Silicon Valley companies have invested major cash recently to beef up their lobbying efforts in Washington, DC. But these noble efforts may fall woefully short because of one huge shortcoming: political contributions.
Chris O’Brien’s recent article in the San Jose Mercury News spotlighted the spending binge by Google and other tech firms to strengthen their lobbying operations in Washington. Google’s expenditures of $4 million in 2009 alone, place it near the top of the Silicon Valley food chain, second only to Oracle ($5 million). Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Apple and eBay are well represented in DC too.
This investment in lobbying support is certainly an improvement for an industry that historically was disdainful of politicians and Washington in general. During the booming growth of the tech industry in the 1970s and 1980s, technology CEOs had one simple message for Congress: please just leave us alone.
That all changed in the early 1990s when Microsoft found itself embroiled in the mother of all antitrust lawsuits. The software giant suddenly couldn't spend money fast enough to hire half the lobbying community in DC in order to avoid the wrath of the Justice Department. That lobbying operation is still in place today and Google is determined not to make the same mistake. Bigger company equals bigger target.
But the “coin of the realm” in politics is cash. The reality of life in Congress these days is that elected officials depend on huge amounts of money to retain their seats and if anyone believes that these donations don’t influence votes, think again. The Berkeley, CA-based tech non-profit MapLight.org has developed a fascinating database that not only tracks political contributions to members of Congress and state legislators across the country, but also which interest groups provide the cash and how close to votes those checks magically appear.
A review of these contributions for the high technology world shows that while tech companies may be spending big dollars on lobbying firms, their wallets aren’t quite as open as other groups. MapLight’s data from 2003 through 2009 reveals that high tech (not including telecom and bioscience) contributed $51 million to members of Congress. This doesn’t sound too bad, until you look at the other interest groups and what they gave. Agribusiness channeled $93 million, Education donated $55 million, Transportation gave $136 million in the same period. Then you have Labor checking in with $160 million, Health with $250 million, and the Finance/Insurance & Real Estate interests giving a staggering $500 million. Technology is way down the list.
The honest truth is that technology is still not competitive in political giving with the other business interests running amok in Washington. And tech’s influence will not be powerful enough until they find a way to open the cash spigot and let the money flow.
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