Dem senator’s family profits from outsourcing he decries: report

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), who has fiercely criticized the outsourcing of U.S. jobs, has profited from a company that uses a Mexican factory to produce dye for ink pads, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Stewart Superior Corp., an arts and crafts business owned by Donnelly’s family, has for more than a year shipped raw material to a company-owned factory in Mexico where it produces ink pads and other products. The materials are then shipped back to a facility in California.

Donnelly’s brother runs Stewart Superior, though the Indiana Democrat served as a corporate officer and general counsel for the company before being elected to Congress in 2006. 

{mosads}Donnelly’s financial disclosures show that he still owns as much as $50,000 in company stock and earned between $15,001 and $50,000 in dividends in 2016, according to the AP.

That means that the senator has profited from some of the very policies that he has spoken out against. 

Donnelly has railed against the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals that have made it easier for U.S. companies to move jobs to places like Mexico. Last year, he slammed Carrier Corp. for its plans to move manufacturing jobs to Mexico, saying it was taking advantage of cheap foreign labor.

“What you’re seeing with Carrier is what I call free riders,” Donnelly told The Statehouse File website last year. “What they do because of the trade agreement NAFTA, is they ship jobs to Mexico for $3 an hour, and so they get the benefit of the absolute lowest wages they can find, and then turn around to ship the products back into the United States.”

Donnelly is currently sponsoring a bill intended to establish penalties and reviews for U.S. businesses that move jobs out of the country. 

“Joe is proud to support good companies that create quality Hoosier jobs, including Stewart Superior,” Donnelly’s campaign manager Peter Hanscom told the AP in an email. “Throughout his career, Joe Donnelly has always fought for a level playing field for the American worker, including a renegotiation of NAFTA, and he will continue to do so.”

Donnelly is considered among the most vulnerable Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, where he faces reelection in a state that overwhelmingly voted for President Trump last November.