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.
>