Zuckerbucks and the 2020 US Election...

[Joe Gwinn]

Non-US SED denizens probably have not heard of this, so I decided to
mention it here.

Something very interesting emerged when the various election-related
groups had to file their declarations of expenditures under US law:

It turned out that Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook, worth USD 75
billion) spent about one billion dollars on funding state and local
election boards across the US, in many places giving the entities
funded by Zuckerberg an inside seat in these government election
boards and organization.

This was perfectly legal at the time, but will soon be made illegal by
many or most US states because no political organization should be
able to penetrate a government election organization, as the conflict
of interest is apparent, and deeply undermining.

There was a Wall Street Journal editorial that summarizes the
thinking: \"Zuckerbucks Shouldn’t Pay for Elections -- It fans
mistrust to let private donors fund official voting duties\", 3 January
2022. (Behind a paywall, sadly.)

Google for \"Zuckerbucks\" for many independent takes on the story.


Joe Gwinn

 

[David Brown]

On 17/03/2022 16:44, Joe Gwinn wrote:

Non-US SED denizens probably have not heard of this, so I decided to
mention it here.

I thought most people were aware that the US has a strong tradition of
legalised bribery in all levels of elected officials? That\'s what party
and candidate campaign contributions, as well as lobbying, amounts to.

(It is not unique to the USA - but like many things, the USA is the
world leader here.)

If there are new rules limiting this, then that /is/ new to me. (I know
there are already /some/ rules, but your example shows how ineffective
these are.)

Something very interesting emerged when the various election-related
groups had to file their declarations of expenditures under US law:

It turned out that Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook, worth USD 75
billion) spent about one billion dollars on funding state and local
election boards across the US, in many places giving the entities
funded by Zuckerberg an inside seat in these government election
boards and organization.

This was perfectly legal at the time, but will soon be made illegal by
many or most US states because no political organization should be
able to penetrate a government election organization, as the conflict
of interest is apparent, and deeply undermining.

There was a Wall Street Journal editorial that summarizes the
thinking: \"Zuckerbucks Shouldn’t Pay for Elections -- It fans
mistrust to let private donors fund official voting duties\", 3 January
2022. (Behind a paywall, sadly.)

Google for \"Zuckerbucks\" for many independent takes on the story.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 10:35:19 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 17/03/2022 16:44, Joe Gwinn wrote:
Non-US SED denizens probably have not heard of this, so I decided to
mention it here.


I thought most people were aware that the US has a strong tradition of
legalised bribery in all levels of elected officials? That\'s what party
and candidate campaign contributions, as well as lobbying, amounts to.

It was actually called \"legal graft\" in the day. Largely outlawed
these days, but keeps popping up anyway.

(It is not unique to the USA - but like many things, the USA is the
world leader here.)

No, the UK (whose legal system we inherited) was our model, of course.

If there are new rules limiting this, then that /is/ new to me. (I know
there are already /some/ rules, but your example shows how ineffective
these are.)

What\'s being debated is not the abolition of graft (the horror!), but
governmental election organizations allowing accepting such help, or
allowing such help to lead to inside access. I have not checked the
status of these various laws, and Ukraine drove all of that out of the
news for now.

Joe Gwinn

Something very interesting emerged when the various election-related
groups had to file their declarations of expenditures under US law:

It turned out that Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook, worth USD 75
billion) spent about one billion dollars on funding state and local
election boards across the US, in many places giving the entities
funded by Zuckerberg an inside seat in these government election
boards and organization.

This was perfectly legal at the time, but will soon be made illegal by
many or most US states because no political organization should be
able to penetrate a government election organization, as the conflict
of interest is apparent, and deeply undermining.

There was a Wall Street Journal editorial that summarizes the
thinking: \"Zuckerbucks Shouldn’t Pay for Elections -- It fans
mistrust to let private donors fund official voting duties\", 3 January
2022. (Behind a paywall, sadly.)

Google for \"Zuckerbucks\" for many independent takes on the story.