Nine heads of Indiana-based corporations wrote a letter to Gov. Mike Pence opposing the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, among them Emmis Communications. But it turns out many of the companies helped put Pence in office in the first place.
Of course it took more than just Gov. Pence to turn the bill into a law – it was sent to him by the Indiana legislature.
Among the companies that participated in the letter are Angie’s List, Anthem, Cummins, Dow AgroSciences, Eli Lilly, Emmis Communications, Indiana University Health, Roche Diagnostics and Salesforce, according to an article in International Business Times.
Six of the companies donated to Pence’s gubernatorial campaign, despite the fact that he was actively opposing extending civil rights laws to include the LGBT community in Congress.
High profile Angie’s List exec William Oesterle was said to have kicked in $150K to the Pence campaign. In addition, IBT noted that some of these companies, notably Cummins, also helped fund Pence’s congressional career.
Emmis is one of the three that did not contribute to the Pence gubernatorial fund, along with Salesforce and IUH.
Indiana has since acted to make it clear that the law does not provide a means of discriminating against the members of the LGBT community.
RBR-TVBR observation: Aren’t politics fun? It is a rare thing when the views of any one politician square up perfectly with the views of any one voter or corporation.
The bottom line for most businesses is that the nation may be politically divided, but the dollars they need to bring in do not come with a (D) or an (R) printed on them.
On the other hand, observers of the business world note that it is increasingly important for corporations to take a stand on certain issues of the day. That is one reason so many companies try to associate themselves with the green movement and other issues.
Emmis happens to have a strong and ideologically pure footing in this instance since it hasn’t made an effort to assist a politician it disagrees with on this one issue, at the very least.
However, in the case of Angie’s List, we suspect more people will remember its strong opposition to RFRA than its cash contributions to Pence. And it very well could be that Pence’s politics as manifested in the way Indiana is run ultimately benefit Angie’s List.
The bottom line isn’t anything new. It’s simply that politics are messy and it’s a game corporations should play with care.
