With stores scattered throughout the state and right across the border, Target has been a highly popular shopping venue over the last few decades for hordes of Minnesotans. It only took less than a day to lose a few thousand of those shoppers this week, after the revelation that Minnesota-grown Target Corporation donated $150,000 to MN Forward, which funds TV ads supporting Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Tom Emmer.
What's the big deal? The U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision allows the previously prohibited campaign donations from company funds. This means individual candidates and so-called “independent” groups that are really thinly-veiled election committees can now gain power through such hefty donations and owe everything to corporate America.
Within hours of the donation being made public, two "Boycott Target" groups popped up on Facebook and managed to gather thousands of followers in two days. At the heart of the protests is the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, which Target has long been a strong supporter of. Emmer opposes same-sex marriage.
Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel is defending the donation by saying the company supports the business policies advocated by MN Forward and Emmer but not necessarily all their positions, stressing that it does not affect Target's unwavering core value of support for the LBGT community. He also noted that the company's political action committee, donations to which come from employees and shareholders as opposed to corporate funds, were split evenly between both parties this year.
The Target donation hit the national wire, probably because of both the dollar amount and the uproar it's caused. Best Buy and Polaris Industries Inc., also Minnesota-grown businesses, have made sizable donations to MN Forward as well, but these have barely raised a peep from the public. It's difficult to explain why, but perhaps the public perception of these companies was not as favorable as Target's was to begin with, especially with the LGBT community. Or maybe the media saw Target as the more interesting of the bunch and ran with it.
Whatever the case may be, this whole thing illustrates the danger of big businesses and retailers donating to political campaigns. While they may not be involved directly in campaigning for candidates, giving money constitutes support for a candidate and should be considered very carefully. Steinhafel and his wife have each made personal donations to Emmer and other Republican candidates' campaigns, which there is certainly nothing wrong with. But the appearance that he somehow shifted his personal agenda onto the corporation's cannot be ignored.
By rights, all corporate retailers should be required to post at all their locations a list of all political donations made by the company so customers know that by purchasing school supplies and clothes in the store, they're contributing to the campaign of a candidate they may not like. A proposal this complicated and politically transparent would never pass, though.
Legality doesn't necessarily translate into ethicality, as Target is quickly finding out.
