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Where the Tech Industry's Political Donations Are Going
An anonymous reader writes: Early estimates suggest the 2016 U.S. presidential election will result in $5-10 billion in spending by candidates and organizations — much more than ever before. To support this, they need lots of contributions, and the tech industry is becoming a significant player. (Not as much as the financial industry, of course, but tech's influence is growing.) Re/Code breaks down which candidates are getting the most money from the tech sector so far. Right now, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has gotten the most tech money by far — more than the rest of the field combined, thanks in large part to Larry Ellison. Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, is a distant second, followed closely by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) are the only other candidates with significant tech contributions so far. Carly Fiorina, a tech industry veteran, has only managed about $13,000 in donations.
And Rubio supports increasing H1-B visas threefold. Coincidence? I think not.
Lots of money, to go away.
I imagine most tech workers, in a hypocritical bid to protect their own jobs after participating in the destruction of most of the American workforce, will find out who will ban H1B program and vote that way. It harkens back to the old saw, vote your wallet. Unfortunately protectionism never works and paying artifically inflated wages when there are other people willing to do the job for significantly less money usually results in companies either moving offshore of closing entirely. But, still, I imagine this is how things will go.
We should be very clear this means "the (m|b)illionaire CEOs of tech corporations who are using company money to advance their own agendas".
This is all about corporations doing what serves the interests of the rich people in charge ... which means it's really a measure of how influential CEOs are, and is in no way representative of the thousands of people who work for those companies.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Getting involved in the political arena is just the latest sign that the tech industry is looking for government handouts abroad.
Subject says it all.
the donations of a few rich plutocrats who siphon their cash from technology companies does not represent the tech industry's views or opinions, not in aggregate, not even a significant minority bloc of opinions
larry ellison? really? shouldn't we say he represents yacht buyer's political donations? that's much more accurate
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
After slaughtering a once a beloved tech company, HP, and causing a big grief at Lucent, is this a big surprise that Carly Fiorina is not getting any love from the tech sector ? I think she should not be allowed to make decision even on her behalf, let alone technology or god forbid United States.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
I wonder what it says about the industry when the one person with actual experience of it is the one not getting donations. Could it reflect on H1-B visas?
please shut up about this for another year.
Ranked 4th on the chart but they don't discuss his campaign at all.
Most people in tech, or business, know Fiorina as the person who ruined HP. So the lack of support for her may indicate that most people don't want the country ruined.
Well, they don't THINK they want it ruined, anyway. They may well be uninformed such that they advocate for policies which have been ruinous to countries and states which have tried them. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it and all.
At least he does not need contributions, on top of wanting to eliminate H1-B visas
After the demonization of Brendan Eich for his personal donation in support of CA Proposition 8, the writing is on the wall. You can expect that most big tech donors of all stripes, regardless of party or political stance, will donate to political causes through the Super PAC of their choice.
Can someone explain me how giving money to someone to advance one's agenda is different from a bribe?
These are advance payments for future services. There is no charity involved. Not a donation!
To hell with them all! If we don't turn our backs, next campaign will cost 50 billion. All this does is reward corruption. But, if that's what people want, all I can say is, *knock yourselves out*. Just remember all your complaints go straight to the round file.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
probably fired half the tech industry workers at least once. made the rest want to quit.
now, if everybody else knows, she can go back to counting her golden parachute money.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
the difference between financial donors and tech donors to the political ecosystem in america in this foul year of our lord 2015 is that techs social goals are directly opposed by the candidates theyre greas--er, funding. Funding Rubio, which would arguably mean less intense scrutiny on offshore tax havens and lack of taxation in general, would mean accepting the rest of the Rubio package as well. It would mean tech firms would have to swallow things like increased warrantless wiretapping and blanket surveillance, which most oppose on the grounds of a free internet and tacitly customer trust. It means tech firms are backing a pony thats anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-evolution and increasingly implicated as bigoted and racist.
