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Legislators give Microsoft more weight just because of jobs? You don’t think campaign contributions play a part? And are you implying that Microsoft represents

Legislators give Microsoft more weight just because of jobs? You don’t think campaign contributions play a part? And are you implying that Microsoft represents its employees when you say it represents a large and economically important group of citizens? Because it definitely does not. It pays its employees. It represents its shareholders.

rayiner 8y ago
I don’t think campaign contributions play a significant part. In Washington state corporations are limited to donating $1,900 per candidate (and corporate donations are illegal at the federal level). So there just isn’t very much money in play. Bedsides that, I have some exposure to lobbying at the state level. (When I was at Northwestern, our legal clinic lobbies on environmental issues.) it was common knowledge that the legislators took what Excelon has to say very seriously. But if you look at the records, Excelon employees just don’t donate very much money. (And again, corporate donations are banned.) I don’t have state records, but it’s just a couple of million dollars nationwide at the federal level, including Excelon’s PAC. This is a company with $33 billion in revenue and 35,000 employees. It’s chump change compared the to influence they have. The influence is because Excelon employees tons of people in rural Illinois, where a disproportionate share of the voting power happens to be.
- mikeash 8y ago
  It’s well known that it’s cheap to buy legislators. The low amounts involved don’t make a convincing argument to me that it doesn’t have an effect. It’s also well known that legislators spend a shitload of their time soliciting donations. Surely all that time spent begging for money influences people’s thinking. If I gave a legislator a dollar to add a paragraph to a bill, we’d both go to jail. It would be laughable to argue that it doesn’t count as a bribe because the amount was small. Yet if I do the same thing except I donate that dollar to the campaign, it’s totally cool and even a good thing because I’m a job creator?
johnrgrace 8y ago
My godfather was a 17 term congressman starting in the 70's, he always said for most issues there were lobbyists on both sides of the issue and if you voted how you wanted you'd get checks. When one side doesn't have money vote how you want and throw a fundraising party and invite the people you voted with. If you were hard up for money, you could just play at being undecided or persuadable and watch money roll in. The biggest problem was it simply takes a lot of TIME to get money from lobbyists because they want to see your staff and sometimes you. Much of his time in congress was pre-internet so there are two big changes 1. ability of people to see where you are getting money is a lot easier, creating a cost for teasing money out of say big oil companies. 2.Also this was before the flood of dark money, which puts pressure on needing to raise money.

rayiner 8y ago

I don’t think campaign contributions play a significant part. In Washington state corporations are limited to donating $1,900 per candidate (and corporate donations are illegal at the federal level). So there just isn’t very much money in play. Bedsides that, I have some exposure to lobbying at the state level. (When I was at Northwestern, our legal clinic lobbies on environmental issues.) it was common knowledge that the legislators took what Excelon has to say very seriously. But if you look at the records, Excelon employees just don’t donate very much money. (And again, corporate donations are banned.) I don’t have state records, but it’s just a couple of million dollars nationwide at the federal level, including Excelon’s PAC. This is a company with $33 billion in revenue and 35,000 employees. It’s chump change compared the to influence they have. The influence is because Excelon employees tons of people in rural Illinois, where a disproportionate share of the voting power happens to be.

mikeash 8y ago
It’s well known that it’s cheap to buy legislators. The low amounts involved don’t make a convincing argument to me that it doesn’t have an effect. It’s also well known that legislators spend a shitload of their time soliciting donations. Surely all that time spent begging for money influences people’s thinking. If I gave a legislator a dollar to add a paragraph to a bill, we’d both go to jail. It would be laughable to argue that it doesn’t count as a bribe because the amount was small. Yet if I do the same thing except I donate that dollar to the campaign, it’s totally cool and even a good thing because I’m a job creator?

johnrgrace 8y ago

My godfather was a 17 term congressman starting in the 70's, he always said for most issues there were lobbyists on both sides of the issue and if you voted how you wanted you'd get checks. When one side doesn't have money vote how you want and throw a fundraising party and invite the people you voted with. If you were hard up for money, you could just play at being undecided or persuadable and watch money roll in. The biggest problem was it simply takes a lot of TIME to get money from lobbyists because they want to see your staff and sometimes you. Much of his time in congress was pre-internet so there are two big changes 1. ability of people to see where you are getting money is a lot easier, creating a cost for teasing money out of say big oil companies. 2.Also this was before the flood of dark money, which puts pressure on needing to raise money.