Billionaires and Stealth Politics
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Chick- Fil- A boycott was counterbalanced by a movement of social con-
servatives supporting the restaurant chain. There may be inherent limits
to the intensity of social pressures that billionaires face in this realm, because of the deep divisions within the general American citizenry on these issues. By contrast, for a billionaire to openly advocate sharp cuts in Social Security benefits would provoke nearly universal public condemnation.
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As one might expect, based on reduced prospects of social or economic
pressure on billionaires in the social realm, here they display less disjunc-tion between speech and action. With respect to abortion and same- sex
marriage— as opposed to taxes and Social Security— billionaires less of-
ten engage in stealth politics. We find no evidence that many billionaires work for policies opposed by large majorities of Americans and deliberately conceal their policy preferences for that reason.
The story is somewhat different when it comes to what billionaires say
and do about immigration policy, which combines both social and economic elements. The immigration policy case helps illuminate under what
circumstances and why billionaires do or do not pursue stealth politics.
Most billionaires do disagree markedly with majorities of Americans about immigration policy. Socially, few billionaires share the cultural anxieties of those middle- class and working- class Americans who fear or resent “foreigners” in their midst. Billionaires generally live in separate, affluent neighborhoods and send their children to separate private schools.
Few billionaires fear job or wage competition from immigrants. In fact,
many billionaires benefit from immigration by hiring immigrants as low-
wage workers. So, many billionaires have reasons to work actively for pro-immigration policies but to conceal what they are doing. Stealthy— or at least semistealthy— politics returns.
Studying Billionaires’ Words and Actions on Social Issues
Since it is not feasible to interview a representative sample of the very wealthiest Americans on social issues (or anything else6), we once again
turned to the same systematic, internet- based web- scraping techniques described in chapter 2. Once again we sought to uncover all publicly recorded words and actions by the one hundred wealthiest US billionaires— in this
case, all their words and actions related to the social issues of abortion and same- sex marriage and the mixed issue of immigration.
As with taxes and Social Security, we focused on words or actions re-
lated to specific policies within these broad policy domains. On abortion, for example, we wanted to find out what the billionaires said or did about legal prohibitions of “partial birth” abortions, or about parental consent requirements, or about any other type of law or regulation designed to
limit or to protect abortion rights. On same- sex marriage, we looked for billionaires’ words and actions concerning any policies that would affect
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civil unions, domestic partnerships, or legal marriages by same- sex cou-
ples. On immigration, we sought to discover what the billionaires said or did about specific policies related to levels of legal or illegal immigration; immigration “reform” proposals, such as those concerning paths to citizenship for undocumented workers; measures for border protection; de-
portation rules and procedures; work visas for highly skilled immigrants; naturalization rules; the DREAM Act for those brought to the United
States as children; and any others. We designed our web searches to un-
earth any general references to one of the broad issue areas as well as any references to specific policies within each issue area.
If a billionaire said or did anything relevant, we wanted to find it. Every publicly reported utterance— whether a formal speech, a video, an op- ed, a letter to the editor, a journalistic interview, even an offhand or overheard comment— was fair game.
After conducting the same kind of semantic- field- based search process
described in chapter 2, we ultimately settled on twelve keywords related
to abortion, eleven related to same- sex marriage, and fifteen related to immigration. (For a full list of keywords used, see appendix 5.)
After developing this comprehensive list of keywords, we turned to the
web and used Google News/General Web7 to begin searching. Billionaire
by billionaire, we searched for all relevant statements concerning each of our three types of social issues by each one of the one hundred wealthiest Americans.8 We also employed the same strategies as used in chapter 2 to
discover issue- specific political actions.
Active, Quiet, but Less Stealthy Billionaires
As we have seen, the wealthiest US billionaires are extremely active in a general political way, making many large contributions to political parties and candidates (mostly Republicans), and often acting as campaign
fund- raisers.
In our research for this chapter, we found that a fair number of bil-
lionaires also engage in policy- specific actions on abortion, same- sex marriage, and immigration, mostly on the “liberal”9 or libertarian side. They have much more often taken actions favorable than unfavorable toward
same- sex marriage and immigration (especially immigration of high- skilled workers), though on abortion their actions have been evenly divided between pro- choice and pro- life.
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As far as publicly reported speech goes, the wealthiest billionaires are rather quiet about specific social issues, just as we earlier found to be true of tax and Social Security policies. Very few billionaires have made multiple public statements. Most have said nothing at all. But when they have spoken out, an overwhelming majority of them have taken a liberal or
libertarian position: pro- choice, supportive of same- sex marriage, or favorable toward immigration, particularly of skilled workers.
