The Koch brothers, billionaires, have created a tangled web of 17 nonprofits, PACs and businesses through which they funneled over $400 million dollars in 2012 aimed at influencing national and state politics. Most companies doing business locally don’t create networks to hide their political donations and lobbying activities.

IN A PIECE posted to AnnArbor.com in August 2010, local business owner and long-time Democrat Rene Greff spoke about her support of gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder: “There have been a lot of really appalled people in our circle of friends, Greff said with a laugh.” Greff went on to say, “she’s leaning toward Snyder in November for a number of reasons — from his status as a trusted local to his ‘thoughtful approach to leadership.’”

Rene and husband Matt Greff aren’t laughing anymore, and this year they’re not supporting Rick Snyder. They’re backing Democrat Mark Schauer, and went to the trouble of saying so in an interview with a county blogger who offers up strictly “progressive” political news and opinion.

Thanks to Governor Snyder’s political agenda, after the 2010 elections, Rene and Matt Greff found themselves at the center of a local tempest about political loyalty.

In Ypsilanti, the donor who gave the most to Republican Rick Snyder’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign was the Greff family, Matt & Rene. Rene Greff donated $2,000 to Snyder’s campaign. In February 2011 Rene Greff donated another $484, then in March 2011 another $500. July 2010, Matt Greff donated $1,000 for a total of $3,984, more than any other Ypsilanti donor.

The Greffs own The Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti and Arbor Brewing Company in Ann Arbor. After news of their donations to Snyder and their support of his candidacy came out, they found themselves under fire. Someone wrote this in response to a post Ypsilanti blogger Mark Maynard did about the 2011 Ypsilanti Shadow Art Fair, sponsored in part by the Greffs’ Corner Brewery:

I hesitate to make another mention of this because you have always been great about not censoring comments, no matter how awful they might be. I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from avoiding your event. Having said that, I find myself weirdly disturbed by the a2politico.com article I linked earlier. Though I know on one hand their personal political support should be their own business, I found the information about the Greff’s seemingly opportunistic support of Snyder disturbing. Supporting Snyder while making money off the perception of support for opponents? The fact that struggling, hard-scrabble Ypsi business people have enough money to be the highest Ypsi donors to a Republican (or any) candidate is surprising…We always rail against corporations like Wal-Mart for their financial support of right wing causes, local people should at least know about this.

It’s three years later and the Greffs are still paying for their support of Snyder. In a 2013 interview with a Dexter blogger, Matt and Rene Greff said they felt “betrayed” by the resulting boycott of their businesses.

While the Greffs may have felt singled out, the fact is that U.S. consumers are increasingly concerned about which political candidates and political causes businesses support (either openly, like the Greffs) or quietly, through donations to  national committees, PACs and other groups. Socially-responsible consumerism is growing and with it the number of consumers who pay attention to companies’ political donations. According to a study conducted at the University of Lethbridge,  in Canada, political consumerism as a world-wide movement continues to grow.

A 2011 study by cause marketing firm Cone LLC revealed that “when factors like cost and product type were made equal, 94 out of 100 people would choose to buy the product that supported a good cause.” A 2011 piece published by The Huffington Post on the subject suggested, “companies need to step up and recognize the powerful opportunity — and potential challenge — they face in light of an empowered consumer citizenry.”

In 2012, Forbes.com posted a piece by Rick Unger that talked about the “price” companies such as Olive Garden, Papa John’s Pizza and Appleby’s paid for their “Anti-Obamacare politicking.”

In addition, a 2013 study shows that more publicly-traded firms are being more upfront than ever about who they’re backing and how much they’re paying.

“The study finds an accelerating number of companies are either adopting or strengthening their political disclosure and accountability policies,” said Bruce Freed of the Center for Political Accountability, which prepared the survey along with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Disclosure helps the companies, consumers and investors because everyone benefits when the public has a “better understanding of how companies are spending politically,” he said.

Just over half of the companies surveyed this year had policies to publicly disclose their contributions to candidates, parties, and committees. Nearly 20 percent prohibited spending corporate funds on political activities.

A quarter of the companies disclosed their contributions to the more secretive 501(c)(4) groups. Those groups may accept unlimited corporate contributions and are not required to disclose their donors. They spent upwards of $300 million on the 2012 election, a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics found.

In April 2013, according to reporting by The New York Times, “a loose coalition of Democratic elected officials, shareholder activists and pension funds has flooded the Securities and Exchange Commission with calls to require publicly traded corporations to disclose to shareholders all of their political donations, a move that could transform the growing world of secret campaign spending.”

House Republicans then introduced legislation that would have make it illegal for the commission to issue any political disclosure regulations applying to companies under its jurisdiction.” In December 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped from its agenda of regulatory priorities for 2014 any consideration of mandatory political contribution disclosures by publicly-held companies.

In Michigan’s 2012 election cycle, the United Auto Workers topped the list of group’s giving to candidates with $15.3 million in total donations, and $1.759 million donated to candidates, including  a total of $148,967 to President Obama’s re-election campaign. Second on the list was Ford Motor Company which took in $1.2 million in donations and spent $975,462 on candidate campaign donations including $54,984 to Mitt Romney and $40,404 to President Obama.

Records for 2014 show that Michigan’s top donors to national campaigns and committees include Marathon Petroleum, Ford Motor Company, Rock Holdings and Dow Chemical. An entry on the Michigan top donor list with local connections is McKinley Associates, the local real estate company. With revenues of $500 million and holdings that include 21,000,000 square feet of office space and 34,000 units of multi-family property, McKinley Associates has donated $132,000 thus far this year.

The company gave a $50,000 donation to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC and $25,000 to the Republican National Committee. Candidate donations included $5,200 to Terri Lynn Land, the Republican candidate for Michigan’s U.S. Senate. Land is being opposed by Democrat Gary Peters.

Other local companies included the law firm of Dykema Gossett and the University of Michigan. Unlike other companies on the list, 100 percent of the donations at the University of Michigan were made by individuals as opposed to PACs.