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Meet The PACs Exploiting Conservative Rage For Fun And Profit
Rick Santorum’s Patriot Voices PAC claims donations will go to elect “true conservatives.”
BY JOSH ISRAEL AND ADAM PECK ON MARCH 7, 2014 AT 1:02 PM
Faced with the horrors of Obamacare, the impending threat of a $10 minimum wage, and the chance to take back the Senate from Democrats, conservative donors may be feeling especially generous this election season. And, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, they have an abundance of options of how to best funnel money to their preferred candidates. With eight months to go til Election Day, 942 super PACs have already popped up, raising more than $140 million thus far.
But as these political groups solicit millions of dollars from donors big and small, not all of them are using their donations for their purported purpose.
A ThinkProgress review of Federal Election Commission PAC data found that several large political action committees and super PACs are spending most of their donations on “overhead” expenditures, with miniscule percentages going to actual political candidates.
Scam PACs
In 2009, Iraq War veteran and unsuccessful Congressional candidate Kieran Michael Lalor (R) registered a political action committee called Iraq Veterans for Congress. Its stated aim: to “Recruit, Fund and Elect to Congress conservative Republican Iraq Veterans.” But while the committee raised and spent more than $800,000 before the 2010 elections, just $48,000 (less than 6 percent) of its most went to donations to candidates, as most of its funds went to outside fundraisers and printing shops. Now called the Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC, the committee continues to be a prime example of a breed of PACs that spend a huge amount on political consultants and little on actually political action.
Though its website has been defunct since late last year, Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC reported $469,967.46 in 2013 expenses — just $9,000 of that (under 2 percent) on candidate contributions. While it is not unusual for political committees to make more of their campaign expenditures in even-numbered years, when most elections take place, the committee’s -$14,359.04 cash-on-hand total would hardly indicate the committee is saving up its funds. Asked last year by the Poughkeepsie Journal about his PAC’s high overhead and low political activity, Lalor — now a New York State Assemblyman — said only that, “It’s expensive to raise money, but it’s more expensive not to.”
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/03/07/3362891/meet-scam-pacs/#
Faced with the horrors of Obamacare, the impending threat of a $10 minimum wage, and the chance to take back the Senate from Democrats, conservative donors may be feeling especially generous this election season. And, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, they have an abundance of options of how to best funnel money to their preferred candidates. With eight months to go til Election Day, 942 super PACs have already popped up, raising more than $140 million thus far.
But as these political groups solicit millions of dollars from donors big and small, not all of them are using their donations for their purported purpose.
A ThinkProgress review of Federal Election Commission PAC data found that several large political action committees and super PACs are spending most of their donations on “overhead” expenditures, with miniscule percentages going to actual political candidates.
Scam PACs
In 2009, Iraq War veteran and unsuccessful Congressional candidate Kieran Michael Lalor (R) registered a political action committee called Iraq Veterans for Congress. Its stated aim: to “Recruit, Fund and Elect to Congress conservative Republican Iraq Veterans.” But while the committee raised and spent more than $800,000 before the 2010 elections, just $48,000 (less than 6 percent) of its most went to donations to candidates, as most of its funds went to outside fundraisers and printing shops. Now called the Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC, the committee continues to be a prime example of a breed of PACs that spend a huge amount on political consultants and little on actually political action.
Though its website has been defunct since late last year, Afghanistan & Iraq Veterans for Congress PAC reported $469,967.46 in 2013 expenses — just $9,000 of that (under 2 percent) on candidate contributions. While it is not unusual for political committees to make more of their campaign expenditures in even-numbered years, when most elections take place, the committee’s -$14,359.04 cash-on-hand total would hardly indicate the committee is saving up its funds. Asked last year by the Poughkeepsie Journal about his PAC’s high overhead and low political activity, Lalor — now a New York State Assemblyman — said only that, “It’s expensive to raise money, but it’s more expensive not to.”
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/03/07/3362891/meet-scam-pacs/#
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I thought they had started a new religious cult!
