{"id":19150,"date":"2021-06-19T11:02:36","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T18:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=19150"},"modified":"2021-06-19T11:03:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T18:03:23","slug":"the-corporate-shill-award-goes-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2021\/06\/19\/the-corporate-shill-award-goes-to\/","title":{"rendered":"The Corporate Shill Award Goes To\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JUN 18, 2021  JULIA ROCK<\/a>, ANDREW PEREZ<\/a> (dailyposter.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Chamber presented bipartisanship awards to Republicans who voted to overturn the election and Democrats who blocked a $15 minimum wage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation\u2019s premier business lobbying group, brought lawmakers together on Thursday to give them awards for leading and working across party lines \u2014 in order to boost top corporate priorities<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chamber is one of the most powerful, well-funded lobbying organizations in Washington. In 2018, the trade association brought in $168 million<\/a> in revenue. Last year, it spent $82 million<\/a> on federal lobbying efforts. The Chamber doesn\u2019t publicly disclose its members, but its board of directors<\/a> includes executives at major companies across all sectors of the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the organization primarily backed Republicans for years, in 2019, the Chamber announced<\/a> a new \u201cstrategic decision\u201d: It would start rewarding bipartisanship and support politicians on both sides of the aisle. The change has mostly meant working to curry favor with conservative Democrats most likely to oppose key progressive agenda items, such as a $15 minimum wage, expanding Medicare, or implementing a Green New Deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, the Chamber held its \u201cSecond Annual Bipartisanship and Leadership Awards,\u201d where it announced the winners of its \u201cJefferson-Hamilton Award for Bipartisanship.\u201d The organization explained<\/a> that its bipartisanship scores are determined based on which lawmakers cosponsored the most bills introduced by a member of the other party \u2014 as long as the Chamber hadn\u2019t formally opposed the proposals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservative Democrats received some of the organization\u2019s highest marks for bipartisanship. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey received perfect 100-percent scores. Other Democratic winners included Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas and Abby Spanberger of Virginia, as well as Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manchin, Sinema, Tester, and King played key roles in blocking a $15 minimum wage<\/a>. Sinema and Manchin have been the most public opponents<\/a> of eliminating the Senate filibuster, a rule that allows Republicans to block most legislation if Democrats can\u2019t find 60 votes, arguing<\/a> that doing so would prevent Democrats and Republicans from working together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also included among the winners<\/a> of the Chamber\u2019s bipartisanship award were two Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election: Reps. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The awards followed the Chamber\u2019s announcement<\/a> that it would not suspend political support to lawmakers who voted against certifying President Joe Biden\u2019s victories in Pennsylvania and Arizona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many corporate political action committees said they would no longer donate to Republicans who voted to sustain objections to the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, the Chamber wrote<\/a> in March: \u201cWe do not believe it is appropriate to judge members of Congress solely based on their votes on the electoral certification.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Abraham Lincoln Award<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Chamber also bestowed its \u201cAbraham Lincoln Leadership for America Award\u201d to lawmakers who had proved most eager to toe the Chamber\u2019s corporate party line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince the start of the 116th Congress, the Chamber has urged members to cosponsor certain bills and refrain from cosponsoring others,\u201d the organization explained<\/a> on its website. \u201cThis award is based on the number of times a member took the recommended actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Chamber awarded the honor to more than 30 lawmakers, two members of the group \u2014 Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C, and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev. \u2014 attended the event to accept the accolade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the kind of conversations that business leaders love to hear because we\u2019re looking for solutions,\u201d Chamber Executive Vice President Neil Bradley told the senators during the awards show. \u201cThe CEOs who are gathered here today, when they’re presented with problems, they don’t often get to blame someone else, they\u2019ve got to come up with a solution. And I think what we like from talking with both of you, and the reason we’ve given you the Abraham Lincoln award is, you guys are both looking for solutions to problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Bradley asked the award winners how the Chamber could support them, Scott replied, \u201cI would say to use President Lincoln, the way that he governed, as an example. Bring people who don\u2019t agree together. His book, Team of Rivals, <\/em>is a really important work when you think about the fact that he articulates and says very clearly that some of his mentors are people who ran against him, some of his mentors are people who disagreed with him.\u201d (Doris Kearns Goodwin published the Abraham Lincoln biography, Team of Rivals<\/em>, in 2005.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosen also brought up Lincoln. \u201cIt’s hard to follow [Scott] because he’s so terrific,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as Abraham Lincoln said, \u2018A house divided cannot stand.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also encouraged members of the Chamber to meet lawmakers over private dinners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat you can do, as a business roundtable, whether it is at the national level, [is] bring us together for some off-the-record dinners, let us just talk and get to know each other and get to know you,\u201d Rosen said. \u201cOr whether it\u2019s in our own communities, we can do those same things. It’s important that you sometimes just sit down and get a chance to know people without necessarily a formal agenda. And that carries you through a lot of things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This newsletter relies on readers pitching in to support our journalism. If you like this story, please support <\/strong><\/em>The Daily Poster<\/strong>‘s work.<\/strong><\/em>Subscribe To The Daily Poster<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUN 18, 2021  JULIA ROCK, ANDREW PEREZ (dailyposter.com) The U.S. Chamber presented bipartisanship awards to Republicans who voted to overturn the election and Democrats who blocked a $15 minimum wage. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation\u2019s premier business lobbying group, brought lawmakers together on Thursday to give them awards for leading… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19150"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19152,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19150\/revisions\/19152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}