◼ POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek March 1, 202131JACQUELINE
MARTIN/AP
PHOTO;
DATA:
CENTER
FOR
RESPONSIVE
POLITICS,
2020
CYCLE
THE BOTTOM LINE Jan. 6 was a red line for big donors to Brooks
and other GOP election objectors. But companies may need
access to members of Congress more than members need them.He was the first Republican in Congress to say
he’d object to certification of the Electoral College
votes, leading a charge to overturn Biden’s vic-
tory. The 139 House lawmakers who ultimately
objected raised a combined $365 million for their
campaigns in 2020, with donations from almost
every sector of the economy, Federal Election
Commission data show.
In the days after the riot, AT&T, Marriott
International, JPMorgan Chase, Facebook, and
Airbnb were among the companies that announced
they would either cut giving to those who voted
against certifying the election results or would sus-
pend campaign donations altogether.
Corporate money has stopped flowing to Brooks,
who sits on the House’s Armed Services and Science,
Space, and Technology committees, and whose dis-
trict around Huntsville includes top technology,
defense, and aerospace companies. Some previous
donors have issued statements critical of Brooks’s
actions on Jan. 6, after saying nothing in the weeks
leading up to the insurrection as the congressman
egged on calls to “stop the steal.”
The defense industry was Brooks’s biggest
backer. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and
Boeing have each given $10,000 to Brooks per elec-
tion cycle, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics. All three suspended campaign giving
entirely after the Capitol riot.
His second-largest funding source was the real
estate industry. Hometown Lenders Inc., with
headquarters in Huntsville, and its employees gave
$14,000 to Brooks in 2020, all but $2,000 of that from
workers, according to corporate counsel Josh White.
“Obviously, we do not agree with the incitement of a
mob,” White says. “We regretted the way he handled
that situation. And we support the duly elected pres-
ident of the United States and the U.S. Constitution,
and we don’t support any violence.”
Birmingham-based Regions Financial Corp.,
which gave Brooks $6,000 from an employee- funded
PAC for his 2020 reelection, is suspending all giving
and asking staff for feedback on how and whether
to resume it, according to spokesman Jeremy King.
The suspension will last “as long as it takes.”
Alabama Power, long one of the state’s top polit-
ical players, has given Brooks’s campaign and lead-
ership PAC $72,000 since 2014. Its parent company
is reevaluating whom it funds, says Southern Co.
spokesman Schuyler James Baehman. Asked about
Brooks, Baehman sent a statement condemning the
Capitol violence, saying the company would dis-
continue support for politicians who don’t respect
democracy or the law. “Those who advocate or per-
petrate violent crimes against our country must beheld accountable,” the statement reads. “Our belief
in government, respect for the democratic process
and adherence to the rule of law always have been
at the core of our engagement.”
Some of the corporate giving to Brooks was
likely meant to support the Republican leadership
in Congress more than Brooks himself, says David
Mowery, a Montgomery political consultant who’s
worked for candidates from both parties. The busi-
ness community seemed “to tolerate him more than
out-and-out support him,” Mowery says.
But support him they did.
In 2011, Brooks said he’d do “anything short of
shooting” to drive undocumented immigrants from
the U.S. In the next election cycle, his big donors
included Huntsville space contractor Dynetics,
which is part of Leidos Holdings ($22,000); defense
company Raytheon Technologies ($17,500); and
Lockheed ($15,750).
In 2018, Brooks expressed skepticism of human-
caused climate change and pushed his own theory
of why oceans are rising during a hearing that fea-
tured a Stanford climate expert. “Every time you
have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is depos-
ited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise,
because now you have less space in those oceans,
because the bottom is moving up,” Brooks said. In
the next election cycle, his donors included Alabama
Power ($20,000); Hometown Lenders ($14,000);
Northrop Grumman ($12,504); closely held Franklin
L. Haney Co., a real estate company ($10,800); and
Boeing ($10,754).
Eleanor Neff Powell, an associate professor at
the University of Wisconsin at Madison who stud-
ies campaign money, doubts the corporate freeze-
out will last because companies fear losing access
to congressional committees. “I’m pretty skeptical
that the folks doing the across-the-board pause can
keep it up,” she says.
The companies may need Brooks more than he
needs them. Small donors make up an ever-greater
proportion of giving, as candidates learn the power
of crowdfunding and local races become national
phenomena. Brooks may be calling on one-click sup-
porters soon.
On Feb. 8, Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, a
Republican serving his sixth term, announced he
will retire in 2022. Brooks said the same day he might
run for the seat.
The outcry over his comments on Jan. 6 has been
“a wonderful blessing,” Brooks said in a statement.
�Margaret Newkirk and Brett Pulley, with Bill Allison▼ Top donors to
147 House and Senate
lawmakers who voted to
reject election results$1.5m
House Freedom Fund$1.4m
American Bankers
Association$1.3m
Majority Committee PAC$1.3m
National Association
of Realtors$1.0m
Comcast$1.0m
AT&T$981k
Koch Industries$923k
National Automobile
Dealers Association$794k
Lockheed Martin$769k
National Beer
Wholesalers Association$763k
Northrop Grumman$746k
Eye of the Tiger PAC$737k
Raytheon Technologies$709k
Credit Union National
Association$692k
National Association of
Home Builders$690k
Huck PAC$683k
American Crystal Sugar$674k
Blue Cross and Blue
Shield Association$668k
United Parcel Service$663k
Boeing