| Amazon Is Flexing Its Financial Power in Seattle's City Council Elections With a Deluge of Election Cash |
| Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=52041"><span class="small">Mike Baker, The New York Times</span></a> |
| Saturday, 02 November 2019 14:05 |
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Baker writes: "In 2015, Seattle voters approved a plan to foil corporate political contributions, creating 'democracy vouchers' that allow residents to assign public campaign funds to local candidates of their choice."
Amazon Is Flexing Its Financial Power in Seattle's City Council Elections With a Deluge of Election Cash02 November 19
With the goal of amplifying the voices of regular people and diluting the influence of powerful donors, the voucher program has since drawn the interest of 2020 presidential candidates, such as Andrew Yang, who said Seattle’s system could be used nationally to “drown out the influence of megadonors.” But in Seattle, the megadonors are back, this time with an even larger deluge of cash. Thanks in large part to the hometown tech giant Amazon, independent groups that receive bulk donations have already spent more money — $4.1 million — on next week’s City Council elections than they spent in the previous two decades of elections combined, according to campaign finance data. |
n 2015, Seattle voters approved a plan to foil corporate political contributions, creating “