On these social issues, billionaires’ actions have thus generally been in harmony with their publicly reported words. They have generally taken
liberal or libertarian stands in both speech and action. This suggests that they are not acting in the “stealthy” fashion that we found for tax and
Social Security policies, where moderate words by a very few prominent,
relatively liberal billionaires have provided a misleading picture of all billionaires’ preferences— given the unpopular, highly conservative (but
generally hidden) actions on economic policies that others have taken.
Our statistical analyses tend to confirm the absence of stealthiness on
social issues. Yet billionaires’ behavior concerning immigration has been somewhat different, perhaps semistealthy. And, as we will argue below,
silence about important issues of public policy by major political actors can have unfortunate consequences whether it is deliberately stealthy in our
sense or not.
A Great Deal of General Political Activity
Just as resource theories of political engagement would predict10 (and as we reported in chapter 2), billionaires tend to be very active politically, especially in making financial contributions and soliciting contributions from others.
Remarkably, for example, our earlier searches revealed that more than one- third (36 percent) of the one hundred wealthiest billionaires hosted political fund- raisers and/or bundled others’ contributions to political causes.
Bundling is a high- level form of political activity that often wins a bundler direct access to top- ranking public officials. Within the US population as a whole, bundling is extremely rare. Even among the top 1 or 2 percent of US
wealth holders, only about one- fifth have reported bundling.11 Billionaires stand at th
e very pinnacle of activity in American politics.
Billionaires have a lot of money to give to political causes. As we noted in chapter 2, fully 92 percent of the one hundred wealthiest billionaires made at least one FEC- reportable federal or state political contribution
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between 2001 and 2012 (recall table 2.4). Money giving is much less com-
mon in the general population or even among multimillionaires,12 and of
course the billionaires’ average annual total of $509,248 per person in reportable contributions between 2001 and 2012 dwarfed what ordinary
Americans could hope to give. It is also important to remember that our
figures deal only with reportable contributions, not unreported dark money, so that bil lionaires’ total political contributions have undoubtedly been substantially higher.13
As one would expect of very wealthy people, most billionaires (64 per-
cent of those who made partisan or ideological contributions) contributed primarily or exclusively to Republicans. The bulk of their money (an average of $384,121 annually) went to Republicans or conservative groups, as
opposed to the $110,820 that went to Democratic or liberal groups, parties, or candidates. There is good reason to believe that billionaires’ general political contributions have helped bring about victories by Republicans
in state, local, and federal races around the country. By the same token, billionaires’ contributions to the Republican Party and Republican candidates have almost certainly facilitated conservative- leaning policy decisions on the issues of abortion and same- sex marriage— even though
rather few billionaires may have intended to have those particular effects.
Substantial Actions Focused on Specific Social Issues
As compared to general contributions to political parties or candidates,
highly issue- specific, policy- oriented contributions to particular political causes tend to be smaller and less frequent. Yet, as table 4.1 indicates, a fair number of the one hundred wealthiest billionaires have made a contribution to (or otherwise supported) an organization with a narrow mission
that took a clear stand on each of our three social issues. Sixteen of them (16 percent) acted on same- sex marriage; 11 percent acted on immigration; and 8 percent took one or more policy- related actions on abortion.
More than one- quarter of the billionaires— 27 percent of them— acted on
one or more of the three social issues.
A striking feature of table 4.1 is the indication of substantial libertarian or socially liberal action among billionaires. Those who engaged in policy- related action were evenly divided (4 to 4) on abortion. But their actions tilted heavily (12 to 4) toward favoring same- sex marriage. Some, like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, took big action: Bezos donated $2.5 million in support of Washington State’s same- sex marriage referendum. Similarly,
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table 4.1 Frequencies of Policy- Related Actions on Social Issues
Issue
Direction of Stance
Abortion
Same- Sex Marriage
Immigration
Pro
4
12
11
Con
4
4
0
Note: Entries are the number of billionaires who took one or more policy- related actions of a given type.
billionaires’ actions overwhelmingly (11 to 0) went toward supporting
current or increased levels of immigration. Again some— like Face-
book’s Mark Zuckerberg— took major action: Zuckerberg created the
immigration- reform- centric lobbying group FWD.us. This fits well with
scholars’ findings that more- affluent Americans tend to be more socially liberal. It also fits with our impression that many or most billionaires are libertarians— liberal on social issues but conservative on economic issues.
