Are You Contributing to Bad Environmental and Consumer Laws--and the Republican Party--When You Buy a Car?

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Rosemary Shahan,
President
Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety

What do you look for in a car? Safety? Fuel economy? Comfort? Affordability? How about whether you are inadvertently making a campaign contribution to the Republican Party?

Nationally, auto dealers are among the most aggressive contributors to the Republican Party and Republican candidates. Compared to other industries, they are among the most lopsided in their giving. During the 2000 election cycle, 96% of the auto industry's soft money went to the GOP.

In addition, some of the largest auto dealers are among the Bush Pioneers, who raised many millions for Bush's election and re-election campaigns. According to Automotive News, auto dealers played an active role in funneling a whopping $150 million to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Dealers also crowed about the pivotal role they played in the battleground state of Ohio.

How do auto dealers make so much money they can afford to write those big checks? To extract the last possible dime from even the most wary customers, auto dealers commonly engage in highly sophisticated scams like "loan packing," auto salvage fraud, dealer "markups" of interest rates, "yo-yo" financing, high-pressure sales tactics, and other forms of predatory practices, especially here in California.

Look a little bit further into what they have done here in California to block and gut legislation--largely with the help of Republican legislators:

• They killed the Clean Car Discount Act of 2007, AB 493, by Assemblymember Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City). As a result of their aggressive lobbying, the industry that profits handsomely from the sales of muscle cars and enormous gas-guzzlers, California politicians refused to pass legislation that would have curbed greenhouse gas emissions and made fuel-efficient SUVs, pickups, minivans, and sedans more affordable. No Republicans were willing to vote for the bill, and a handful of anti-consumer Democratic lawmakers also voiced a reluctance to vote for it, despite polls showing strong public support for the measure.