Tag Archive for: campaign finance

Harris Campaign Reportedly Said It Doesn’t Take Lobbyist Money — But Public Records Tell Different Story

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has reportedly said it rejects money from lobbyists, but a Daily Caller News Foundation review of campaign finance records casts doubt on this claim.

Dozens of lobbyists have contributed to Harris’ campaign since the vice president took over President Joe Biden’s reelection operation on July 21, an analysis of Federal Election Commission (FEC) records shows. The deluge of lobbyist cash came after The New York Times and Politico reported that Harris was continuing Biden’s policy of not accepting direct contributions from individual lobbyists.

Lobbyists pouring money into Harris’ campaign work to influence policy on behalf of a wide range of industries, including everything from tech to marijuana, disclosures show. Organizations repped by Harris’ lobbyist donors include tobacco and vaping giant Altria, a marijuana interest groupApple, the Dow Chemical Company and a bio-fuel trade group, among many others.

Harris has a history of pledging to forgo lobbyist cash but accepting it anyway, taking over $100,000 from lobbyists at firms such as DLA Piper, Venable, DCG and others during her 2020 presidential campaign, breaking her promise at the time, the Washington Examiner reported.

“Our campaign is not taking a dime from corporate PACs or lobbyists — and that was a very deliberate choice,” Harris promised in a February 2019 email to supporters, according to the Examiner. “Yes, it means we are leaving money on the table. But that’s ok with me.”

Harris, despite taking money from corporations and lobbyists during her time as a senator and presidential candidate, has long decried the influence of money on politics.

“I think that money has had such an outside influence on politics, and especially with the Supreme Court determining Citizens United, which basically means that big corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money influencing our campaigns, right?” Harris said in April 2018. “We’re all supposed to have an equal vote, but money has now really tipped the balance between an individual having equal power in an election to a corporation. So I’ve actually made a decision … that I’m not going to accept corporate PAC checks. I just, I’m not.”

Harris and her team have “a pretty open door” to lobbyists, according to Holland & Knight lobbyist, and former senior Harris advisor, Yasmin Nelson.

“On the issues that are important to her, she is definitely going to want to hear from people, and if they happen to be downtown, on K Street, and you’re best positioned to help her through that, then I think she will,” Nelson told the NYT. Nelson, who secured a meeting with Harris’ team in June, is also fundraising for her.

Harris has personal ties to the lobbying industry as second gentleman Doug Emhoff was previously a partner at DLA Piper, a law firm that does considerable lobbying work, according to disclosures. Andy Vargas, a former longtime aide to Harris, works as a senior vice president at Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying firm that has come under fire for lobbying on behalf of TurkeyQatar and an organization reportedly linked to an Iranian-backed influence network.

Other groups represented by Harris’ lobbyist donors include the Motion Picture Association, the software company Adobe, the National Association of Realtors, the California Teachers Association and the Center for American Progress, according to FEC records.

The Harris campaign did not respond to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment.

AUTHOR

Robert Schmad

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Trump Campaign Says It Raised Well Over $100 Million In August

Former President Donald Trump raised about $130 million in August, his campaign announced Wednesday night.

Trump’s fundraising numbers are down slightly from the nearly $140 million the former president brought in during July, when his campaign initiated a fundraising push days after he was shot by a failed assassin on July 13. The Harris campaign has not released its August fundraising figures, however, it likely eclipsed Trump as Harris campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon released a memo on August 25 where she claimed the vice president had raised $540 million since President Joe Biden dropped out on July 21, including $82 million during the week of the Democratic National Convention.

“With Republicans united and a growing number of Independents and disaffected Democrats crossing partisan lines, the Trump-Vance campaign has momentum for the final stretch of the race,” Trump Campaign senior advisor Brian Hughes said in the press release announcing the fundraising numbers. “These fundraising numbers from August are a reflection of that movement and will propel President Trump’s America First movement back to the White House so we can undo the terrible failures of Harris and Biden.”

