You might think that the executives behind the worldâs second-largest company would be too preoccupied by their billion-dollar budgets and trips to Shanghai and London to care about the Seattle City Council elections, but thatâs not the case for Amazon. The companyâs inner circle of advisors to Jeff Bezos appears to be keenly aware and concerned about who wins this year's battle for the council seat representing District 3, which covers Capitol Hill, the Central District, and Montlake.
More than 30 Amazon employees have donated to District 3 city council candidate Egan Orion, including $4,700 from a dozen of Amazon's top executives. The list of Orion donors is a who's who of Amazonâs top brass, including Andrew Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services; David Zapolsky, a senior vice president and general counsel; Jay Carney, a former White House spokesperson and current head of public relations for Amazon; and Jeffrey Wilke, Amazonâs CEO of Worldwide Consumer Finance, a division of Amazon.
Orion is challenging District 3 Council Member Kshama Sawant, a socialist who has made it her mission to make big business, especially Amazon, pay more corporate taxes. So itâs not too surprising to see Bezosâs boys (and they are nearly all boys) take on Seattleâs most famous firebrand.
Amazonâs executives arenât just putting their money into Orionâs campaign, theyâre also helping fund an anti-Sawant attack PAC organized by former Council Member Tim Burgess. Donations to individual campaigns like Orionâs are limited to $250, but thanks to Citizens United there are no limits to how much independent PACs can raise or spend, and eight Amazon executives have donated $30,000 to Burgess's People for Seattle PAC. Those eight Amazon executives account for over ten percent of the PACâs overall funding.
The executives' involvement in Orionâs race comes as the entire company, which employs over 45,000 people inside the city, becomes increasingly involved in city elections. Amazon hosted a company-wide candidate forum for employees last month, with dozens of candidates (including Sawant) setting up tables in a South Lake Union meeting center and taking questions from Amazonians.
In all, Amazon employees have so far donated $64,630 in this yearâs city elections. The majority of that money comes from those 12 executives, but $16,660 has been spent by lower-level Amazon employees. And not all of those donors are sticking to the company script. Sawant herself has raised $920 from Amazon employees. Here are the top ten recipients of Amazon cash so far:
This all pales in comparison to how much Amazon, as a corporate entity, is donating. Theyâve given $250,000 to Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy (CASE), a no-limit PAC created by the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. CASE is spending heavily to defeat incumbents like Sawant and Council Member Lisa Herbold.