By JIM SALTER, Related Press
O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — A number of extra firms have suspended marketing campaign contributions to Sen. Josh Hawley within the wake of final week’s assault on the U.S. Capitol, and a political motion committee of Republicans against President Donald Trump is pressuring remaining Missouri donors to desert the GOP senator.
The well being care IT agency Cerner Corp. based mostly in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, mentioned Tuesday that it’s going to droop contributions “to any candidate or official who took half in or incited violence final week in Washington, D.C.” Spokeswoman Misti Preston mentioned the corporate is not “naming particular names,” however Cerner’s political motion committee has donated $10,000 to a Hawley-sponsored PAC over the previous two years.
Late Monday, two St. Louis-based firms — the utility Ameren Corp. and the monetary agency Edward Jones — mentioned they had been suspending marketing campaign contributions. The Chicago-based regulation agency Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner additionally introduced a halt, a minimum of quickly, to political contributions. The agency relies in Chicago however is among the many largest in St. Louis.
Ameren, Edward Jones and the regulation agency have contributed to Hawley, who was a pacesetter of efforts to problem the 2020 presidential election outcomes and voted to query the Electoral Faculty depend, even after a mob of Trump’s supporters broke into the Capitol on Jan 6.
A number of distinguished Missouri Republicans have distanced themselves from Hawley because the riot, together with former Sen. John Danforth and main GOP donors Sam Fox and businessman David Humphreys.
Hallmark Playing cards, based mostly in Kansas Metropolis, went even additional, saying on Monday it needed Hawley and Republican Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas to return worker marketing campaign donations. The corporate mentioned its workers donated $7,000 to Hawley and $5,000 to Marshall over the last two years by way of the corporate’s PAC.
Steve Schmidt, a longtime Republican official and a founding father of the anti-Trump Lincoln Undertaking, wrote on Twitter Monday evening that the group plans to buy full-page advertisements in Missouri newspapers itemizing all of Hawley’s donors who’re demanding their a refund. It additionally plans to place a highlight on those that are nonetheless financing Hawley’s “rebellion and sedition,” Schmidt wrote.
E-mail messages in search of remark from Hawley’s workplace weren’t instantly returned.
Ameren, in a press release, known as Jan. 6 “a profoundly unhappy day in American historical past.” The corporate cited these “troubling occasions” as a part of the explanation it was suspending all federal PAC contributions.
Edward Jones mentioned it determined to “pause” contributions to all elected officers.
“Our PAC has a protracted historical past of bipartisan advocacy, and we need to be sure that any elected officers we help share the values and the views of the agency. We strongly condemn the violence in our nation’s capital, and be a part of with different CEOs, authorities and civic leaders and members of the enterprise group in calling for a peaceable transition of energy, which is a trademark of our democracy,” a press release from Edward Jones mentioned.
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