Contrary to the Trump campaign’s enthusiasm, GOP leaders are raising the alarm behind closed doors and publicly about how a large financial disparity has emerged between the two parties. Liberals have commanding ad spending leads in almost all competitive Senate races and the Congressional Leadership Fund, the primary super PAC aimed at electing Republicans to the House, is $70 million behind its Democratic counterpart in ad spending, according to Politico.

“The only thing preventing us from having a great night in November is the massive financial disparity our party currently faces,” National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director Jason Thielman previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We are on a trajectory to win the majority, but unless something changes drastically in the next six weeks, we will lose winnable seats.”

State-wide Republican parties in a number of states with close legislative elections in November, like Arizona and Wisconsin, have also been outraised and outspent by their Democratic counterparts.

Before Democrats swapped Biden for Harris, the Trump campaign had overcome his Democratic rival’s cash advantage, Politico reported. The Trump campaign claims to have had $295 million in cash on hand at the end of August.

The average donation to Trump was $56, with 98% of donations being under $200, according to the campaign.

Trump is no stranger to fighting campaigns at a financial disadvantage, defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016 despite only having half as much money, and narrowly losing to Biden in 2020 despite a 3 to 1 cash disadvantage heading into the final month of the election.

“Team Trump has the money, the message, the momentum and a candidate who works harder than anyone in politics,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

Robert Schmad

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Here’s What Could Happen To Biden’s Nearly $100 Million Campaign War Chest

Some experts believe Vice President Kamala Harris could seamlessly take over the Biden campaign’s massive war chest, but the chairman of the Federal Election Commission has doubts the transition will go smoothly.

The Biden campaign’s nearly $96 million in campaign funds could be passed off without a snag if Democrats either nominate Harris or if she remains on the ticket as the vice presidential nominee, former FEC lawyer Saurav Ghosh told Reuters last week. FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey isn’t so certain that the money could go to Harris, however, telling NPR on Monday morning that he thinks “it’s really complicated.”

“What he’s attempting to do is to give his entire committee, the cash and all the assets, over to another person,” Cooksey said. “I expect, there’s probably going to be challenges to that at the agency, and probably in the courts as well.”

A Democratic presidential ticket without Harris, however, would only be able to accept a maximum of $2,000 from the Biden campaign account. The Biden campaign would also have the option of either refunding the remaining cash to donors or donating it all of it to the Democratic Party, according to the FEC.

While the Democratic Party could spend unlimited cash running advertisements or carrying out other operations for its nominee, it could only coordinate about $32.4 million worth of the spending with the Democratic presidential campaign, according to the FEC. Additionally, the party would not be entitled to the heavily discounted television advertising rates made available to candidates during the last 60 days of an election, according to the New York Times.

The party could also use the funds to boost down-ballot Democratic candidates, Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow and former FEC commissioner Hans von Spakovsky wrote Sunday.

“Biden for President could, therefore, transfer all of its cash to the Democratic National Committee, Democratic congressional and senatorial committees and state and local party committees, which could then use the money to support their federal, state and local candidates,” according to von Spakovsky. “Additionally, pursuant to the regulation, it could make donations to ‘State and local candidates subject to the provisions of State law.’”

Republicans may still choose to launch a legal challenge to Harris taking control of the Biden campaign’s cash as the president dropped out of the race before he was formally nominated at the Democratic National Convention, Republican former FEC commissioner Brad Smith told Reuters. “She’s not officially the nominee, right? So it’s not partly her money,” Smith said.

The Biden campaign amended its paperwork on Sunday to list Harris as a candidate for president, according to an FEC filing.

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” the vice president said in a statement released shortly after President Joe Biden endorsed her.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SCHMAD

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Take the Politics out of Money

You have to admire the moxie of a man that flies a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn and risks being shot Capitol Police to protest corruption and demand campaign finance reform.