Backing a republican is understandable...but risky in this day and age. This is a political party that has shut down the US Government twice. Theyve spent two years passing meaningless legislation like affirming 'in god we trust' on the dollar and shit-talking multinational foreign treaties like the iran nuclear agreement in favour of 20 more years of brinkmanship. the Republican party has avoided critical issues like immigration, climate change, the federal highway trust, renewable energy, and unemployment. For every major mass shooting in america in the past 8 years, they have remained unaccountable and in sterling opposition to even the most basic firearm legislation. And when gay marriage was legislatively made law, they simply avoided the subject entirely, and attempted to legalize discrimination at the state level instead.
Good people go to bed earlier.
And the only one even talking about H1-Bs is the one not taking money from these assholes.
The rest of the candidates are all fat losers. I want an administration with class. And you know the Trump Administration will be the best, most successful administration in history, because Trump doesn't put his name anything that doesn't exude quality and class.
Can't wait until President Trump cleans up this H1-B mess.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Is it even possible to mess up this country any more than the Obama administration has done for the past 8 years?
Its funny to read that Hillary is getting tech money. But then again, if she does become President which I hope she don't. She's going to need a new mail server.
Carly Fiorina has actually been given $13,000,000, she's just turned it into $13,000.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
I'm surprised all the Rand Paul fanboys here are throwing money at him.
I guess the Objectivist/Republican/Libertarians here are willing to actually put their money where their mouth is.
Backing a republican is understandable...but risky in this day and age. This is a political party that has shut down the US Government twice.
No, the Democrats are the ones that "shut it down" - to the extent that a "government shutdown" actually shuts anything down - and the Replublicans caved both times and gave them what they wanted.
The "power of the purse" is SUPPOSED to be the House of Representatives' check on a runaway executive branch. When the executive does something Congress doesn't want it to do, Congress is supposed to cut off the money for that, to make the executive branch stop. (This is why military appropriations, in particular, have a constitutional limit of two years: If the President, as Commander in Chief decides to go to war without a declaration, congress can stop the war within a couple years by stopping the money for the military.) This is also supposed to work when the majority of either house of congress is opposed to something.
But in these recent "government shutdowns" the Democratic majority in the Senate, along with the President, held all the services of the government hostage when the Republicans tried to defund the no-longer-popular Obamacare. The Republican-controlled house split the funding for various sections of the government into several bills, and passed essentially all of them, with the idea that Obamacare would be in its own bill which could then be voted on separately - both likely failing to pass it in the House and giving a recorded vote showing which senators and reps supported it, to use in the next election's campaigns.
The Senate leadership and Democratic majority then refused to pass ANY of the fund-a-part-of-the-government bills, holding the popular parts of the government's operations hostage: Give up the House's prerogative to originate all funding bills, pass an omnibus bill including Obamacare, or the government will be shut down - and our pet media will blame YOU for it!
The Republicans tried several iterations, from an everything-but-Obamacare bill, through several sets that added up to funding everything but Obamacare, to a bunch of little fund-somethng-really-important bills, and the Democrats bounced pretty much all of them.
Eventually the old budget timed out. Then the President ordered his people, not to go on vacation for lack of money to pay them, but to do things like actively blockade federal parks and roads. And for days the Democrats and the media said that it was the Republicans who had "shut down the goverment" (when they'd passed bills to fund pretty much all of it).
Eventually the Republican leadership threw in the towel and let an Everything Including Obamacare bill through. But people like you are STILL fooled into thinking it was the Rs, not the Ds, that made it uncomfortable for them by "shutting it down".
(I'd be a lot more impressed, by the way, if cutting off the money actually DID shut down the government, rather than just 17% or so of it, leaving the remaing 83% running full-bore. It would be interesting to try actual anarchy for a change, just to see what would happen. ;-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Carly Fiorina, a tech industry saboteur, has only managed about $13,000 in donations.
FTFY
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The stakes were never higher: taking or controlling the wealth and the incomes of everyone in the country.
How does that saying go? No man's life, liberty or property are safe, while the legislature is in session?
And increasingly, presidents are able to dispense with this whole "legislating" inconvenience.
Campaign contributions are not a problem with the federal judiciary. They don't listen to donors -- just the voices in their heads.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.