Billionaire Democrat megadonor George Soros knows how to influence an election, and his latest ballot venture is trying to keep the police force defunded in Austin, Texas.
According to financial records, Soros funneled $500,000 to Equity PAC, a political action committee that opposes a proposition to hire more police officers, on Sept. 27. The proposition, Proposition A, is set for a Nov. 2 vote and would require the police department to hire hundreds more officers, have at least two officers per 1,000 residents, and give officers an extra 40 hours of police training.
“It sickens me that out of town billionaires are able to swoop into Austin to fight against citizen-led ballot initiatives,” Austin City Council member Mackenzie Kelly told Fox News. “The purpose of our city’s charter is to allow regular, everyday people to fight for what they believe in when the city council fails them.”
After George Floyd riots swept the country last year, the Austin City Council stripped $150 million from the city’s police department, reallocating the money into other public services. Although the department was partially refunded early this year, Proposition A would restore more funding to Austin law enforcement.
Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of Save Austin Now, a political action committee supporting Proposition A, tweeted Friday that “national left wing interests are trying to destroy public safety in Austin.”
National left wing interests are trying to destroy public safety in Austin.
Help us ensure adequate police staffing, increase community policing, double police training and enact sensible police reforms.
Donate here: https://t.co/Ai8l8KGH20. https://t.co/FHmsqZkdeE
— Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak) October 1, 2021
Soros, whose cushy Hamptons estates are well protected, has spent tens of millions of dollars swaying local races across the country, including getting a number of law-and-order-flouting prosecutors elected. The billionaire financier, who is worth an estimated $8.6 billion, has been funding Black Lives Matter and other radical organizations for years.
This year, Austin has seen a 200 percent uptick in murders. According to Save Austin Now, 96 percent of police shifts in the city are not fully staffed, and over 80 percent of residents surveyed feel that the city is unsafe. Burglaries, muggings, rapes, and more crimes are on the rise, and Austin’s diluted police force doesn’t have the resources to stop them.
“Massive out-of-state funding for our opponents show two things: That Austin donors won’t fund the anti-Prop A campaign and that the stakes in this effort to restore public safety to Austin could not be higher,” Mackowiak and Save Austin Now co-founder Cleo Petricek said in a joint statement. “We are now going to fight twice as hard and we hope all our supporters will as well.”