Laudable though his intentions may have been, campaign finance laws are less about reform and more about protecting incumbents from challengers. If we truly wish to reform government, we should be less concerned with getting the money out of politics and more concerned with getting the politics out of money.

The government spends gigantic amounts of money and regulates large swaths of economic activity. These actions create powerful incentives for affected interests to lobby politicians for privileges. As long as the political process has the power to create and destroy fortunes, people will compete to manipulate the system. This incentive problem is inherent to politics and cannot be eliminated by campaign finance reform.

Such “reforms” mean little else than incumbent politicians writing the rules today for the elections they will run in tomorrow. No one should be surprised when they write rules that subtly shift the odds in their favor. One example is the rules limiting individual contributions.

These rules force candidates to draw small amounts of money from a large pool of donors. Incumbents have the advantage of name recognition and established fundraising networks. The longer they have been in office, the more developed this network will become.

These rules benefit incumbents by putting challengers and unknowns at an immediate and even greater fundraising disadvantage, making it hard for them to get the traction to even have a shot at the election.

If someone wants to run outside the current two party duopoly, they put themselves at a huge fundraising disadvantage because third parties lack an established fundraising network. The clichéd version of politics is a smoke filled room where billionaires quaff brandy, but the reality is that the support of the existing party structure is much more important than any one donor. No outsider can appeal to the Elon Musks or Mark Zuckerbergs of the world to fund their campaigns against such entrenched networks. By keeping individuals’ money out of politics, we are ensuring politics as usual.

Campaign finance rules strengthen the role of political parties in choosing candidates. Political parties are not obligated to support everyone that runs under their name. If the goal is reform, one must recognize that political parties benefit from the status quo because they were instrumental in creating it.

What this means is that anyone that strays too far from the party line risks losing indispensable party support. (Former Sen. Jim Bunning’s career was cut short in this way when his own party leadership deliberately torpedoed his fundraising.) Campaign finance rules can have the impact of forcing candidates to work with political parties, thereby strengthening the power and influence of the party system.

Under the guise of creating a level playing field, the current system instead rewards those that find (or create) loopholes and push the envelope on what is legally permissible. Unexpected campaign contributions are the performance enhancing drugs of modern politics. Lobbyists gain power when they find creative ways to circumvent the law and funnel large amounts of money to candidates in need, gaining the perfectly legal influence and access to affect policy.

This is also why those who can bundle contributions are so valuable and why their downfall can create such a ruckus. While small increases in spending have a negligible effect on outcomes, someone that can exploit a loophole or bend the law can raise substantially more funds than an ethically constrained competitor.

Lastly, we must remember that even if a rule is ideal in theory, humans must enforce it. As the newly elected Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker made many political enemies. In retaliation, a prosecutor convinced a judge to authorize home invasions and police raids of prominent Walker supporters.

Such incidents should serve as a reminder that the law is a cudgel that those with power will use to bludgeon those without, given the opportunity. Lois Lerner and the IRS targeted the tea party because complex rules allow for such discretionary abuse. Grassroots organizations now need lawyers just to get off the ground. Incumbents use these rules to their advantage, strangling opposition in the cradle.

As long as politicians remain free to reward their friends and punish their enemies, they will never want for a gourmet meal or a drinking buddy. The problem of corruption is a symptom of the disease of big government.

Politicians control so much of the economy, either outright or indirectly, that those with the most to gain will always find a way to persuade politicians that what’s in their interests is the same as to what’s in the public interest. Campaign finance laws are just the insult to injury: extra power introduced to a system that is supposed by “reformed” by its exercise.

The solution to politicians being bought is to ensure that they have less power to put on auction.

Stewart Dompe

Stewart Dompe is an instructor of economics at Johnson & Wales University. He has published articles in Econ Journal Watch and is a contributor to the forthcoming Homer Economicus: Using The Simpsons to Teach Economics.