Money politics has long dominated American politics, but the scale of the problem has gotten much worse since the Supreme Court made its infamous 2010 ruling known as: Citizens United. There is concerning news coming on this front from an unexpected corner. According to a really interesting article by Map Light‘s Frank Bass:

Lawmakers who are sitting out a fight to ban a controversial pesticide linked to brain damage in children and farmworkers have received about 27 times more campaign cash from its primary manufacturer since 2017 than House members pushing for a prohibition on chlorpyrifos.

Ten of the 107 cosponsors of the Ban Toxic Pesticides Act of 2019 reported receiving $14,000 in campaign contributions since 2017 from the Midland, Mich.-based DowDuPont Inc. Federal Election Commission records show 118 of the 330 congressmen who haven’t sponsored the measure received $379,651 from Dow during the same period.

The disparity underscores the high stakes at issue in the long-running battle between environmentalists and Dow, a major corporate ally of the Trump administration that reported almost $86 billion in sales last year. Although the Environmental Protection Agency decided to ban chlorpyrifos for residential use in 2000 because of its potential danger to children, the remaining uses of the pesticide have been at the center of legal battles since 2007, when a coalition of farmworkers and environmentalists filed suit to ban it completely.

See the full story here. Also visit Democracy Chronicles main sections on American Democracy and Money Politics or our articles on Worldwide Corruption.