Chamber: We’re Political “Reinsurance Salesmen”

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


One of the admirable things about Tom Donohue, the president of the US Chamber of Commerce, is that he can be frighteningly honest about what he does. On Charlie Rose this past Friday, he described the mission of the nation’s largest lobbying organization like this:

We said, ‘We’re going to be the reinsurance salesmen. Now, we’re never going to sell insurance, but we we’re the people that you could come to us, and when you were in trouble, and you’re another association, you couldn’t get something passed, we were the reinsurance people. You come in, and if you were our members, you were our supporters, we were going to be there for you.’

The “reinsurance” metaphor is apt in that the nation’s dirtiest industries certainly see the Chamber as too big to fail. As I explain in the January/February issue, Donohue has transformed the group from a staid business association to Washington’s most ruthless political mercenary. The Chamber allows its biggest donors to set its positions on key issues such as climate change, and it will set up a campaign promoting a company’s pet cause if it donates at least $1 million annually. In October, Donohue told the Wall Street Journal: “People have criticized us for helping industries or individual companies. What the hell do you think we do? That’s our business!” 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate