In addition to the alleged conflicts of interest, many members of Congress use the money raised by their leadership PAC to pay for luxury travel and other personal expenses. Issue One and the Campaign Legal Center released a report detailing how these lawmakers are using the money for such activities as expensive meals, rounds of golf and hotel stays. They also use these funds to fund trips to Puerto Rico and to attend exclusive social events. Some members of Congress even use these funds to pay for their dues to exclusive social clubs.
Back Blue Lives PAC is another PAC that uses this method. It calls people in different states and is controlled by a handler. They have boiler room chatter in the background. The person I spoke to, Don, was one of the many people on the call. It was obvious that this was a political organization, as the call was conducted by a handler. The message he left behind a name and a telephone number.
In order to circumvent base limits, a PAC must support several candidates. In that case, a donor cannot avoid knowing that a substantial portion of their contribution is going to Smith’s campaign. The PAC could give Smith up to $2,600 per election, but only $260 would be attributable to the donor’s intent to avoid the base limits. So while there are many scenarios that involve implicit agreements to circumvent base limits, there is no evidence that a constitutional leadership PAC is funneling “massive amounts of money” to Smith.
One reason for the lack of transparency in leadership PACs is that members of Congress often focus on the interests of their biggest donors, which can lead to corruption. However, leadership PACs are a great way to make this distinction, allowing members of Congress to entertain big donors. If the Democrats gain control of the House in November, they may introduce anti-corruption measures that ban personal use of leadership PAC money. If this happens, they should consider banning such practices altogether.
What's Wrong With the Constitutional Leadership PAC?
The ‘Constitutional Leadership PAC’ has separated a large chunk of its target audience of #MAGA retirees from $821K in their campaign coffers. The PAC spent $759K of their money on fundraising, including $27K to an anonymous LLC that worked for’media’. They then had $93K left over to spend on election ads and communications. But what’s so wrong with this?
To avoid rerouting money, the PAC must support several candidates in each election. In this way, a donor can avoid knowing that a’substantial portion’ of his contribution will go to Smith. For example, if the PAC contributes $2,600 to Smith in two elections, $260 will be attributable to the donor’s intent to circumvent the base limit. But in reality, the PAC’s efforts to funnel “massive amounts” to Smith have been largely ineffective.
After the election, the ‘constitutional leadership PAC’ continued to reap donations. While Holding announced he would not run for reelection in 2020, the PAC’s spending continued to increase, with more than $180,000 spent on travel expenses, a $20,000 bill for Astros baseball team equipment, and big bucks for boutique hotels. But none of the $5,000 donations from donors ended up helping Holding and his political allies.
The Constitutional Leadership PAC
The ‘Constitutional Leadership PAC’ split the money of its target audience of #MAGA retirees in two: $759K to raise awareness of the issue, and another $27K to a mysterious LLC used to ‘inform’ the media. This left the ‘PAC’ with just over $93K in its coffers. We asked Robert Price to explain the ‘constitutional leadership pac”s egregious spending.
The idea for a leadership PAC originated in the 1970s, when progressive Democrats swept into Congress after Watergate. In the past, most committee chairs had been older conservative Democrats who controlled what bills would come to the House floor. But the 1970s reforms gave new progressive Democrats an opportunity to shake up Congress. Before the creation of leadership PACs, committee chairs were largely conservative and controlled what bills were brought to the floor of the House. Leadership PACs aimed to strip committee chairs of power and redistribute it to party leaders and subcommittee chairs. Members’ ability to raise money for candidates was now a new path to power.
The original purpose of a leadership PAC has become obsolete. Today, less than 45 percent of the money donated to leadership PACs actually goes to the candidates. Instead, members often use the money for personal expenses. Hunter, for example, spent the money from his own campaign on personal expenses. Despite the laws that prohibit such practices, this practice has become widespread, and nearly every member of Congress has a leadership PAC. So why do they exist?
While constitutional leaders want to protect our democratic process, there are many obstacles to their success. One of the greatest challenges is identifying who controls the funds. As a result, there is an unpopular solution: a constitutional leadership PAC. This committee is a super PAC. You can view its full profile in Outside Spending. And we can’t forget to mention the fact that the Constitutional Leadership PAC isn’t a party.
Some of us can’t believe that there are so many good-government groups that have a constitutional leadership PAC. But if the good-government groups are right, the PACs are just another way for politicians to raise money. Besides giving to other candidates, leadership PACs allow politicians to spend most of their money on overhead. That’s an indictment of our political system. The question is: do we want to allow this corruption to continue? And why aren’t we asking for any constitutional leadership PACs to be banned from using the money for personal use?
