In this case Bezos is donating to a group that is trying to popularize a particular law, which will soon be voted on by the population of Washington state at large -- so he's trying to buy the opinion of the people.

It is also relatively common in America for corporations to donate large sums to the re-election funds of officials already in power; they are often then granted concessions in their favour (e.g. George W Bush was very good to the oil industry, Barack Obama is friendly with coal companies).

While both forms are legal, people are generally more morally comfortable with the first than the second form.

>It is also relatively common in America for corporations to donate large sums to the re-election funds of officials already in power

Just to make it clear they can't actually donate large sums of money directly to the candidate's campaign.

They key word there is "directly."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee#Supe...

The money is spent on political advertising, organizing and polling. The intention is to influence votes on some electoral question, most often on selection of officers but here on a particular referendum.

A not-unimportant percentage goes to political consultants.

In financial markets it is well understood that brokers' fees, though a tiny fraction of transactions, are an important driver of marketing activity. It is widely thought that these fees create dangerous conflicts of interest requiring extensive regulation.

The possibility of similar forces in other arenas is not so carefully noticed.

Your concern here is over potential influence peddling in the influence peddling market?

Not just to influence votes, but also to get out the vote. Getting out the vote doesn't necessarily change peoples' opinions, just encourages them to express it.

It can change the outcome of the electorate as a whole, if the less-likely-to-vote voters vote differently then more-likely-to-vote voters.

Yes, I completely agree, that's the point of getting out the vote. I'm just saying that part isn't concerned with changing minds, just getting the minds to the voting booth so the vote is affected.

Think of it like donating that money to PETA (or PETPeople).

PETA's goal is not to bribe politicians into enacting pro animal legislation, but to change how people look at the issue or when most people agree with them they can then inform politicians of this so politicians will then 'toe the line' so as not to offend voters.

I see. But how do they change the way people think about this kind of issue?

It's less that money magically changes minds, and more a few other more important factors:

1) Awareness raising. A lot of people are partially or completely unaware of what laws are on the ballot, what initiatives actually mean and what the stakes are.

2) Driving turnout. This is actually probably much more important than #1. If you look at the statistics, the percentages of eligible voters who actually vote in elections is not incredibly high. Money can be used to ensure that people who are sympathetic to your cause are properly registered to vote, know where their polling places are, even literally give them transportation if they don't have it. For this issue, to take an example, it is extremely likely that college students are overwhelmingly for gay marriage, but a lot of them are not yet registered to vote, or are from out of state and haven't re-registered in Washington, so this kind of money lets pro-Marriage organizations have a heavy presence on campuses getting kids registered in the state, telling them where they need to go and when to vote, possibly even renting busses or vans if polling places are inconvenient for campuses.

With marketing. [Obviously subjective opinion ahead that reflects my personal take].. In California, Prop 8 (Same-Sex Marriage Ban) won because of money spent convincing the middle (people who frankly didn't really care much one way or another) that if gay marriage was legal then we'd start teaching kids to be gay in schools, or something. I'm not kidding.

But yeah. 'Round here laws are products, and marketing is a huge part of how they're sold.

Legislators aren't omnipotent. They don't have a comprehensive view of what the electorate is thinking. If Amazon hires some lobbyists to do surveys and polls, and comes to a state legislator saying "65% of residents and 85% of businesses in your district support this bill" that's enormously persuasive to the legislator.

People who are on the fence or ignorant of the issue now know about it, and can be swayed.

People with deep but irrational convictions, can be pulled to rationality or vice versa.

I'm not saying this specifically about PETA, but that's generally how campaigning works.

Lobbying money goes basically to advertising to lawmakers, also lawmakers' campaigns are funded by support (the money then goes to advertising to get them elected). Supposedly this support does not give quid pro quos but in reality it often does.