Few Public Statements about Social Issues
As we have noted, it is easy for billionaires to speak out about public
policy if and when they want to. Many journalists and bloggers would be
happy to publicize their remarks. It would probably be good for society if they did speak out: as highly respected, knowledgeable figures, many billionaires probably have a great deal that they could contribute to collective deliberation. Furthermore, given their high levels of political activity and (presumably) their substantial political influence, democratic norms
of political accountability would seem to dictate that billionaires should make known what they are trying to get the government to do. We believe
that billionaires should feel a duty— and perhaps should be obliged, as bigmoney givers and important political actors— to open their views to pub-
lic challenge and debate.
On the other hand, we have noted reasons why billionaires might pre-
fer silence. Social issues, though less entangled with self- interest than economic issues, are often highly controversial. Controversy can be unpleasant.
Although we have suggested that there may be limits to dangers from one-
sided pressures concerning social issues, there might be money at stake.
Taking a political position might lead to a loss of support from angry customers, shareholders, or business associates. Silence might be safer.
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table 4.2 Frequencies of Statements on
Social Issues
Number of Statements
Number of
(Across Issues)
Billionaires
23
1
8
1
7
1
6
3
5
1
4
2
3
0
2
6
1
14
0
71
It turns out that on social issues— just as on economic and social wel-
fare policies— silence generally prevails. Our exhaustive web searches
revealed that, over a roughly ten- year period,14 fully 71 percent— nearly three- quarters— of the one hundred wealthiest Americans said nothing whatsoever in public about specific policies related to any of the three social issues we studied: abortion, same- sex marriage, or immigration.
This is definitely not a reflection of indifference to these issues throughout American society. Policies related to abortion, same- sex marriage,
and immigration were widely and intensely debated during the years we
covered. A Google News search using the keyword “abortion,” for ex-
ample, returned over 6.6 million results, while “immigration” generated
24.2 million, and a cluster of three search terms related to same- sex marriage produced over 10 million.15 By way of comparison, “taxes” produced
24 million results, while “Social Security” generated 13 million. Thus there is plenty of evidence of sustained public discourse on each of these issues—
and evidence that the discussion on social issues has been of roughly the same magnitude as that on economic themes. But fewer than one- third—
just 29 percent— of the billionaires took any part whatsoever in those public debates (see table 4.2).
Moreover, with a single exception (Michael Bloomberg), those billion-
aires who spoke at all about our social issues said very little about them.
Bloomberg, a political candidate and then mayor of New York— where
he was no doubt expected to voice his views on these issues as a mat-
ter of course— was our champion talker, with a total of twenty- three re-
marks, statements, or writings that touched upon the three social issues.
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ing quiet on social issues
85
Bloomberg was also the only billionaire who took policy- related actions
on all three issues.
Hardly any other billionaires said much at all. Mark Zuckerberg made
eight statements; Rupert Murdoch made seven; Bill Gates, Warren Buf-
fett, and Sheldon Adelson made six statements each; Steve Ballmer made
five; and David Koch and Laurene Powell Jobs each made four statements.
No billionaires other than these nine made more than two statements—
over a ten- year period— concerning all three social issues taken together.
Another twenty billionaires made just a skimpy one or two statements
each. Finally, as noted earlier, seventy- one of our one hundred billionaires said nothing at all (see table 4.2 and appendix 4).
It seems accurate to say, then, that the wealthiest billionaires have generally been very quiet about these important, hotly debated social issues.
When the billionaires have spoken out about social issues, they have
overwhelmingly taken a socially liberal or libertarian side. On abortion, they made pro- choice rather than pro- life statements by a ratio of six to two16 (see table 4.3). Supporters of same- sex marriage far outnumbered opponents, by thirteen to two. On immigration, quite a few speakers made
a distinction that we will discuss further below: seven of the sixteen who spoke out favored maintaining or increasing immigration only for skilled workers. (Another two strongly emphasized increasing immigration for
skilled workers, but also voiced support for a pathway to citizenship for un-skilled undocumented immigrants.) But nearly as many (seven) advocated
increasing immigration generally. Not a single one of the sixteen billionaires table 4.3 Frequencies of Statements on Abortion, Same- Sex Marriage, and Immigration Abortion
Same- Sex Marriage
Immigration
Direction of Stance
Count
Direction of Stance
Count
Direction of Stance
Count
Pro- choice
6
Support same- sex
13
Increase
7
marriage
immigration
Pro- life with
0
Support civil
0
Increase only for
2
exceptions