Before election day this year in Seattle, Washington, the online shopping giant, Amazon, paid around 1.3 million dollars to the Seattle-based super PAC, Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy. Doing so will allow them to put more business-friendly council members onto the Seattle city council, which yields a strong voice criticizing the company’s business in Seattle is a grave impetus for all the ills in the city, including poverty and homelessness. Amazon intends to remove any council member sharing the sentiment―last year, the city council voted to implement a city tax on big businesses such as Amazon to fund shelters and other welfare services―replacing them with members who are fine with Amazon being in Seattle. In the end, 3 of the 7 candidates for the 9-seat council that Amazon backed through the Super PAC were leading. Interestingly, only 15,000 dollars were paid in 2015, indicating the degree to which the tax had compelled the company to take action, as well as how companies like Amazon rely on Super PACs to fight for issues depending on how much it benefits them. If the Super PAC and candidate are business-friendly, the money will be spent on them, reshaping the Council into one that conveniences Amazon’s place in Seattle.
This local election reiterates what we have learned in the documentary we finished this week about money in American elections, that outside money, since the precedent of the Citizens United vs FEC Supreme Court Case, has profound influences on local elections, elections that lack the resources to trace how money is spent. Though Amazon is a hometown business, actions by Amazon show just how vulnerable local elections are and how they could not be immune from those trying to buy the election, taking a voice away from the people the council serves, especially those such new policies would more negatively impact for the betterment of companies like Amazon.
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