Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Super PACs tied to major parties misled voters, complaint alleges

Money in politics
erhui1979/Getty Images

Political groups with names like Keep Kentucky Great and Texas Forever sound innocuous and homegrown, but are largely — and secretly — financed by prominent D.C.-based funding organizations, according to a campaign finance watchdog organization.

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center on Thursday filed a 50-page complaint with the Federal Election Commission against 18 of these seemingly local super PACs for allegedly violating federal law by not disclosing their affiliations, and therefore "denying voters the right to know who is spending big money to influence their vote."

Between 2017 and 2020, the 18 super PACs collectively spent more than $200 million to influence voters in competitive federal elections. And nearly all their funding came from five national groups, including the Republican Senate Leadership Fund and the Democratic Senate Majority PAC, the Campaign Legal Center found.


Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence federal elections, but unlike traditional political action committees they cannot give directly to political candidates. Instead, they can use their enormous funds on advertising overtly advocating for or against candidates. Super PACs are also mandated by federal law to disclose their donors and affiliations.

The fact that the 18 super PACs in question received most of their funding from established political groups in Washington "clearly demonstrates" an affiliation that qualifies for disclosure, the Campaign Legal Center argues.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

For example, the Senate Leadership Fund provided all or nearly all the funding to Peachtree PAC (Georgia), Plains PAC (Iowa and Kansas), Keep Kentucky Great, The Maine Way PAC, Faith and Power PAC (North Carolina), American Crossroads (national), DefendArizona and Mountain Families PAC (West Virginia) in the 2018 or 2020 elections. Similarly, the Senate Majority PAC provided all or the significant majority of the funding for Sunflower State PAC (Kansas), Carolina Blue (North Carolina), Texas Forever, Highway 31 (Alabama) and Red and Gold (Arizona) during those same elections.

In both instances, the super PACs spent millions on congressional elections in key states without disclosing their affiliations to the major fundraising arms of Republican and Democratic leadership in Congress.

A number of the political groups named in the complaint are also considered "pop-up" super PACs because they were created in the final weeks of an election to spend big on one or a handful of congressional races. These super PACs often "strategically timed their spending such that the public did not learn the true source of the mystery group's communications until after the election," the complaint says.

"Senior leaders of both parties have been steering money from wealthy special interests to front groups specifically designed to trick voters," said Adav Noti, the nonprofit's senior director of trial litigation and chief of staff. "Voters have a right to know when big money is flowing into their elections from D.C.-based groups hiding their agendas and funding behind fake names."

The Campaign Legal Center hopes their complaint into the super PACs' misconduct prompts "swift investigation and a firm crackdown by the FEC."

The Fulcrum has reached out to all 18 super PACs named in the complaint. Highway 31 offered no comment and others have yet to respond. The Fulcrum will update this article as necessary.

Read More

The Psychology of Politics

An illustration of people and their unique minds.

Getty Images, Carol Yepes

The Psychology of Politics

Have you ever wondered why so many otherwise reasonable people are completely bananas about politics? We all know plenty of normal and decent folks who spout wacky political views. But it’s not just our neighbors who’ve gone mad. All over the country, Americans pick and choose the facts they want to believe, champion policies they don’t understand, hold contradictory views at the same time, admire immoral politicians, loathe decent ones, and so on.

What’s going on here? And why does it seem to be getting worse?

Keep ReadingShow less
Addressing Economic Inequity Among Domestic Violence Survivors

A person holding a stack of dollar bills that are flying away.

Getty Images, PM Images

Addressing Economic Inequity Among Domestic Violence Survivors

The 2024 film, “Anora,” about a young woman victimized by sex trafficking, recently won five Oscars at the Academy Awards. Perhaps, it is a signal of more awareness and less stigma surrounding the pervasiveness of domestic violence at all levels of society.

The ongoing lawsuits between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni claiming sexual harassment and violence threat allegations around their film, “It Ends With Us,” about a relationship scarred with domestic violence, demonstrates the thin line between real life and on-screen adaptations.

Keep ReadingShow less
Layoffs at the EPA May Impact Federal Funding for Communities

Environmental Protection Agency EPA | Where James works | mccready ...

Layoffs at the EPA May Impact Federal Funding for Communities

WASHINGTON—The federal government laid off more than 60,000 workers in the first two months of 2025, while another 75,000 employees accepted a buyout and voluntarily resigned.

Among those laid off was James Clark, an Environmental Protection Agency employee who lost his job while on his honeymoon. “It’s just very sad to see someone like Elon Musk take a chainsaw on live TV and say what we do doesn’t matter,” said Clark.

Keep ReadingShow less
Congress Avoids a Shutdown But at What Cost?

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on March 14, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Tasos Katopodis

Congress Avoids a Shutdown But at What Cost?

On March 14, the GOP-led Senate passed a stopgap spending bill to keep the federal government running until September 30. The bill’s passage was made possible by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s last-minute reversal—shifting from opposing the measure and advocating for a shorter extension to allowing the bill to advance. His decision was purely tactical: he feared Democrats would be blamed for a shutdown.

Schumer’s move provided the necessary votes to overcome procedural hurdles, effectively thwarting a Democratic filibuster. While Republican support for Trump’s budget was unsurprising, the Democratic leadership’s decision to go along was a stunning concession. It handed the Trump administration a significant victory while further eroding Congress’s budgetary authority, shifting more spending power to the executive branch.

Keep ReadingShow less