Amazon gives $1 million to pro-business campaign aimed at Seattle City Council
Amazon is pouring more than a million extra dollars into the campaign for business-minded candidates in Seattle.
Spokesperson Aaron Toso said Tuesday that the $1.05 million contribution to CASE – Civic Alliance for a Sound Economy – brings the company’s total donations to the group to $1.45 million.
Vulcan Inc also $235,000 10/14/2019
Washington Association of Realtors $145,000 10/14/2019
Amazon had given earlier donations, but this is by far the biggest to CASE.
CASE is a political action committee sponsored by the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce. CASE has been spending heavily on candidates for Seattle City Council who appear to be more allied with business.
They include Egan Orion in District 3, Heidi Wills in District 6 and Jim Pugel in District 7.
For example, the group’s expenditures on behalf of Orion total about $245,000 (including expenditures for him and against his opponent, incumbent Kshama Sawant). Another business-friendly PAC, People for Seattle, has spent about $37,000 for Orion, and the Seattle Fire Fighters PAC has added $74,000.
CASE's spending for Wills now tops $102,000. People for Seattle has added another $102,000 on Wills’ behalf, and the Seattle Fire Fighters PAC has spent about $59,000.
Labor has made one large expenditure in the council races. The UNITE HERE Local 8 PAC has spent about $150,000 on behalf of Andrew Lewis, Pugel’s opponent in District 7. CAPE, the Civic Alliance for a Progressive Economy, which is sponsored by a labor group called Working Washington as well as SEIU's local PAC have also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In the primary we spent 17,500 directly on seattle city council IEs, and gave 10K to CAPE and 10K to working people for an affordable Seattle which then spent the money on council IEs In the general we have given $100,000 to CAPE. So about 140K altogether. Adam
But overall, so far labor's spending has been dwarfed by the three other groups.
Correction, 12:25 p.m., 10/15/2019: An earlier version of this story understated CASE's expenditures on behalf of Egan Orion and Heidi Wills.
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Gil Aegerter
Gil edits feature pieces and helps guide staff reporters through their stories. He previously served as interim digital director and online managing editor at KUOW. Before that he spent seven years with NBCNews.com, where he was variously a senior editor, editor-producer and features editor. He also worked 25 years as a newspaper editor in Anchorage, Alaska, San Diego, Wilmington, N.C., and Seattle. He also was a freelance researcher for NBC Olympics for the Games in Atlanta; Sydney, Australia; Salt Lake City; Athens; and Torino, Italy. He is a graduate of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, with a degree in photojournalism.
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David Hyde
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David’s people-focused politics coverage tracks local and national races. At KUOW, David has also reported for our Hearken Team answering listener questions,and covered a variety of other topics ranging from vaccine hesitancy to climate change.
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