Facebook’s PAC donations tilt towards GOP, Judiciary committee members

FB PAC, Facebook's new political action committee, spent its first-ever quarter of activity hewing to a more or less bipartisan donation strategy with emphasis on the House and Senate Judiciary committees, the PAC's first quarter disclosure form shows.

Of the $128,900 the PAC took in, it quickly gave away $119,000, distributing the donations on a mostly bipartisan basis. Uncharacteristic for most tech companies, the final tally of contributions favored Republicans $65,500 to $53,500. Typical leadership cash magnets like House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority and Minority leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were FB PAC recipients. But despite the almost bipartisan final breakdown, many of the PAC's donations seemed to ignore party labels altogether, going instead either to tech favorites like Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Greg Walden (R-OR) and Fred Upton (R-MI) or Judiciary committee veterans like Reps. Darrel Issa (R-CA), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).