[JumpCrisscross]

That's a campaign donation. (Mayors in mayor-council governments aren't technically lawmakers, though Houston has a strong enough mayor that it's semantic at best.) You can't--legally--spend campaign donations on personal expenses. It's the difference between investing in someone's start-up (or more accurately, donating to their non-profit) and giving them money personally.

I'm not arguing it doesn't buy influence. It does, though not in the form popularly conceived. But it's not bribery. Cheapening bribery by conflating it with campaign finance, or worse, lobbying in general isn't intellectually honest.

[lmm]

> You can't--legally--spend campaign donations on personal expenses. It's the difference between investing in someone's start-up (or more accurately, donating to their non-profit) and giving them money personally.

A personal election campaign is presumably something in your personal interest, and money is fungible.

> I'm not arguing it doesn't buy influence. It does, though not in the form popularly conceived. But it's not bribery. Cheapening bribery by conflating it with campaign finance, or worse, lobbying in general isn't intellectually honest.

On the contrary, giving in to the sophistry that says that this particular system of organised and regulated bribery is somehow not bribery is intellectual dishonesty. Yes there are some relevant differences between this and other forms of bribery, but the similarities are stronger.

[grecy]

You said:

> If you have evidence of Apple or Google cutting a cheque to any lawmaker

And then

> That's a campaign donation

Use newspeak and call it whatever you want, it is VERY clear MONEY WAS PAID TO A LAWMAKER, which is EXACTLY what you wanted evidence of. This very clearly means you need to cut me a 6 figure cheque.

Again, other countries very clearly call this bribery, the US just invented a new word for it.

[vkou]

Precisely which countries ban political donations?

[UncleMeat]

> You can't--legally--spend campaign donations on personal expenses.

You absolutely can. You can loan money to your campaign and charge interest on that and then have donors donate to your campaign to repay your debt. Brought to you by the conservative wing of the supreme court in FEC v Cruz.

[jacquesm]

In any other country this would be bribery. If it happened in another country the USA would call it bribery...