$6M flows through loopholes in pledge against corporate PACs – By Kate Ackley (Roll Call) / Aug 3 2021
Some money comes from business groups that aren’t PACs, and more from colleagues or party committees that take corporate money
Rep. Josh Harder, a Democrat from California’s 10th District in the Central Valley, has made his opposition to corporate PACs a signature issue. He sponsored a bill to ban such political action committees, and his fundraising appeals to donors invoke those views.
But Harder’s campaign account still includes other PAC and committee money — nearly $200,000 of the $2 million he has raised so far this year — from unions and ideological groups, as well as from his fellow lawmakers who do take corporate PAC donations, such as House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland. Harder has also received money from colleagues’ leadership PACs and from the funds of business organizations and trade associations, including the Crop Insurance Professionals Association, according to Federal Election Commission records.
He’s not the only one. A CQ Roll Call review of fundraising disclosures during the first six months of this year found that most of the 62 members of Congress who say they have sworn off donations from the PACs of individual companies have received contributions from colleagues’ campaign accounts or leadership PACs, many of which are full of corporate PAC donations.
Many also report contributions from the PACs of business and professional organizations, such as the American Bankers Association and the American Medical Association, that technically do not violate the pledge because they aren’t tied to a single company. It would violate the pledge, for example, to take a donation from Allstate’s PAC, but not if you take, as members touting the pledge have, from the American Property Casualty Insurance Association PAC, the American Council of Life Insurers PAC or the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC.
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