The New York Review of Books - 24.04.2020

April 23, 2020 21

The legal test for campaign expendi-
tures is straightforward. Legislators are
prohibited by law from spending their
campaign cash on themselves, for ex-
ample, to pay for a country club mem-
bership or a vacation to Disney World.
If a candidate or officeholder would
make the expenditure irrespective of
their political situation, it’s considered
a “personal use,” and is forbidden as a
way to prevent contributors from brib-
ing politicians. A gigantic loophole
exists, however, in the personal-use
prohibition in the form of leadership
political action committees.
The ostensible purpose of a lead-
ership PAC is to collect money to do-
nate to fellow legislators. Stefanik has
one. It’s called E-PAC, and its stated
purpose is to elect GOP women to
Congress. Ninety-four percent of GOP
House members have leadership PACs
(78 percent of Democrats do, according
to Issue One, a nonprofit advocate for
campaign finance reform). In addition
to country club memberships and Dis-
ney vacations, leadership PACs have
paid for legislators to attend Broad-
way shows, go to the Super Bowl, and
stay in luxury resorts, all in the name
of “fundraising.” Public servants living
large off their contributors is the result
of a dysfunctional regulatory system
and a Congress that likes the status quo
too much to fix it.
Devin Nunes has a leadership PAC
called New PAC that gets about half
of its contributions from small donors,
according to the campaign watchdog
Open Secrets. In the 2018 cycle, Nunes
disbursed a little more than 35 percent
to fellow Republicans. Since 2013, he
has spent PAC money on a tight-knit
group of campaign consultants and
“fundraising” expenses that included
Celtics tickets ($14,638), winery tours
($5,000), and Las Vegas junkets
($42,741), according to McClatchy.
In July 2018, when a coalition of
government-watchdog groups filed a
complaint with the Federal Election
Commission over New PAC spend-
ing $5,518 on private jets, FEC staff
deemed the amount unworthy of an
enforcement action. As of this writing,
the commission has not had a quorum
since September 2019. Without one, it
is unable to authorize even preliminary
investigations. The law itself is easy to
fix: simply add a “personal use” restric-
tion to leadership PACs. A bipartisan
bill exists but likely faces a hostile re-
ception from Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, who already killed
a Democratic bill that reforms the FEC
and breaks the deadlock. The status
quo works well for him.
This permissiveness also allows de-
ceptive PACs to thrive. Today, anyone
can create a super PAC or political ac-
tion committee, raise contributions on
behalf of a candidate or cause, and then
keep most of the money for themselves.
It’s perfectly legal. They don’t even
have to call it fundraising. These scam
PACs raise money to support a candi-
date or cause, but most of the contribu-
tions go to the people or entities behind
the PAC. They escape accountability
in part because they are not officially
affiliated with the candidate for whom
they solicit money.
Scam PACs appear to be more prev-
alent on the right, although, since the
FEC does not track them and they’re
not precisely defined, it’s hard to cal-
culate their number and composition.
Consultants on both the left and the

right run scam PACs. There are around

seven thousand active political commit-

tees registered with the FEC. Accord-

ing to a Politico story last December,

hundreds of unaffiliated pro-Trump

PACs have raised more than $46 mil-

lion, mostly from small donors.

A number of folks have made a living

doing this. David Bossie is one of them.

A longtime GOP activist and former

deputy Trump campaign director, Boss-

ie’s group, the Presidential Coalition,

collected more than $18 million in 2017

and 2018 promising to support conserva-

tive candidates. Of the $15.4 million the

group spent, only about $425,000 went

to the candidates. The rest went to con-

sultants and to buy books coauthored

by Bossie, according to an exposé by

the Campaign Legal Center and Axios.

The report resulted in a rare rebuke by

the Trump campaign. Bossie endured a

few months of exile, including from his

perch as a commentator on Fox News,

before Trump welcomed him back into

the fold after a private meeting.

A sinister subset of the scam-PAC

world collects contributions with ag-

gressive telemarketing. Politico and

ProPublica detailed how a PAC called

the Conservative Majority Fund ran a

fundraising campaign in 2012 promis-

ing donors it would hire investigators to

prove that Barack Obama was ineligi-

ble to be president because he was not

a US citizen. The pitch collected $2.8

million from 30,000 donors in just five

months. The people behind the PAC

had a history of raising money and

keeping 80 to 90 percent of it. There is

no indication funds were spent on pri-

vate investigators.

A Reuters investigation revealed a

network of fundraisers that created

PACs to collect money ostensibly on be-

half of state troopers, firemen, injured

veterans, and to fight breast cancer.

Drug addicts and prisoners on work re-

lease staffed their call centers. Little, if

any, of the money gathered went to the

causes for which it was raised. Donors

who learned of the scam from reporters

were justifiably outraged.

Lee Goodman, a former FEC

commissioner and Republican, told

Reuters, “Federal election laws were

designed to prevent corruption, not to

protect consumers.”

On the day of his inauguration,

Trump broke with precedent and

filed for reelection. The message was

Concepts and Reflections on Living This Life

from the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Knopf Doubleday Academic • 1745 Broadway, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10019 PenguinRandomHouseEducation.com

“Illuminating....

Grisel writes clearly

and unsparingly about

both her experiences

and the science of

addiction...making plain

that there is still much

that remains unknown

or mysterious about

the brain’s workings.”

––Kirkus Reviews

“A sweepingly

ambitious synthesis

of philosophy,

spirituality

and politics.”

—The Guardian

“A brilliantly insightful

tour of how the structures

of social networks shape

our lives and indeed our

very humanity.”

—Roger Myerson,

Nobel Laureate

in Economics,

University of Chicago

Elegantly written and

deeply grounded in personal

experience, Grafton

offers a clear, illuminating

examination of the

fundamental relationship

between the physical world

and the mind

“An emphatic success.”

––The Wall Street Journal

From the world-renowned

physicist and best-selling

author of The Elegant

Universe comes a captivating

exploration of deep time

and humanity’s search

for purpose

“A love letter to the

ephemeral cosmic

moment when

everything is possible.”

––The New York Times

Book Review

“Featuring an impressive

array of contributors....

A ‘glimpse of how

the world looks

through [the] respective

lenses’ of fifteen

major philosophies.”

—Publishers Weekly