Big tobacco, big soda, big booze, big burger, casinos, and Viagra might sound like the ingredients for an extremely lively and health-hazardous night out on the town. They also represent some of New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s major financial backers.
A review of Gillibrand’s donations by the Washington Examiner via the political transparency organization OpenSecrets reveals a candidate willing to take donations from America’s biggest pushers of vice. She accepted the cash even as other Democrats began endorsing public health measures countering unhealthy lifestyles.
Some on the Left raised eyebrows in 2009 that the heiress to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat was willing to accept Altria Group — Phillip Morris USA’s parent company — as a top funder for her war chest.
In 2008, Altria Group gave over $20,000 to then-Rep. Gillibrand, even more than major Democratic donors like the Teamsters Union and the American Federation of Teachers. Executives at Altria followed their employer’s lead and cut checks for thousands of dollars, making Gillibrand the top recipient of tobacco money in the House.
What’s more, the 2020 hopeful worked as an attorney for Phillip Morris while the company and other cigarette makers were being sued during the 1990s over past practices and as the Clinton White House sought to enact sweeping anti-tobacco legislation. The Phillip Morris Company hired Gillibrand, then Kirsten Rutnick, in 1996 to fight back against Justice Department’s claims that the company had misled the public about the health impact of smoking.
Also high on the ledger of Gillibrand donors was the National Beer Wholesalers Association, which gave Gillibrand $10,000. A pattern emerged soon after, with Gillibrand repeatedly being the number one or two Democratic recipient of the organization’s donations through 2012.
From 2007 through 2012, beer, wine, and liquor companies or advocacy groups constituted some of Gillibrand’s most generous non-finance, insurance, or real estate-related donors.
Breakthru Beverage Group, one of the nation’s largest wine and liquor distributors, even bested Planned Parenthood from 2013 to 2018 with respect to direct campaign dollars donated to Gillibrand’s reelection funds.
Casinos and other gambling-related organizations have given nearly $30,000 to her PAC since 2007 as well, matching the kind of money Schumer received from insurance giants like AFLAC over a similar period of time. From 2009 to 2014, AFLAC gave Gillibrand only $5,000.
While then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and liberal members of the city council were pushing a ban on large-sized sodas in the summer of 2012, companies like PepsiCo Inc. and Coca-Cola Corporation, as well as the pro-soft drink trade organization American Beverage Association sent thousands of dollars to the senator’s leadership PAC the following year. New York’s Court of Appeals eventually rejected Bloomberg’s ban in 2014.
Two years prior, in 2010, when Bloomberg targeted salt in the city’s restaurants, donations from McDonald’s Corporation began trickling to Gillibrand, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
In 2012, Gillibrand found herself for the first time as one of the handful of Democrats who received a $5,000 donation money from the National Restaurant Association — the same group that would eventually legally challenge the city’s mandated salt warnings in 2015.
Much of Gillibrand’s campaign funds from the past several years remain unspent and can be used for her 2020 effort. It was not until February 2018 when she agreed to no longer accept corporate PAC money.
Other Democrats angling for the White House like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have generally strayed away from taking corporate donations in an effort to appear untainted by outside influence.
From 2013 through 2018, the majority of Warren’s campaign dollars have come from small individual contributions below $200. Equivalent donations only constituted 32.72 percent of Gillibrand’s financial haul during the same time period, while contributions under $200 made up just 5 percent of her contributions from 2005 to 2010.
On Monday, Gillibrand faced pointed questions from Fox News’ Chris Wallace over her relationship with Pfizer, the drugmaker responsible for popular drugs like Viagra.
“The most important thing we have to do is upend the way our democracy functions. Today, the wealthiest, most powerful lobbyists and special interest groups get to write bills in the dead of night,” she told Wallace.
In 2018 alone, Pfizer gave over $80,000 to Gillibrand, more than any other member of Congress.
