Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Leadership PACs often used for creature comforts, not campaign cash, study finds

Plenty of the special fundraising committees that members of Congress are supposed to use to help their congressional peers continue to be used instead as slush funds for their own fancy eats and fun in the sun, a new report concludes.

"All Expenses Still Paid" was issued Wednesday by a pair of campaign finance reform advocacy groups, Issue One and the Campaign Legal Center, that have done several previous studies of the behavior of leadership political action committees, which lawmakers establish separately from their re-election organizations with the stated aim of raising money to be donated to the House or Senate campaigns of their political allies. (The Fulcrum is being incubated by Issue One but is journalistically independent.)


But less than half of the money spent by all leadership PACs in recent years has actually gone toward contributions to other candidates and political groups, the groups found. Instead:

  • Members used their leadership PACs to spend more than $87,000 in the last three months of 2018 at upscale restaurants near Capitol Hill, including 13 members who spent $16,939 at Charlie Palmer Steak.
  • Four members spent a combined $113,000 through leadership PACs last fall at Sea Island, a luxury resort in Georgia, while three others spent almost $73,000 at Kiawah Golf Resort just up the coast in South Carolina.
  • Among the members called out in the report were Republican Rep. George Holding of North Carolina, who directed only 18 percent of the $321,000 he spent between January 2017 and December 2018 to other candidates and political groups. Only 32 percent of the spending by the leadership committee of Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York during this same period went to candidates and political groups.

Legislation, introduced in the House in January, would extend to leadership committees the personal use ban that applies to campaign committees. No action has been taken on it.

Read More

Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50: Connecticut

Credit: Hugo Balta

Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50 is a four-year multimedia project in which the Fulcrum visits different communities across all 50 states to learn what motivated them to vote in the 2024 presidential election and see how the Donald Trump administration is meeting those concerns and hopes.

Hartford, Connecticut, stands as a living testament to American democracy, ingenuity, and resilience. As the state’s capital, it’s home to cultural landmarks like the Mark Twain House & Museum, where Twain penned The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, embodying the spirit of self-governance and creative daring that defines the region.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand blocking someone speaking

The Third Way has recently released a memo stating that the “stampede away from the Democratic Party” is partly a result of the language and rhetoric it uses.

Westend61/Getty Images

To Protect Democracy, Democrats Should Pay Attention to the Third Way’s List of ‘Offensive’ Words

More than fifty years ago, comedian George Carlin delivered a monologue entitled Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” It was a tribute to the legendary Lenny Bruce, whose “nine dirty words” performance led to his arrest and his banning from many places.

His seven words were “p—, f—, c—, c———, m———–, and t—.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage
Why Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is good news for all media outlets
Getty Images

Fox News’ Selective Silence: How Trump’s Worst Moments Vanish From Coverage

Last week, the ultraconservative news outlet, NewsMax, reached a $73 million settlement with the voting machine company, Dominion, in essence, admitting that they lied in their reporting about the use of their voting machines to “rig” or distort the 2020 presidential election. Not exactly shocking news, since five years later, there is no credible evidence to suggest any malfeasance regarding the 2020 election. To viewers of conservative media, such as Fox News, this might have shaken a fully embraced conspiracy theory. Except it didn’t, because those viewers haven’t seen it.

Many people have a hard time understanding why Trump enjoys so much support, given his outrageous statements and damaging public policy pursuits. Part of the answer is due to Fox News’ apparent censoring of stories that might be deemed negative to Trump. During the past five years, I’ve tracked dozens of examples of news stories that cast Donald Trump in a negative light, including statements by Trump himself, which would make a rational person cringe. Yet, Fox News has methodically censored these stories, only conveying rosy news that draws its top ratings.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. Flag / artificial intelligence / technology / congress / ai

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity.

Getty Images, Douglas Rissing

Liberty and the General Welfare in the Age of AI

If the means justify the ends, we’d still be operating under the Articles of Confederation. The Founders understood that the means—the governmental structure itself—must always serve the ends of liberty and prosperity. When the means no longer served those ends, they experimented with yet another design for their government—they did expect it to be the last.

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity. Both of those goals were top of mind for early Americans. They demanded the Bill of Rights to protect the former, and they identified the latter—namely, the general welfare—as the animating purpose for the government. Both of those goals are being challenged by constitutional doctrines that do not align with AI development or even undermine it. A full review of those doctrines could fill a book (and perhaps one day it will). For now, however, I’m just going to raise two.

Keep ReadingShow less