These “Top 10 Donors to 2023 Legislsative Candidate” numbers, courtesy of VPAP, are highly revealing in several ways.
- First off, check out the huge amount of money to Republican candidates from Glenn Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC, and note WHERE that money came from – millions from far-right, out-of-state billionaires, such as these people (Harlan Crow, “whose large collection of Third Reich memorabilia and Nazi ephemera has made him an especially troubling relationship of Justice Thomas”; Ronald Cameron, “the secretive titan behind one of America’s largest poultry companies, who is also one of the President’s top donors, is ruthlessly leveraging the coronavirus crisis—and his vast fortune—to strip workers of protections”; etc.). Repulsive.
- In stark contrast, the #1 donor to Democrats was a group, Clean Virginia, whose highly desirable goals are “to ensure the clean energy transition is equitable, affordable and accessible for everyone”; “to fight corruption in Virginia politics”; and that “our democracy should serve everyday Virginians over special interests.” Quite a contrast with the *horrible* people pouring millions of dirty dollars into Glenn Youngkin’s coffers, in their attempt to buy Youngkin a hard-right, anti-reproductive-freedom governing “trifecta.” Thank goodness they (barely) failed!
- Then there’s Dominion Energy, a state-created/protected monopoly utility which theoretically is supposed to be state-REGULATED as well, but in practice throws wads of $$$ around in order to ensure that they’re only “regulated” in ways that are acceptable to…yep, Dominion Energy. Crazy. So in 2023, Dominion ended up giving (out of the goodness of their corporate “hearts,” no doubt! LOL) $4.3 MILLION to Republican Senate and House of Delegates incumbents, and $3.3 MILLION to Democratic Senate and House of Delegates incumbents. So obviously, this entire system needs to be cleaned up, preferably by banning this state-“regulated” monopoly utility from throwing money around in an attempt to buy influence with the very folks who are supposed to be regulating the company. We badly, badly need serious campaign finance and ethics reform in Virginia – ASAP!
- On the Democratic side, there are big donations from “good guys” – environmental groups, organized labor/working people, gun violence prevention groups, women’s reproductive freedom groups, big progressive donor Sonja Smith, etc. In STARK contrast, Republicans’ money came OVERWHELMINGLY from right-wing sources, which of course means anti-reproductive-freedom, pro-gun, anti-LGBTQ, anti-labor, anti-environment, pro-big-corporations, pro-Trump, etc. Now, the media loves to “both sides” everything, but the fact is, you really can’t get a starker contrast than the sources of funding for Democrats (overwhelmingly “good guys”) and Republicans (overwhelmingly REALLY “bad guys”)…
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