Microsoft has topped another ranking: It leads heads the list of computer companies making campaign contributions, according to U.S. federal documents.
Indeed, when it comes to placing political bets, Microsoft leads its competitors by a wide margin. The giant software maker has contributed $US574,099, according to the most recent statistics covering the election cycle dating from January 1997 and lasting through September 1998.
Microsoft's gift-giving also heavily favors Republicans, who received $US381,446. Democrats got $US191,403.
A spokesman for the software maker said the allocation was not connected to Microsoft's currently unfolding federal antitrust suit, slated to go to trial later this month.
Given there are more Republicans in Congress than Democrats, it's a mathematical fact that you'd end up with more in that regard," said spokesman Greg Shaw. "There are many issues in Washington that are of interest to industry, and you can't really make a connection back to competition."
Late bloomer
The computer industry has been a relative latecomer to the party, according to Capitol Hill watchers, who say Silicon Valley is demonstrating increasing political savvy.
Congress is taking up a laundry list of list of items near and dear to Silicon Valley's heart, including standards for securities class-action law suits, the expansion of a visa program to let skilled foreign workers into the United States and a moratorium on e-commerce taxes.
Putting their money where their mouths are, computer companies, and Silicon Valley venture capital and lobbying firms donated more than $US5.4 million to political action committees and individual members of Congress in 1998, based upon statistics from the Federal Elections Commission.
Other big spenders
The Technology Network, a Silicon Valley lobbying group formed a year ago, has raised money and held briefings with legislators. The CRP says the Technology Network has met half of the 10 biggest House recipients of computer industry largesse and eight of the Senate's top 10 recipients in the 1997-98 election cycle.
Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, ranked No. 2 behind Microsoft in political spending. (The company was especially active in the push to extend visas to skilled foreign workers.) Other companies making big political donations included EDS, Oracle, Gateway and Cisco Systems
"The industry certainly is a growing presence -- and they didn't have much of one not too long ago," said Paul Hendrie, an executive with the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. "It's really emerged in this election cycle on Capitol Hill."
Highly effective
Indeed, Hendrie said the computer industry now operates one of the most effective lobbies on Capitol Hill.
"It's not just their total numbers but the way they're going about it," Hendrie said. "The computer industry is different than other industries in that they try to have members of Congress come out to Silicon Valley and have meetings there, rather than dole out checks in order to build relationships. Time will tell how effective it will be but it's certainly more original."
