Promise keepers

Nobody loves the electric company. We usually only notice it when we pay the bill or, more acutely, when something goes wrong. The power is just supposed to flow.

Here on Martha's Vineyard, we get our electric from a company called Eversource. Some of our experiences with them have not been so good -- like the time they were upgrading the lines on a nearby road and blew out our power. Fortunately we only lost a bunch of surge protectors. Remember to use those surge protectors!

These days, Eversource is completing a much anticipated project to bring a high capacity cable from the Cape to the Island, ending use of diesel for electric generation. It's a big deal. 

After Donald Trump's attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021, a lot of big companies swore off contributing to members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 vote for Biden. Most of them have gone back on their promises.

But a few have held out. Judd Legum assembled an honor role of promise keepers that stuck to their word.  And Eversource was among them: 

On January 13, 2021, Eversource Energy, a large electricity provider in the Northeast, announced that it would not donate to any of the members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. In a statement, Eversource’s Chief Communications Officer Jim Hunt said, “at Eversource, we were deeply disturbed by the intentional disruption of our democratic process and the violence that occurred at the Capitol last week.”

Eversource has kept its promise not to donate to any election deniers and has made few political contributions in general. NRG Energy, a competing electricity provider serving some of the same states as Eversource, also promised not to donate to any election deniers, but has since reneged.

Other promise keepers include AirBnB, Expedia, Nike, and Lyft.  Read all about the good guys!