Tag Archives: super pacs

You Won’t Believe How Much Money Jeb Bush’s Super-PAC Just Raised

Mother Jones

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Right to Rise, the super-PAC backing former Florida governor Jeb Bush, reported raising $103 million in the first six months of this year. It’s a record haul for a super-PAC and more than almost every presidential candidate has ever raised for their primary campaigns. The group has already spent about $5 million, but claims to have more than $98 million in the bank, which it is waiting to unleash to boost Bush’s candidacy and demolish his rivals.

The super-PAC’s massive fundraising total doesn’t necessarily represent a huge swell of popular support. According to a statement released by Right to Rise, the organization raised money from just 9,900 donors. The super-PAC reports that at least 9,400 of them gave less than $25,000. That may sound like those donors are relatively small time—and they may be compared to the group’s largest donors—but considering the most an individual can give to Bush’s actual presidential campaign is $5,400, the super-PAC’s “small donors” are still big donors in the world of political fundraising.

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You Won’t Believe How Much Money Jeb Bush’s Super-PAC Just Raised

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A GOP Operative Just Got 2 Years in Prison For Breaking Super-PAC Rules

Mother Jones

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The Department of Justice scored a victory Friday morning in the fight to rein in the campaign finance Wild West that has come with the rise of super-PACs: A GOP operative in Virginia was sentenced to two years in federal prison for breaking a small, but crucial, campaign finance law in the 2012 election. It’s unclear whether this signals a sustained effort by the Justice Department to crack down on campaign finance law violators. But one thing’s for sure: it’s more than the grid-locked Federal Election Commission has done to enforce the law in this area.

There isn’t much that a super PAC can’t do under the 2010 Citizens United ruling. These outfits can raise and spend unlimited cash, soliciting funds from individuals and corporations alike. The one thing that can’t happen is coordination between a super-PAC and a candidate for elected office. And that’s the issue that was at the heart of the Justice Department’s case against GOP operative Tyler Harber, once named a “rising star” by Campaigns & Elections magazine (since revoked), who was sentenced to two years in prison for illegal coordination and lying to the FBI.

Since Citizens United, it’s been fairly clear that rules against coordination were being short-circuited, if not broken outright. Candidates’ political aides have resigned from their campaigns only to resurface at the helm of super PACs supporting that very same candidate; parents and spouses of candidates have created super PACs and pour money in; most significantly, in the run up to 2016, Jeb Bush has merged his campaign with his super PAC, allowing him to raise unlimited amounts of money and hobnob with mega-donors, while hiding behind the excuse that he is not formally a candidate. Campaign finance reformers have cried foul over Bush’s use of this loophole, but the reality is no one is likely to do anything about it. The FEC is, for all intents and purposes, putting itself on the bench this election cycle.

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A GOP Operative Just Got 2 Years in Prison For Breaking Super-PAC Rules

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A GOP Operative Just Got 2 Years in Prison For Breaking Super-PAC Rules