After National Newspaper Publishers Association President Benjamin Chavis Jr. visited Reynolds American’s headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C., he left impressed — and with hopes of big money from the tobacco giant.
Ultimately, Reynolds American last year gave $250,000 to the organization, which from its Washington, D.C., headquarters represents the interests of more than 200 African-American-owned community newspapers across the nation.
The donation — listed in a new Reynolds American corporate governance document reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity — represented the largest contribution Reynolds American made in 2015 to nearly three-dozen nonprofit organizations, many of which are politically active and typically keep their funders secret.
Other small, but notable Reynolds Americans’ contributions in 2015 helped Americans for Prosperity, a “social welfare” nonprofit connected to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, and Americans for Tax Reform, led by anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist.
During the 2014 midterms, Americans for Prosperity spent more than $2.35 million advocating against mostly Democratic U.S. Senate and U.S. House candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. During the 2012 election, it spent more than $33.5 million in a bid to deny President Barack Obama re-election.
More than a dozen Michigan-based nonprofits also received modest contributions from Reynolds American, whose operating companies manufacture such cigarette brands as Newport, Pall Mall and Camel, and of late, non-tobacco products including Vuse e-cigarettes.
Reynolds American’s second-largest nonprofit contribution — $240,000 — went to the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, which describes itself as a “regulatory watchdog” that ensures regulators “comply with the ‘good government’ laws which regulate the regulators.”
Most recently, the organization has been supporting a bill, to be sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, that calls for a separate budget specifically for federal regulations.
A representative of the group could not be reached for comment.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a nonprofit that represents gay conservatives, received $25,000 from Reynolds American in 2015.
In declining to comment, the group’s president, Gregory T. Angelo, said the “Log Cabin Republicans’ policy is not to discuss finances nor donors.”
Reynolds American spokeswoman Jane Seccombe declined to comment on the company’s 2015 contributions to nonprofits, but previously told the Center for Public Integrity that it began disclosing contributions made to politically active nonprofits at the behest of an unnamed shareholder.
Seccombe this week pointed to a statement asserting the company and its subsidiaries “participate in the political and public policy process in a manner consistent with the law and the interests of their businesses.”
The statement also notes that Reynolds American “may not necessarily agree with all of the positions taken by each candidate or organization to which they contribute.” But before making a contribution, the company determines that a contribution aligns with its published Vision and Beliefs and Transforming Tobacco statements, “or is otherwise in the interests of the company.”
Reynolds American is rare in that most large companies, regardless of their industry, volunteer little information about their political activities beyond what’s required by law.
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