Advocates Urge Top Brands to End Funding for Extremist GOP Attorney General Group
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, April 10, 2024
CONTACT: Brett Abrams | brett@unbendablemedia.com
Advocates Urge Top Brands to End Funding for Extremist GOP Attorney General Group
Donations to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) from T-Mobile, CVS and its subsidiaries, General Motors, Elevance Health Contradict Companies’ Commitments to Equality and Social Responsibility
Campaign Highlights How Far-Right GOP Attorneys General Are Using State’s Legal Power to End Abortion, Attack LGBTQ+ Rights, Undermine Social Justice, and Assail Democracy
WASHINGTON, DC — Ahead of the 2024 general election, UltraViolet Action, a leading national gender justice organization, has launched a new campaign urging some of the nation’s leading consumer brands with a proclaimed commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion- to stop providing financial support to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), a far-right political organization actively working to advance policies that harm underrepresented minorities and other groups.
The campaign will focus on specific companies that are major funders of RAGA. This includes T-Mobile, CVS, General Motors, and Elevance Health (Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield), which have collectively contributed at least $1.3 million to RAGA since 2020. By seeking to mobilize employee resource groups with a vested interest in their employer’s commitment to social justice, UltraViolet Action and its partner, True North, hope to spark change from within and ensure these companies live up to their stated values.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN HERE: magaraga.com
Through coordinated legal action and advocacy, RAGA and the state attorneys general it supports have sought to eliminate abortion access, assail LGBTQ+ rights, undermine social and racial justice, deny the outcome of the 2020 election, and encourage supporters to join the Stop the Steal rally on January 6th, 2021, that led to mass violence at the United States Capitol. Companies that claim to support equal rights and democratic values are undermining those very priorities through their support of RAGA.
RAGA-funded AGs have used their office to endorse President Trump’s anti-rule of law claim that he should be immune from all criminal prosecution and to strip away rights and freedoms. As examples:
- Lynn Fitch, Mississippi’s Attorney General, helped overturn Roe v. Wade, which she called “egregiously wrong.” AG Fitch argued that eliminating abortion rights will “empower” women “to pursue both career and success and a rich family life.”
- Ken Paxton, Texas’ Attorney General, stated he would be “willing and able” to defend laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy.
- Kris Kobach, Kansas’s Attorney General, alongside 15 other RAGA AGs have attacked a proposal by the EPA to remove 9 million lead water lines across the country. In a comment letter to the EPA, Kobach and his colleagues call the proposed rule “unworkable, underfunded, and unnecessary.” They also say the benefits of removing lead pipes is “entirely speculative.”
- Todd Rokita, who is running for re-election as Indiana’s Attorney General, was reprimanded by the Indiana Supreme Court over defamatory statements about a doctor who provided an abortion for a ten-year-old rape victim. He had previously launched an anti-LGBTQ+ snitch line allowing extremists to anonymously report public school officials for supporting LGBTQ+ students.
- Andrew Bailey, who is running for re-election as Missouri’s Attorney General, has used his power as AG to join in federal lawsuits to stop abortions in the Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities and an FDA rule allowing abortion-inducing medications to be mailed to patients.
- Austin Knudsen, who is running for re-election as Montana’s Attorney General, is currently lobbying the courts to strike down a 1999 ruling shielding abortion under the state’s privacy protections. He also tried to block a ballot proposal that would further solidify abortion access in Montana if passed.
- Rokita, Bailey, and Knudsen are also three of over a dozen AGs opposing a proposed federal rule that would expand HIPAA to protect health information from officials attempting to prosecute legal, out-of-state abortions.
In addition, RAGA has said it will spend “whatever it takes” to get Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., elected as North Carolina’s Attorney General. As a state senator, Bishop sponsored the transphobic “bathroom bill,” and as a Congressman he supported Texas AG Ken Paxton’s MAGA lawsuit filed with the Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 Election, and objected to the certification of electoral college votes on January 6, 2021.
“Right now, there is an active effort by MAGA fanatics and right-wing extremists to use our courts to undermine our rights, and our democracy – and Republican Attorneys General in the States are driving that assault forward. Using public tax dollars, the MAGA RAGA caucus is escalating attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, abortion access, racial and social justice, and our democracy – and using judge-shopping to advance their undemocratic and extremist agenda in courts,” explained Nicole Regalado, Vice President of Campaigns, at UltraViolet Action. “If major consumer brands like CVS, T-Mobile, and General Motors are serious about their commitments to democracy, equality, and social justice, they should immediately end their funding of the Republican Attorneys General Association.”
- T-Mobile has donated $180,000 to RAGA since 2020. To learn more how those contributions directly violate the company’s professed values, click here: https://magaraga.com/t-mobile
- General Motors has donated $330,000 to RAGA since 2020. To learn more how those contributions directly violate the company’s professed values, click here: https://magaraga.com/general-motors
- CVS has donated over $375,000 to RAGA since 2020. To learn more how those contributions directly violate the company’s professed values, click here: https://magaraga.com/cvs
- Elevance Health has donated $405,000 to RAGA since 2020. To learn more how those contributions directly violate the company’s professed values, click here: https://magaraga.com/elevance-health
True North, a watchdog group devoted to protecting freedom by exposing groups advancing a regressive agenda, will support UltraViolet Action in its efforts to educate the public on the special interests that have captured key levers of power and threaten our democracy.
“Consumer brands like T-Mobile, GM, and CVS market that they value equity and inclusion but by funding RAGA they are aiding anti-abortion and anti-gay operative Leonard Leo’s fueling of top state law enforcement officials as weapons to attack abortion access, assail LGBTQ+ rights, wreak havoc on our environment, dishonor our votes, and defend reckless assertions of presidential immunity,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of True North, a fiscally sponsored 501(c)(4) project. “Workers who care about the reputation of their companies and consumers who want to support brands that reflect their values should demand an end to the flow of corporate money that fuels RAGA’s regressive agenda.”
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