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Rep. Haley Stevens,<\/span> D-Mich., flashed a smile alongside her mother, Maria Marcotte, as the pair took a selfie from an international terminal of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLisbon, here we come!\u201d Marcotte, a retired advertising executive, captioned her Instagram post on June 16, 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n Stevens and her mother then boarded a plane, seated in business class, according to a congressional ethics disclosure form<\/a>. The following day, the pair checked into The Ivens, a luxury hotel where Stevens and other members of Congress spent the next four days attending a conference with panels that included a cryptocurrency industry executive, bankers and other corporate leaders. The conference was hosted by the centrist, pro-corporate think tank Center Forward, which has received donations to its nonprofit arm from major pharmaceutical companies and has a super PAC funded by big oil companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Center Forward covered the full $27,779.86 trip for Stevens and her mother \u2014 a drop in the bucket compared to what the group\u2019s political funding arm would later spend supporting her run for U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now, as Stevens is embroiled in a contested three-way race for a vacant United States Senate seat, Center Forward and its super PAC have spent $2.4 million on television advertisements in Michigan, where the only campaign the group is known to be backing is hers, The Intercept found in a review of advertising data accessed from AdImpact. The group\u2019s first round of ad purchases supporting Stevens, totaling $855,000, was reported<\/a> last week by State Affairs. Center Forward Committee has also bought at least $50,000 in online ads for Stevens over the past two weeks, according to Google\u2019s ad transparency tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the commercials, which ran on broadcast, cable and streaming services across Michigan starting May 12, shows<\/a> Stevens \u201cstanding up to Trump\u201d and \u201cstanding up for Michigan,\u201d pointing toward her bills calling for accountability for ICE agent misconduct and seeking to prevent the Trump administration from deploying the U.S. military domestically. \u201cI answer,\u201d Stevens says in a clip from the House floor, \u201cto the people of Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n A Stevens campaign spokesperson repeated a similar statement in response to queries from The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cHaley fights for Michigan and only Michigan,\u201d said her spokesperson Arik Wolk. \u201cShe\u2019s spent her time in Congress working to bolster Michigan\u2019s manufacturing economy, Michigan innovation and Michigan jobs \u2014 and as Michigan\u2019s most effective Democrat in Congress, she has a track record of doing just that.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevens\u2019 campaign has been dogged by criticism for her corporate backing. Both of her opponents \u2013 Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed \u2013 have sworn off corporate contributions.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Lisbon conference in 2024 sponsored by Center Forward featured panels led by executives from banks and holdings companies, such as Bison Bank and Bay Street Capital Holdings. One panel, titled \u201cBlockchain Regulation in Portugal (EU),\u201d included the CEO of crypto company Q Blockchain, in addition to bank executives and other boosters of the crypto industry. Prior to the panel, a business school professor gave a lecture on \u201cwhat the EU\u2019s approach to digital asset and blockchain regulation looks like\u201d and \u201chow the U.S. may be falling behind comparatively.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Portugal boasted one of the most tax-friendly systems for cryptocurrency investments and the European Union installed its newly approved crypto regulatory system known as MiCA.<\/p>\n A supplement to the congressional disclosure form described the trip as intended to \u201cbring a bipartisan group of pragmatic policymakers and influencers from various industries and organizations to focus on common-sense solutions\u201d by discussing \u201cforeign direct investment, healthcare, renewable energy, data privacy\u201d and economic ties between the U.S. and Portugal.<\/p>\n The group said its overall mission is \u201cto provide centrists\u201d the information needed to \u201ccraft common-sense solutions and provide support in turning those ideas into results.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe travel and the campaign finance expenditure in tandem are worse together than on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n It\u2019s common for congressional delegations to go on international trips paid for by third parties. But Stevens attending a trip sponsored by a pro-corporate group and then receiving significant campaign support from the group two years later raises concerns, said Jeffrey Hauser, a critic of corporate political influence.<\/p>\n \u201cI am worried about what it says, that an institution that has been created to look after corporate interest in Washington had their staff spend a ton of time with the congresswoman, and they came away convinced that she would be loyal to their funders,\u201d said Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project. \u201cThe travel and the campaign finance expenditure in tandem are worse together than on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n Center Forward also covered additional travel expenses for Stevens\u2019 staff, including $10,844.33 for Stevens\u2019 legislative director to go on the Lisbon trip and $7,198 for her staffers to attend other Center Forward conferences, including one in Mexico where attendees met with executives with Meta, Walmart, Amazon, 3M and General Motors Mexico, according to further disclosure forms<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n