Our Corporate Congressman

Last week’s piece on Rep. Peter DeFazio (“Mr. DeFazio Goes to Washington (Again),” EW 9/3) ends by saying that his campaign has raised $1.9 million so far. What it doesn’t say is that only $285,000, or 15 percent, comes from small individual donations less than $200. His opponent has raised $875,000 from such donations, three times that of DeFazio and making up 67 percent of his total. It ought to be embarrassing to DeFazio, who promotes himself as “grassroots,” to be so thoroughly out-grassrooted by the likes of a Trump-aligned Republican.

If this has you worried, don’t be. Corporate PACs got it covered. Business PACs have donated $777,000 to DeFazio and none to his opponent. If you want to know what corporations to thank, try war profiteer Lockheed Martin or search for “worst company in the world” to learn about environmental and human rights disaster, Cargill. Both companies recently became first-time donors to DeFazio.

The piece explains that DeFazio, now at the pinnacle of his career, “sets his own agendas and picks the bills he wants passed.” The result is the Moving Forward Act, described in the piece as “climate-friendly.” Greenpeace says it “simply does not do enough to end the era of dirty fossil fuels,” but that Republicans “have promised to obstruct this bill.” This November, “lesser evil” voting won’t be only at the top of the ballot. In addition to voting, you may want to remind your congressman who he works for — and it isn’t his rotten corporate backers.

Colin Moran 

Eugene