Curious Article, House Republicans Planning to Investigate Chamber of Commerce?
An unusual article in The Intercept is noted with the following headline: “House Republicans Planning to Investigate The Chamber of Commerce if They Take Majority.” The article is framed around the statements of an unnamed congressman, who appears –from the sourcing inference– to come from the House Judiciary Committee.
If you have followed the deep political weeds, you know the CoC is the anti-MAGA element within the America-First economic battle. However, it is also true the CoC and the Washington DC UniParty members they feed with lobbying dollars are peas and carrots, this includes the entire republican establishment apparatus.
The republican party investigating the CoC is never going to happen. It would be a move akin to Adam Schiff investigating the origin of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
The CoC is not only an organization made up of lobbyists for Wall Street, but the members within it are also the close personal friends of just about every influential GOP politician.
The framework for the investigation, as written in the article, surrounds the leftist Environmental Social Governance (ESG) outlook of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is factually accurate. The CoC is indeed an organization that is ‘all-in’ to position themselves for the benefits of climate change in the corporate sphere. If there is money to be made from ESG economics, the CoC is the lobbying firm shaping legislation toward that benefit.
However, the CoC is too entrenched with republican party apparatus to ever have their agenda challenged by the “republican” politicians in DC. So, what exactly is going on here? A MAGA-minded republican within the House Judiciary Committee wants to investigate the CoC?
In a way I could envision someone like Jim Jordan (Ohio) wanting to do exactly that. However, the internal republican elements in opposition to that goal would, unfortunately, still be too strong to allow something like a congressional investigation to take place. Therefore, the article as written is best viewed as an agenda surfacing from within the republican ranks carrying some alternative purpose.
Despite the chamber positioning, opposing ESG is a no-brainer for the conservative base.
Any and all attacks against the ESG agenda are unifying efforts that bring conservatives and MAGA-minded America First voters together.
Unfortunately, that political reality also underscores the usefulness of ESG opposition as a political tool, to the professionally republican apparatus. If you have followed the way DeceptiCons operate, now is the time to put on your Machiavellian hat.
The MAGA movement is -like the Tea Party that triggered it- essentially, at its core, a movement based on America-First economics. The goals and objectives of the multinational corporations are against the interests of MAGA. Hence, most corporate-aligned republicans (the establishment, per se’) are not supportive of the national MAGA movement. Corporate republicans are paid by the interests that MAGA supporters despise.
There is one potential 2024 candidate who has pushed back against the ESG effort, at a state level. Putting aside the substance of the pushback, a political talking point containing a history of action against the ESG effort is an arrow in the quiver of the Florida governor. Unfortunately, at the same time as the ESG concern has become a point of policy reference, the Florida governor is taking massive amounts of money from the same people who benefit from ESG.
So, the question becomes: with DeSantis becoming increasingly visible as a corporate republican, is the identified anti-ESG outline of the article a way to enhance the America-First bonafide’s of DeSantis, by creating a unifying economic platform position?
The anti-ESG position would be a way to deflect from being a corporate republican. In the aggregate this approach would diminish the concern of being a purchased corporate republican by giving the illusion of alignment with America First.
(The Intercept) – REPUBLICANS PLAN TO launch a variety of investigations into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many of its largest member corporations if they retake the majority in the House of Representatives this November. The probes, said a GOP member of Congress and multiple Republican operatives who requested anonymity to discuss plans that have yet to be made public, will marry Republicans’ newly formed hostility to the Chamber with the party’s mission to undermine the growth of the ESG investment sector.
The power of ESG — which stands for environmental, social, and governance — criteria to shape company valuations and behavior has become a major source of consternation among conservatives, who argue that companies that follow it are breaking with their fiduciary duty to maximize profits for investors.
The Chamber has infuriated Republicans by endorsing ESG criteria. “Today, for many companies, climate change and carbon emissions impact long-term value, thereby becoming a factor that retirement fund managers should take into consideration,” wrote a Chamber vice president in a typical statement in July 2020.
The congressman highlighted what he saw as the downfalls of that approach. Republicans accuse ESG advocates of using ESG criteria to punish American energy companies, only to then give an advantage to large, foreign energy companies over which the U.S. has little oversight anyways.
“How is it again that you can discourage investment in American energy when you own, or when you’re controlling board seats, of an American energy company, but you’re pushing it offshore to a Chinese energy company? Tell me you didn’t violate your fiduciary duty somehow,” said the congressman. “Then you throw that over into Judiciary [Committee hearings] and say, how do you reconcile this from an antitrust perspective? How can somebody actually be duty-of-care to the shareholders of one entity when you’re duty-of-care to the Chinese Communist Party’s-controlled energy company?”
“There is not going to be much to investigate,” said a Chamber spokesperson. “The Chamber is at the forefront of fighting the SEC climate, human capital and similar disclosures and believes fiduciaries must focus on maximizing return.” House Republicans, though, think the Chamber is having it both ways, criticizing the Securities and Exchange Commission rule but supporting the principle. (read more)
The lessons of the Tea Party being corrupted in 2011 and 2012 (collage reference below), through fraud and deceit by the republican establishment, should be the reference point for reviewing any DC centered effort to confront the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“Unite the Right” is code speak for let your guard down. We need to remove a lot more corporate republicans before we can lower our cynical guard….
… Battered Conservative, No More!
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