A total of 32 House and Senate Republicans helped push President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure package over the finish line, most of whom have been showered with campaign cash from the leading lobbying group behind the bill — the United States Chamber of Commerce.
The story is a fixture of Washington, D.C.’s swamp culture.
Elected lawmakers run for office, grabbing donations from special interest groups, then, after their election, voting for legislation supported by those special interest groups despite their constituents’ opposition.
In the case of Biden’s infrastructure bill, the Chamber had been lobbying for the measure since the start of the year. By July, Open Secrets reported that the Chamber had spent more than $12 million lobbying for the bill in the second quarter, alone. In the first quarter, the Chamber spent $17.5 million lobbying for the bill.
The Chamber’s intense lobbying focus proved successful when 13 House Republicans voted with Democrats last week to send the bill to Biden’s desk after 19 Senate Republicans, in August, helped pass the bill with Democrats.
The 32 House and Senate Republicans who voted for the bill are:
- John Katko (R-NY)
- Don Bacon (R-NE)
- Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ)
- Fred Upton (R-MI)
- Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)
- Don Young (R-AK)
- Tom Reed (R-NY)
- Chris Smith (R-NJ)
- Andrew Garbarino (R-NY)
- Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)
- Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
- Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH)
- David McKinley (R-WV)
- Dan Sullivan (R-AK)
- Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
- Mike Crapo (R-ID)
- Roy Blunt (R-MO)
- Richard Burr (R-NC)
- Deb Fischer (R-NE)
- Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
- Rob Portman (R-OH)
- Thom Tillis (R-NC)
- Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
- Jim Risch (R-ID)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
- Roger Wicker (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- John Hoeven (R-ND)
- Susan Collins (R-ME)
- Mitt Romney (R-UT)
Campaign contributions reviewed by Breitbart News show that all but nine of the House and Senate Republicans took donations from the Chamber in their recent election and re-election bids.
Tillis, representing the swing state of North Carolina, received $15,000 from the Chamber’s official political action committee (PAC) in recent election cycles, the most of any of the lawmakers.
Sullivan, Blunt, Graham, Portman, McConnell, and Collins each have taken $10,000 from the U.S. Chamber PAC in recent election cycles from 2015 to this year. Cassidy, Capito, Burr, Fischer, Murkowski, and Risch have each received $5,000 from the PAC, while Grassley last received money, $1,500, from the PAC in 2016.
In the House, Katko, Bacon, Garbarino, Fitzpatrick, and Gonzalez each received $6,000 from the U.S. Chamber PAC between 2020 and this year. Upton and Reed each took $5,000 while Van Drew and Young each accepted $2,500 checks from the PAC.
Passage of the bill, through a coalition of corporate-friendly Republicans and nearly all Democrats, serves as the first test for the Chamber’s relationship with the GOP since it began endorsing Democrats in elections last year and has rebuked economic nationalism in favor of its globalist ideology that favors the multinational corporations it represents.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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