Who is Funding the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) in 2022?
Twitter, Comcast, ATT, Pfizer are among the corporations bankrolling the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA).
Photograph of a rally at the U.S. Supreme Court on May 3, 2022.
Photograph by Victoria Pickering.
Major corporations such as Comcast, Twitter, General Motors have been fueling financial support to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) in 2022. Other donors include wealthy individuals and a Leonard Leo-tied dark money group that was instrumental to securing Trump judicial nominees.
RAGA relies on the financial support from its donors to fund advertisements, mailers, and media to elect Republican candidates to state attorneys general offices. These offices will be on the front lines of the abortion fight in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision, which ended the federal right to abortion and made abortion access subject to state law. State attorneys general will play a crucial role in choosing how to enforce or defend restrictive abortion laws. State Republican attorneys general have also been a central player in supporting voter suppression efforts and blocking climate action.
RAGA came under intense scrutiny in 2021 after Documented first reported that RAGA’s 501(c)(4) dark-money policy arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, sponsored robocalls on the eve of the deadly U.S. Capitol attack on January 6. The calls urged supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol.
Documented has compiled a list of RAGA's top donors between January 1, 2022 through to June 30, 2022 below:
The Controversy Around Funding RAGA
RAGA pledged to its donors in a fundraising email: "Every donation will help Republican Attorneys General combat the Democrats' pro-abortion agenda and stand tall for life."
Since the Dobbs ruling, at least one company that stated it would cover travel and lodging costs for employees who need to travel out of state to receive abortion care publicly stated it would cut all funding to RAGA. Match Group came under fire for its $136,600 contribution to RAGA in 2021 (Documented first reported on Match Group's support to RAGA back in February) and pledged to halt funding to both RAGA and the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which also received funding from the company in 2021. Match Group's Chief Executive Bernard Kim said he would suspend donations to both groups, according to a memo obtained by the New York Times.
“I learned about the donations to RAGA the same way most of you did, when I saw it in the media,” Mr. Kim wrote in a recent memo to staff. “It’s my responsibility to understand how these donations fit into our larger lobbying activity, and determine what we will do moving forward.” New York Times reporting from July 7, 2022
This is not the first time controvsey around funding RAGA has swirled. In 2021, numerous donors pledged to freeze support after RAGA's dark money arm Rule of Law Defense Fund sponsored robocalls urging supporters to march to the Capitol on January 6.