FEC Filings Follies
Alfredo at the Dairy Queen went out of his way this past weekend to drop a line at the Salon about this month’s fundraising reports at the FEC. Very telling, indeed.
You know, I remember a time before “dark money” when fundraising was on a semi-level playing field. Sure, there were egregious “mistakes” that needed correcting, but they were in the open. They were emended.
For the most part.
But since the Citizens United decision that invited billionaires and their corporations to massively support candidates in a way no one else could compete, our election campaigns have been a paragon of how not to run a republic.
Here are three examples of what “true” fundraising used to be like.
This is TFG’s official campaign’s 48-hour FEC contributions report.
His total contributions are $106,869.48, and note that, of the 69 contributions, there are no individual contributions higher than the allowable.
In contrast, Congressman Colin Allred, from the Dallas area, who is running to unseat Ted Cruz, turned in this report for the same filing period – again, this is his “real” campaign committee.
Yes, that’s 83 contributions for a total of $122,810.00.
Again, Allred is running for the Senate, not for President.
It’s bad enough that Don the Con got beat by a congressman in fundraising, but take a gander at the same period’s FEC filing for the Harris For President Committee.
That’s 529 contributors, for a total of $750,328.38.
If that doesn’t explain why the Republican majority on the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United the way they did or why Republicans simply can’t live without an ample supply of “dark money,” nothing will.
Appears that you have mis-stated the period of these donations. Instead of being the “monthly” total, it’s a “daily” total; each statement is for the one day of 10 18 2024.
Which the total amounts of $100k, $750k verifies, since the monthly takes for these political campaigns are in the millions of dollars, not 100s of thousands.
Scanning the addresses, occupations, and amounts of the donations is rather interesting.
1Lots of patterns and commonalities there. And some squirrely stuff, like the odd, apparently meaningful, donation amounts of, for example, $1041.02 for many of the TFFG donors.
.
.
(and a bit bothersome to think that my piddling donations also show up in such reports, no wonder that donating to a few candidates gets you buried in begging pleas from many others)
I also wonder about the ‘maximum’ donation amount allowed. For example, TFFG had quite a few for the amounts of $3300 and $6600; I thought that the max was less than that.
2Anybody know what the limit is?
Not that most of us would be getting near to it in any case…$$$$
My idea of campaign finance reform is that no candidate can spend or have spent on their behalf more than what the actual job pays. They also would get equal amounts of free airtime and no campaigning more than 60 days before the elelction.
3Mike you are so right. I was impressed in England when I learned that they limit the period of time during which candidates for MP can campaign (I think it’s a few months). And they are required to take down their signs after the election or there are penalties. Not like here when folks start campaigning as soon as they are sworn into office. Sigh
4@Mike,
I agree with severely cutting down on both the amount of campaign spending, as well as, cutting down the time to campaign. We are the only nation in the world that has an insanely lengthy campaign period (both official & unofficial).
I look at the numbers raised for both Harris & Trump (across all groups) and am deeply saddened. Think of how much better that money would be spent on more worthwhile things.
5sandridge@1 I now understand that those are 48-hour reports. Corrected.
6Half Empty @6, ‘Ta Ueno’..
Wow, just watched part of Tim Walz’s live speech this afternoon in Wisconsin; think that he’s with Obama!
(watching on Scripps News, which is quite a good source that I’ve been viewing since it became available OTA around here)
Holy Cow, this guy is effing great!
I’d never really heard him speak before, he’s amazing.
Walz is slicing and diving Comrade Donnei and the Rethuglikkkans like you just never hear anyone do up like this.
Damn, Harris and The Hammer! Bring it on!
7The FEC has been rendered toothless, intentionally, by mostly Republican politicians.
There’s an (unfortunately, interactive) report from CNN about abusive fundraising by mostly WinRed, with ActBlue doing about 1/7-th of this. Essentially they use what in computer science is called a “dark pattern”, in this case automatically signing donors up for continuing donations even when they intend it to be a one-time contribution. This has led to many cases of elderly people having their retirement and savings drained.
Complaints to the FEC about this are essentially ignored. Relatives of the elderly are told they are too small fry for the Commission. One quote about a complainant that died while waiting for a response says “… the agency hadn’t planned on doing anything about his complaint anyway, writing in a response that the matter was “rated as low priority” for an enforcement action based on criteria including the severity of the allegation and the dollar amount involved.”
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/10/politics/political-fundraising-elderly-election-invs-dg/
8I see Bill Gates finally got off his butt to commit support for Harris along with some financial commitments. Reporting says $50 million but not sure how it’ll be infused into her campaign. Guess if Musk can do it legally and illegally, Gates can step up. Melinda already did.
9