I made a big deal about Microsoft suspending its political giving as a victory for Microsoft employees back in June, but they have quietly restarted it. I'll go through the October filing and then talk about what happened in June, and what employees can do now.
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First and least surprising is a max donation to the American Defense and Military PAC, run by the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. Gotta get that Pentagon cloud contract! Microsoft gave ADAM PAC $5000 on Oct 17.pic.twitter.com/CcKDVmBNIz
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Microsoft gave $3000 to Kevin McCarthy's Majority Committee PAC on October 16.pic.twitter.com/p0hncar4e7
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Rep. Jackie Walorski pushed to have a discriminatory "religious freedom" amendment tacked on to a 2016 defense bill, and voted in support of Trump's transgender ban. Microsoft gave her $1000 on October 30.pic.twitter.com/AyrNxfusKP
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Defending a proposal to cut access to the SNAP program (food stamps), Jodey Arrington cited the biblical passage Thessalonians 3-10. "We give you this rule, 'If a man will not work he shall not eat.'" Microsoft gave Arrington $1000 he didn't work for.pic.twitter.com/RBRNB5dQj1
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Microsoft has gone back to an old favorite from 2018, Russ Fulcher. Here's Fulcher on climate: “I’m not a big climate change guy. If you look far enough back in history, things cycle... to be honest, I haven’t spent that much time thinking about it.” MSFT gave him $1000pic.twitter.com/Y0A3rZw9Hs
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Rep. Mike Burgess is most famous for his comments on fetal masturbation (https://rewire.news/article/2013/06/17/texas-congressman-masturbating-fetuses-prove-need-for-abortion-ban/ …), but has a long record of anti-LGBT votes. Microsoft gave him $1000 on Oct 30pic.twitter.com/XEDVTC24hG
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Drew Ferguson is an Georgia congressman who voted against the Equality Act, believes abortion should be criminalized, supported Trump's Muslim ban, and has been an enthusiastic proponent of a border wall. Microsoft gave him $1,000pic.twitter.com/uxhjY9Sj85
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So that's just a sampler of donations made last month. Microsoft promised to consult with employees about governance before it resumed the PAC, but instead returned to old habits. Here's a link to Microsoft's words vs its political donations over time: https://idlewords.com/microsoft_words_actions.html …
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The original reason that Microsoft suspended its PAC giving was because its hypocrisy over DACA had become untenable.
@BradSmi was trumpeting his support for DACA employees on Twitter while the company wrote checks to get them deported. I wrote it up here: https://idlewords.com/2019/07/microsoft_s_hypocrisy_on_daca.htm …4 replies 8 retweets 22 likesShow this thread
In the memo announcing its suspension of the PAC (https://idlewords.com/microsoft_pac_statement.html …), Microsoft promised to create "new advisory councils based on Employee Resource Groups and geographies to increase dialogue and transparency." It's now up to employees to decide if that promise was kept
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Microsoft employees came together over two years in a spirited defunding campaign to get this PAC shut down the first time. I have faith that they're not going to leave this return of the zombie PAC without a response. We all know what to do with zombies
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(Also kudos to
@marypcbuk for correctly anticipating that this is what Microsoft would do, down to the month!)1 reply 2 retweets 26 likesShow this thread
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