Company Contributions Essential to Idaho Campaign Candidates

Without company contributions, Idaho’s campaign election would be very dull. 

More than half of the contributions come from local businesses and political action committees in the 2012 and 2010 election years. The top five contributors in Rexburg, Idaho and their total contribution from highest to lowest are as follows: 

2010

• Realtors PAC-$89,150
• AGRA PAC-$86,400
• PACE-$68,000
• Qwest Idaho PAC-$65,450
• Winning for Idaho-$58,200

2012

• Idaho Power Company-$99,250
• AGRA PAC-$98,450
• Winning for Idaho-$54,500
• CenturyLink Idaho PAC-$43,650
• Blue Cross of Idaho-$43,500

The 2012 election year was a bigger contribution year over all by close to $10,000. Some of the contributor’s that donated in 2010 did not donate the next election. 

The Political Action Committee for Education (PACE) was a ballot initiative just for 2010. The Prop 1 2 3 was on education reformation. According  to the stateimpact.com, “More than 645,000 votes were cast in each of the Propositions.  Each of the propositions failed by at least 15 percent of the vote.  Proposition 3, the measure that corresponds to giving each high school student a laptop, failed by the largest margin, with 66 percent of voters rejecting it.” 

Qwest became CenturyLink after 2010 as an internet service provider. They contributed $21,800 more in 2012. 

Every election year brings in different companies according to who is running and what their ideas are. The higher the contribution, the more the company pays for a handful of candidates they side with or they see the most potential of winning. 

As next year’s election is approaching us quickly, it is expected that new leaders and a few familiar faces will contribute.