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I created a spreadsheet of the 173 House members who voted against the Equality Act, which would extend legal protections to LGBT Americans. It shows how much each person voting no was given by tech companies who are today vocally celebrating #pride docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Some remarks: the absolute dollar amounts are small because U.S. election law limits total donations to $10K per election cycle (except in Utah which always finds a way to be weird). Google gives the most; Amazon and Microsoft give the most broadly; Facebook gives to Devin Nunes!
The way PACs work is that employees are persuaded/pressured/cajoled into contributing via payroll deduction, and then that money is allocated to individual campaigns by a specialized executive. Corporate PACs try to give evenly across both parties, and give to incumbents only
I'm highlighting these donations because I find them doubly offensive. First, because equality under the law is a foundational American value, not a political issue. Second, because these companies work harder than anyone to wrap themselves in the rainbow flag while funding hate
The good news is, if you work at these companies, you can help defund the PACs! The list of donors is a matter of public record that you can find on the FEC website (I can help you). Many of the people donating are appalled to learn where their money is going once told about it.
By request, here is the complete list of employees donating to the corporate PAC for Microsoft (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/226/201906…)
Google (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/811/201906…)
Amazon (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/359/201901…)
Facebook (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/356/201906…)
Salesforce (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/840/201901…)
Google (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/811/201906…)
Amazon (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/359/201901…)
Facebook (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/356/201906…)
Salesforce (docquery.fec.gov/pdf/840/201901…)
The last thing I'll say is that giving money for bigotry is NOT a cost of doing business in the United States. Both Apple and IBM decline to run a corporate PAC and do fine. Google, Microsoft and Amazon could shut down their political donations tonight with zero consequences.
The second last thing I'll say is that in 2018 a single @intel employee (who was not even a US citizen) got Intel to stop funding Steve King, the overtly white supremacist congressman, by pointing the conflict with Intel's stated values to management. You have a lot of power!
