WASHINGTON • ѿý-area members of Congress last year gave almost $1 million to other politicians out of their “leadership PACs,” auxiliary fundraising committees that have become key tools of incumbent protection in Washington.
Many of the donations, from both sides of the political aisle, were funneled to challengers in one of a few relatively competitive House or Senate races around the country, or to incumbents who are expecting tough re-election challenges.
One of the beneficiaries of the latter was first-term Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, Ill., whose campaign committee received donations from the leadership PACs of Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin; Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth, Mo.; and John Shimkus, R-Collinsville; among others.
Wagner, a member of the Republican House leadership, donated $42,000 to other politicians last year through her Ann PAC, including $5,000 to the presidential campaign of Jeb Bush, who dropped out of the race this month.
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But Wagner’s leadership PAC was less active than several other ѿý-area members of Congress, starting with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, whose Prairie PAC handed out $243,500 to other Democrats or Democratic campaign committees in 2015. Shimkus’ John S. Fund, gave $169,000. The leadership PACs of Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., all doled out more than $100,000 apiece to other politicians.
The transactions are legal. They also are transparent, unlike undisclosed “dark money” that is gushing onto campaigns after the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling on Citizens United.
But experts in campaign spending say they don’t think most people know about this extra layer of fundraising power that rank-and-file members of Congress use to help hold onto their seats or to boost their party’s chances. Leadership PACs, these experts say, have increasingly become tools for members to collect favor chits from other members, or to double-dip from donors who can give $5,000 to both their primary campaign committees and to their leadership PACs.
The latter are especially essential in the two parties’ overall efforts to maintain or seize control of the House or Senate, because members routinely send large donations raised through their leadership PACS to national party committees.
In some circumstances, incumbents use their leadership PACs to support travel, or to keep fundraisers or speechwriters or other campaign aides on a payroll between elections, those experts say. Presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan also have used leadership PACs to pay for travel and to pay staff while they gear up for an official campaign.
Beginning with former Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., members of Congress since the late 1970s have used leadership PAC donations to build support for their rise through powerful committees, according to Richard Skinner, a leadership PAC expert at the watchdog group, the .
According to the , 422 congressional leadership PACs gave a collective $19 million to other politicians in 2015 alone. That included more than $11.5 million to Republicans and more than $7.4 million to Democrats, according to the CRP, a nonpartisan campaign watchdog organization.
“Some people consider them slush funds,” said Viveca Novak, communications director for CRP. “Members use them differently. Some use them to gather money to give to their party, or to give to other candidates or lawmakers. The point of that is to build support for themselves if they are hoping for a leadership position, or something like that.”
Sunlight’s Skinner said that “It has now become customary, if you want to build a career in Congress, if you want to move up in influence,” to open a leadership PAC.
For donors, leadership PACs are a second opportunity to endear an industry or company or individual to a member of Congress. It’s not uncommon for members to send donations back and forth between leadership PACs for “relationship building,” Skinner said.
“Is anything prosecutable going on?” Skinner asked. “Most likely not. Is there access selling? Certainly.”
Blunt’s Rely on Your Beliefs Fund last year donated $5,000 apiece to the re-election campaigns of Wagner and the other five Republican House members in Missouri, although all six are heavily favored for re-election and have built huge financial advantages themselves over any challenger.
Typical of many leadership PACs, Blunt’s ROYB tapped some of the same PACs that gave to his re-election campaign, and his donors included such ѿý-area companies as Enterprise Car Rental, Edward Jones, and the PAC of the law firm, Bryan Cave LLC. Similar patterns are apparent in other ѿý-area members’ fundraising.
Kerri Ann Hayes, executive director of Blunt’s Rely on Your Beliefs Fund, said that Blunt, who is facing a re-election challenge from Democratic Secretary of State Jason Kander, has three goals with the PAC: “Maintaining and growing the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, supporting the Missouri Republican delegation in the U.S. House, and building the Republican Party.”
McCaskill stressed that leadership PACs are “fairly transparent and accountable, compared to the enormous flood of dark money from Super PACs saturating our politics after the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision — and the no-limits, wild west of Missouri state politics.”
She said that “we’ve got work to do on transparency and disclosures of Super PAC” spending.
Greg Hoberock, treasurer for Luetkemeyer’s Building Leadership and Inspiring New Enterprise PAC, said that “a strong Republican majority in the House of Representatives is critical to advancing conservative solutions that will help get our country back on track and move it forward.
“BLAINE PAC exists to assist Republicans who are in tough races and could benefit from its support,” Hoberock said.
Shimkus campaign spokesman Steven Tomaszewski said that “for a candidate to receive support from other elected officials of their party — I don’t think that should be a surprise.”
Democratic Missouri Rep. William Lacy Clay’s “Just Permanent Interests” leadership PAC concentrated most of its money last year on the city election in Ferguson, according to reports to the Federal Election Commission.
Clay’s PAC reported raising $16,500 in 2015, a third of it from other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. It reported spending $19,500 on “legal fees; Ferguson election” paid to the law firm of Stone, Layton & Gershman. Two lawyers for that firm, Steven M. Stone, and Darryl A. Piggee, contributed $5,000 and $500 respectively, to Clay’s PAC.
Piggee, a former Clay congressional staffer who is also treasurer of Clay’s PAC, said that the “legal fees involved voter ID tasks, voter education, and voter turnout work in the Ferguson municipal elections.” Piggee said that work helped produce “dramatic” increases in turnout in the first election in Ferguson after the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson.
“We analyzed voter data, and produced the base information used to canvass the community, call voters and staged special events, all professionally done to increase turnout,” Piggee said.
The effect of leadership PACs can go on long after politicians leave Congress.
Last year, former Missouri Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, a Republican who retired from Congress five years ago, doled out $9,000 to Senate candidates around the country. Of that, $5,000 went to Bond’s successor, Blunt.
