Google’s PAC won’t give to lawmakers who objected to Electoral College results showing Biden won

Google says its political action committee, NetPAC won’t be giving any money in the 2022 midterm elections to any member of Congress who voted earlier this month to overturn the Electoral College results showing Joe Biden had won the presidential election.

“After the disturbing events at the Capitol, NetPAC paused all contributions while undertaking a review,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement to CBS News. “Following that review, the NetPAC board has decided that it will not be making any contributions this cycle to any member of Congress who voted against certification of the election results.”

Nearly 150 Republican lawmakers voted to toss out the election results hours after supporters of President Trump rioted at the U.S Capitol to protest the outcome, resulting in the deaths of five people.

Eight Republican senators objected to the election results, with seven voting to discard the results from Pennsylvania while six objected to the results from Arizona. A total of 138 House Republicans voted not to count the results from Pennsylvania, while 121 did so for Arizona’s results.

The eight senators who voted against the certification, including vocal leaders like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, did not receive any contributions from Google’s PAC in the 2020 election. 

However, it gave Cruz $5,500 for his 2018 reelection, according to FEC records.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, has received tens of thousands of dollars from NetPAC over the last decade. Every year since 2016, it has given $5,000 to McCarthy’s congressional campaign. 

In the last election cycle, from January of 2019 to November 2020, Google’s political action committee handed out over $1.8 million to various candidates and political groups, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. 

But the riots at the Capitol gave tech giants like Google and other large corporations pause. Amazon said it would suspend political contributions to lawmakers who voted to overturn the results, Facebook is putting  contributions on hold during a review of its policies, and Microsoft announced Sunday it would discuss the matter with employees and arrive at a final decision in February.