Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in 2017, Wikimedia Commons
Alex Henderson September 22, 2021
During the Biden era, centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has been a frequent source of frustration to the progressive wing of his party. The Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate is razor-thin, and the West Virginia senator can easily derail President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better proposals if he chooses to vote with Republicans on a bill. Journalist Kate Aronoff examines Manchin’s possible motivations in an article published by The New Republic on September 21, noting who some of his biggest donors are.
Companies specializing in fossil fuels, according to Aronoff, have been among Manchin’s top donors. Aronoff notes that Manchin “made half a million dollars last year off his son’s coal company, meaning that coal paid him roughly three times the $174,000 salary he made last year as a public servant.” Manchin, she reports, has “received more donations from coal, oil, and gas companies this campaign cycle than every other senator.”
“Manchin got $10,000 from ExxonMobil for his 2018 reelection campaign,” Aronoff observes. “His top donor so far for the 2022 cycle is Tellurian Inc., a gas company…. As Daniel Boguslaw reported for The Intercept earlier this month, Manchin has earned more than $4.5 million from Enersystems Inc. and Farmington Resources Inc., two coal industry companies he founded in the 1980s…. If, on a given day, you are trying to understand what Joe Manchin’s priorities are, it’s probably best to look to the priorities of the companies he’s gotten money from.”
Read this article HERE and The New Republic’s article HERE.