This week, a bombshell report by Business Insider revealed that the top campaign contributors for state politicians pushing draconian, regressive bills on reproductive rights included a string of telecom giants including AT&T, Cox, and Verizon. Also in the mix: WalMart, Citi Group, and Exxon.
It’s a bit of a head scratcher. While corporate corruption is par for the course in American politics, why would these massive conglomerates have vested stake in reducing women’s access to health care and limiting reproductive rights?
We often think of lobbying as serving corporate interests. For example, a plastics manufacturer lobbying against environmental regulations, while ethically and morally reprehensible, may make sense from an exploitative, profiteering standpoint. So why are these companies weighing in on something that has no discernible connection to their bottom line?
There’s only one way to understand what’s really happening behind the scenes, and that’s by following the money.
All roads lead back to Vanguard
This particular selection of seemingly uncorrelated industries do have one striking commonality: their largest shareholder.
The Vanguard Group is the largest institutional investor of all the corporations covered by Business Insider‘s investigative report. The Vanguard Group is the largest shareholder in right-wing media conglomerate FOX News Corp and Axel Springer, known as the the “Rupert Murdoch” of German media.
Axel Springer also happened to buy out D.C.-politics outlet Politico—the media conduit of the alleged “leak” of Supreme Court opinion—with an above-market offer that caught the media world off guard in August of last year. In other words, the company with the largest stake in all the companies funding the dismantling of Roe v. Wade is coincidently the largest shareholder of the media company that “leaked” a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, written by Samuel Alito.
But this is hardly Vanguard Group Inc’s only ties to attacks on women’s rights to self-determination with radical evangelical ideology.
Alito’s Lucrative Ties to Vanguard Group
In fact, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the primary author of the leaked draft opinion, has a long and questionable history with the red pill investment vehicle, Vanguard Group Inc. It’s a relationship he routinely compromises his judicial integrity for— and so far, without recourse.
One of these transgressions involved a 2002 case Alito presided over in which Vanguard Group Inc. was the defendant. Predictably Alito, who at the time had approximately half of his net worth invested in conflicting interests, ruled in favor of Vanguard Group and against a woman.
He made this ruling despite a written statement he made during his 1990 nomination to the appellate court. In it, Alito agreed, on the record, to recuse himself from any case involving Vanguard Group Inc. to avoid conflicts of interest. In his own words, Alito wrote:
“I do not believe that financial conflicts of interests are likely to arise. I would, however, disqualify myself from any case involving Vanguard companies, the brokerage firm of Smith Barney, or the First Federal & Loan of Rochester, New York. ”
–Injustice Samuel Alito’s written statement at confirmation hearing
And a screenshot for good measure:
Alito Repeatedly Rules In Vanguard Cases — Unsurpringly, In Vanguard’s Favor
His pledge rang hollow when Alito proceeded to rule in Vanguard’s favor in a 2002 case filed by a grieving widow attempting to unfreeze her late husband’s frozen assets. The case’s plaintiff, Shantee Maharaj, held Alito accountable by reminding him of his 1990 written statement to recuse himself from any Vanguard-related case. Once again, justice was denied.
“They have $600 billion invested with them,” Alito said in 2005. “The idea that a case like this would affect that is just ludicrous.”
In other words, the widow’s late husband’s life savings, approximately $500,000, were so inconsequential in his view, he had the right to withhold it from her and it was “ludicrous” that anyone should think otherwise, because Vanguard had so much more money than that. He failed to address how that justified him ruling in a Vanguard-related case at all—whether that be for $1, $1 million, or $1 trillion—something he expressly stated he would recuse himself from at his confirmation hearing, on the record, in writing.
How the amount of money involved in the case exonerates him from his pledge not to rule on any Vanguard cases is unclear.
Alito chalked it up to a clerical error and noted that he now required recusal cases to be printed on red paper to avoid missing them. Because presumably, and giving him the benefit of the doubt, he can’t read.
Since then, investment firm Vanguard Group’s AUM (Assets Under Management) has mushroom clouded to $7.5 trillion, coming straight from the horse’s mouth. That’s an increase of 1250% over the course of 20 years, and nearly 300% of the American People’s life savings combined.
Likewise, Alito’s personal net worth has swelled alongside it. Alito’s net worth exploded approximately seven fold over the same period, a period that commenced when Injustice Alito took the bench on fast-broken promises and leveraged it at every turn for his own enrichment and to the detriment of The American People. To the surprise of no one, both Alito and Vanguard’s portfolio’s net worth followed similar trend lines, including exceptionally sharp, exponential increases in 2012 and near vertical ascents in 2020.
If an official on-the-record document in which Alito himself writes that he will recuse himself from a case if it involves Vanguard Group, but proceeds preside over and rule in Vanguard’s favor anyways, where is the line drawn?
That’s about as black and white as it gets. Even then, Alito managed to dodge justice and remain on the bench.
Divesting from Vanguard
While we can protest and march and vote, there’s actually a much more direct way to resist this corrupt behavior. The key is to divest from Vanguard. 401ks, Roth IRAs, selling Vanguard ETFs — by taking money out of Vanguard, they won’t be able to use those funds towards regressive political clauses.
While $7 trillion+ is a formidable amount, it’s important to understand that most investment firms don’t keep cash on hand in the form of “liquidity”.
Liquidity is a false idol every suit on Wall Street would push his grandmother down a staircase for. They funnel those funds (i.e., your 401k and Roth IRA) into assets such as the housing market, where they are also driving up cost of living in hopes of siphoning out wealth, or as they like to call them, “returns.”
That means that it is not necessary to withdraw the full $7 trillion Vanguard is worth, which would at this point, be an impossible task.Instead, by burning off the liquidity (usually about 3-5% of their total AUM) and forcing them into asset sell off territory.
Withdrawing 10% of Vanguard’s portfolio would have acerbated, compound effects. Coupled with a mass Vanguard ETF sell off and the “investment firm” would be put into a tailspin that will spiral downward as quickly as it went exponential.
The callousness of Vanguard’s logo being a pirate ship.
The devil’s in the details in the Book of Revelations.