• “Companies aren’t paying attention,” Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Public Accountability, told Andrew. “They give to these groups and that’s essentially where their due diligence stops.”But, but, but … Companies push back with two common refrains:• We donate to both parties and have no say over how the money is spent. Getting access to and currying favor with politicians gives companies influence over taxes, regulations, contracts and other issues. But it also means giving some money to figures that the donors wouldn’t choose to support in isolation. Indeed, they’re usually under seven figures — a rounding error for blue-chip companies like Walmart or Microsoft — but when pooled together the money can have an outsize influence on state-level politics.

Source: New York Times July 21, 2020 11:30 UTC