The New Money Rules for Democrats – By David Catanese (usnews.com) / Dec 17 2018
Corporate dollars are already frowned upon by many progressives, but blessing a super PAC may be just as big a risk for 2020 candidates.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont would seek to raise gobs of money early, with designs on amassing north of $275 million for a primary campaign.
For a significantly lesser known Midwest mayor, like 36-year-old Pete Buttigieg, a haul of just a few million dollars in a quarter would be notable.
As a fleet of potential Democratic presidential candidates calculate how much money they can – and will need to – raise for a prospective 2020 run, they’re also confronting a new reality that where their money comes from could factor almost as greatly as how much they collect.
One of the legacies of the 2018 midterm election is the definitive pall it cast on corporate political donations among progressives. More than half of the U.S. House candidates backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee swore off money from corporate political action committees.
The year saw high-wattage senators like Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Kamala Harris of California swear off corporate PACs as well.
Beto O’Rourke, who came within 3 points of upsetting Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas, went even further, refusing funding from all types of PACs. He still raked in $80 million and became a national sensation.
As a newly Democratic-controlled House readies to move on several pieces of legislation in January aimed at reforming the campaign finance system, exposing “dark money” by anonymous donors and strengthening the requirements separating candidates and outside groups, there will be even more pressure to adhere to a fresh set of rules, regardless of whether they are law or not.
“We are changing the way campaigns are funded and that is true at all levels, including the presidential,” says Tiffany Muller, the president of the End Citizens United Action Fund, which seeks to override the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates of unregulated, unlimited money in campaigns. “We’re going to elevate the issue and elevate the candidates who are taking leadership on the issue. We think that the penalty’s going to be felt from the voters.”
Corporate dollars and PACs are clearly on the outs. For instance, Julian Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development who just announced a presidential exploratory committee, signaled through a spokesperson he would not accept any PAC donations.
But the calculus around super PACs – the outside groups that can accept unlimited sums of money – may be trickier.
Officially, candidates are not allowed to coordinate with these lucrative outside entities. But often times, a super PAC is run by a person close to the candidate, like a longtime political adviser or fundraiser, leaving little mystery around the motivations of each side.
Jeb Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, launched in the first week of January 2015, ultimately raising $118 million for the unsuccessful endeavor. But Bush would regularly appear at “special events” for the super PAC, demonstrating how closely the two sides can work together and brush right up against the legal line for maximum advantage.
A Democrat attempting to mirror that approach in 2020 would get flogged by the left.
“I do think that voters are not going to let candidates off the hook simply by saying, “Well I think there’s too much money in politics” and then going out and collecting massive money from the outside without any disclosure and being unwilling to share any of that information,” says Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat and leading proponent of campaign finance reform. “The candidates are going to have to answer the question: What are you going to do about it? How committed are you to actually doing something about it?”
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who supported Sanders in 2016, says a super PAC in the primary will be an outright vulnerability for a Democratic contender this time.
“If there is any link between a candidate and if it looks like they’re in any way currying favor or soliciting or facilitating that, I think that will be a big negative,” Khanna says. “They should say, ‘We don’t want any super PACs.'”
The congressman says candidates should go even further and adopt O’Rourke’s approach:
“Swear off all PAC money – not just corporate PAC money, all PAC money.”
But that might be easier said than done for a candidate who lacks a national following at the starting gate. Marshalling enough resources, especially at the outset, could determine whether the campaign has a shot at catching fire later.
“If you’re Mike Bloomberg, you can just write a check for your polling in Iowa. For the rest of us, you may see the peculiar phenomenon of exploratory committees used for the actual purpose of exploring,” says Buttigieg, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor also contemplating a campaign. “You literally just need the committee to raise money to do the public opinion research.”
Buttigieg hasn’t made any formal decisions about the types money he would refuse in a potential campaign, but in an interview he suggested that disarming in the current system might be foolish.
“We want to change the rules, but right now we’re operating under a certain set of rules,” he says.
And Democrats may be hard pressed to keep such a purist pledge through a general election fight against President Donald Trump, a billionaire who has already collected more than $100 million for his re-election.
“In the general election … as a party we’ll have to look at not having perhaps unilateral disarmament,” Khanna says. “It would be foolish to rule it out against a Republican onslaught.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/the-run/articles/2018-12-17/the-new-money-rules-for-democrats
