses Mike Kelly-led lawsuit that sought to invalidate mail-in votes”

Hundreds of corporate donors contributed big and small amounts to Rep. Mike Kelly’s bid to win reelection this year. In known contributions, those corporate sponsors gave Kelly $2.2 million to defeat Democrat Kristy Gnibus, who raised $580,000. By adding their financial support, these corporate sponsors gave Rep. Kelly’s conspiracy theory-peddling their thumbs up.

With year-end campaign finance reports still forthcoming, opensecrets.org shows that Rep. Mike Kelly’s strongest support came from insurance and pharmaceutical industry PACs. Two of the top contributors to his reelection were CVS Health ($17,000), and Bank of America ($15,600).

Consumers and employees must hold corporations accountable for their political contributions, or those companies will continue to endorse candidates like Rep. Mike Kelly, as well as the extremism they bring to Washington.

Dozens of large and small insurance companies (full list of insurers can be found here) saw Rep. Kelly’s brand of Trumpism worth supporting with PAC money. Cigna Corp ($10,000), Pacific Life Insurance ($10,000), TransAmerica ($10,000), Thrivent Financial ($9,500), Lincoln National Corp ($9,000). Without these boatloads of PAC cash, this kind of politics wouldn’t be able to persist.

OpenSecrets.org’s summary of known contributors to Rep. Mike Kelly’s 2020 campaign for US Congress.

Without big and small contributions from these companies, Republican candidates could never keep winning their elections. Prudential Financial ($8,500), MetLife Inc ($8,000), Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance ($7,500), New York Life Insurance ($7,500), AFLAC Inc ($5,500), Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield ($5,300), Blue Cross & Blue Shield Assn ($5,200), Nationwide ($3,500).

Rep. Mike Kelly represents the most dangerous extremism within today’s Republican Party. Not only did he spear-head the efforts to thwart democracy, he attacked public health officials’ attempts to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

That didn’t stop 42 pharmaceutical company PACs from giving over $140,000 to his campaign. Why so many? It’s harder to make corporations accountable when a lot of companies give various, and seemingly random amounts.

Big names include: Merck & Co ($10,000), Abbott Laboratories ($9,000), Amgen Inc ($8,500), Pfizer Inc ($7,500), AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals ($5,000), Johnson & Johnson ($5,000), Viatris Inc ($5,000) Novartis Corp ($4,500) Sanofi US ($4,500 ), GlaxoSmithKline ($3,500), Bayer Corp ($2,500), AmerisourceBergen Corp ($2,000), Eli Lilly & Co ($1,000), Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA ($1,000).

But as we are shopping for gifts this holiday season, perhaps we should keep in mind that the executives at some of the following retailers found Rep. Mike Kelly’s politics palpable.

Companies often try to give customers the impression that they’re liberal in liberal areas, but the money they spend in Washington sometimes tells a different story. Lowe’s Companies ($8,500), Home Depot ($7,500), Walmart Inc ($4,000), Target Corp ($2,500), Gap Inc ($2,000), National Assn of Chain Drug Stores ($2,000), Best Buy ($1,000), Walgreens ($1,000).

Influence in Washington is designed to have complicated twists and turns that are hard to follow. That’s why diving into campaign finance is likely to make your head spin until you get your bearings.

To support my political writing: ko-fi.com/writernate