Council Member Wants To Stop PACs From Influencing Seattle Elections

[James Little]

Council Member Wants To Stop Donors Like Amazon From Using PACs To Influence Seattle Elections

"A Seattle City Council member may introduce legislation that would stop donors like Amazon from using political-action committees (PACs) to pour money into Seattle elections, and the proposal is backed by national reformers who hope to see such a law upheld by the United States Supreme Court.  They want to challenge the idea that the 2010 Supreme Court case called Citizens United, which opened the door to unlimited independent spending by PACs, also opened the door to unlimited donations to those PACs.

Councilmember M. Lorena González’s legislation would ban donations of more than $5,000 to independent-expenditure PACs in Seattle and would ban donations to such PACs by “foreign-influenced corporations.”