The Seattle City Council is scheduled to vote Monday on new campaign finance restrictions that would prevent companies like Amazon from spending money on city elections.<\/p>\n
The move comes just months after the tech giant, which is headquartered in Seattle, spent millions trying to oust incumbents who wanted to increase its taxes.<\/p>\n
A City Council committee voted Wednesday to advance a bill that would prohibit corporations from contributing to candidates or political action committees spending on local elections if foreign investors own a substantial stake in those companies.<\/p>\n
The legislation passed on a 6-0 vote, making it all but certain that the measure would pass through the full nine-member council.<\/p>\n
“What we are doing here is addressing corruption and the appearance and perception of corruption in our elections, and that is a worthy challenge to take up as a City Council,” said Lorena Gonzalez (D), the City Council president and the bill’s lead author.<\/p>\n
The bill is a direct response to the 2019 elections, in which Amazon and several other large corporations dumped more than $4 million into independent expenditure groups led by the local Chamber of Commerce, an unheard of sum in usually low-budget city elections. Amazon alone was responsible for $1.5 million in spending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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