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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.

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Fighting the Current Immigration Nightmare

Mother and child at the airport.

Getty Images//Keiferpix

Fighting the Current Immigration Nightmare

I had a nightmare that my mom was being deported. I dreamed of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents coming to our home and taking her away. The current climate has unlocked a childhood fear. My mom did not become a citizen until 1997, and in my early years, I was afraid that I would go to school and never see her again. I was afraid that I would be left behind.

To see immigration through the eyes of the child is to see separation from your parents, your sense of safety and normalcy. My mother had fled from Nicaragua to the United States during the 1980s during civil unrest in Central America, leaving behind my siblings until they could be reunited many years later. Once reunited, there were years to make up for missed birthdays and missed milestones, and at that point, a blended family with new siblings.

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a group of people arranged in the shape of the United states of America map

A group of people arranged in the shape of the United states of America map.

Getty Images, attjeacock

Where Is the “Real America”?

Is there such a thing as a “real America”? A battle now rages over this simple question. Some Democratic party operatives claim the real America are so-called “Trump voters,” who they say they need to better “study” in order to win future elections. Many Republican voices argue the real America are just those who support the new administration 100% of the time. Still, others assert that different demographics or geography comprise the real America. It’s as if the real America is one particular slice or another of our nation.

These caricatures lead us sorely astray. But there is a real America. I work in it every day.

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The African American Mayors Association holds its 11th annual conference, this year in Washington, D.C.

The African American Mayors Association holds its 11th annual conference, this year in Washington, D.C.

Imagine Photography, Heaven Brown

Job Cuts, Climate Threats, and the Power of Now: Black Mayors Seek Strength in Solidarity

WASHINGTON – Black mayors from across the country gathered in the nation’s capital for the annual African American Mayors Association Conference last week and strategized ways to govern their cities despite ongoing federal job cuts and recent actions coming from the Trump administration.

At the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, President Donald Trump conducted his second round of mass firings. Those who were not fired were told to go back to in-person work the same week in late March.

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Innovative Local Solutions Can Ease America’s Housing Crisis
aerial photography of rural
Photo by Breno Assis on Unsplash

Innovative Local Solutions Can Ease America’s Housing Crisis

Across the country, families are prevented from accessing safe, stable, affordable housing—not by accident, but by design. Decades of exclusionary zoning, racial discrimination, and disinvestment have created a housing system that works well for the wealthy but leaves others behind. Even as federal cuts to public housing programs continue nationwide, powerful, community-rooted efforts are pushing back and offering real, equity-driven solutions led by local voices.

Historically, states like New Jersey show what’s possible when legal advocacy and grassroots organizing come together. In 1975, the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Mount Laurel ruling established that every municipality in the state has a constitutional obligation to provide its fair share of affordable housing. This landmark legal ruling reshaped housing policy and set a national precedent. Today, organizations like Fair Share Housing Center continue to defend and expand this right, ensuring that local governments are prohibited from using zoning laws to exclude working-class families or people of color.

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