campaign contributions

January 11, 2023 - Over 100 corporations said they'd reconsider their political giving after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, but most continued donating to members of Congress who voted against certifying President Biden's 2020 election. Among them are Fortune 500 firms with headquarters in the South, including AT&T, Delta Air Lines, and Walmart.

June 7, 2022 - Daniel Defense is the Georgia-based company that manufactured the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle used in the massacre that left 19 schoolchildren and two teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas. The private company is a major federal contractor, inking its latest deal to provide arms for the U.S. Marshals Service 10 days after the Uvalde shooting. It's also been a generous contributor to Republican candidates and a pro-gun political action committee.   

June 3, 2022 - The recent National Rifle Association convention in Houston took place just days after a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in the Texas city of Uvalde. Some politicians scheduled to address the gathering canceled even before the shooting, some canceled afterwards — and some showed up anyway.

April 22, 2022 - Scores of people who have publicly spread lies about the results of the 2020 presidential election are seeking to be governor, attorney, or secretary of state — offices that run, oversee, and protect elections. At least 19 of them are running in the seven Southern states holding elections for those offices this year.

March 24, 2022 - Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, electric utilities across the South — including Duke Energy, Florida Power & Light, and Dominion Energy — are working in concert with fossil fuel interests to promote policies that discourage consumers from installing rooftop solar systems. Will regulators let them get away with it?

January 6, 2022 - A text sent to the Trump White House the day after the 2020 election outlining a strategy to have the Supreme Court decide the outcome of the presidential race reportedly came from the phone of former Energy Secretary and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Championing the election's overthrow didn't dim Perry's job prospects, though: He resigned his Trump administration post that December and the following month became a director for the general partner of Energy Transfer, the Dallas-based pipeline company led by billionaire Trump backer and longtime Perry associate Kelcy Warren, whose interests Perry profitably championed in Washington.

December 1, 2021 - Born of the New Deal's anti-poverty initiatives, rural electric cooperatives today serve 42 million Americans, most in the South, Midwest, and Great Plains. They still depend heavily on coal, but the $1.8 trillion spending bill passed by the House has a provision giving billions of dollars to speed their transition to renewables. Will it survive corporate Democrats' obstructionism in the Senate?