In what has formed a debacle in the public domain, Marriott International Inc, the world’s largest hotel company, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) have disclosed that they will suspend donations to U.S. lawmakers who recently voted against certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
In a statement made available to newsmen, Marriott spokeswoman Connie Kim said “We have taken the destructive events at the Capitol to undermine a legitimate and fair election into consideration and will be pausing political giving from our Political Action Committee to those who voted against certification of the election”.
On their part, BCBSA, the federation of 36 independent companies that provide health care coverage for one in three Americans, said “in light of this week’s violent, shocking assault on the United States Capitol, and the votes of some members of Congress to subvert the results of November’s election by challenging Electoral College results, BCSBA will suspend contributions to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy.”
It would be recalled that five people lost their lives, including a police officer, when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the formal recognition of his election defeat.
Local reports have it that JPMorgan Chase averred that it will pause all contributions from its political action committee for at least the next six months, saying “the focus of business leaders, political leaders, civic leaders right now should be on governing and getting help to those who desperately need it most right now. There will be plenty of time for campaigning later.”
In a similar action, Citigroup Inc said in a memo to employees that it reviewed lawmakers who led the charge against the certification of the Electoral College results and found it gave $1,000 to the campaign of Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
Candi Wolff, head of Citi’s global government affairs, in a statement said “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law”
“We intend to pause our contributions during the quarter as the country goes through the Presidential transition and hopefully emerges from these events stronger and more united.”
Also, a Walmart Inc spokesman said it conducts a review after every election cycle to “examine and adjust our political giving strategy. As we conduct our review over the coming months we will factor last week’s events into our process.”
It was gathered that other companies, including Ford Motor Co, said they have made no decisions about changes to giving.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson of U.S digital payments company Stripe Inc has disclosed that the company will stop processing payments for Trump’s campaign website following the riot.
