A political group claiming to support veterans has made calls referencing U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District while spending most of its donations on administrative costs, leading the congressman to call for it to shut down.
The group, registered as a super PAC under the name American Veterans Support Group PAC, raised $400,000 last year, according to federal filings. Its communications have featured Golden, a second-term congressman from the 2nd District and U.S. Marine Corps veteran.
But unlike most political groups, which often spend money on advertisements, polling or other overtly political expenditures, most of the group’s fundraising has gone to a set of opaquely named vendors that were also the subject of a civil lawsuit last year alleging they used political fundraising to drive profits to telemarketers as part of a “scam PAC” scheme.
The practice is an example of operatives taking advantage of loose U.S. campaign finance laws. Even though the activities may be legal, these practices have raised concerns among ethics groups who say it sows distrust in politics and misleads donors.
“Preying on Americans’ support for veterans and scamming them for donations is unforgivable,” Golden, a Democrat, said in a statement. “… No one should donate to this PAC and it should be shut down.”
In 2021, the American Veterans Support Group PAC raised $403,000, almost all of which came from donors who gave less than $200 each, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Because campaign finance laws do not require disclosure of information about small donors, there is no way to tell how much the committee raised from Mainers.
The group solicits contributions by phone, filings show. Its website claims to do work to support veterans and conduct outreach on behalf of lawmakers who have sponsored legislation helping veterans. It highlights four members of Congress including Golden and three Republicans — Reps. Tony Gonzales of Texas, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Aumua Amata, a non-voting member who represents veteran-heavy American Samoa.
The group’s phonebanking operations in the past few months have repeatedly named Gonzales and Golden, campaign finance filings show. It has no affiliation with either member’s campaign and, as a super PAC, is barred from coordinating with any candidate.
Outside spending is a common feature of congressional elections, especially in competitive districts like Maine’s 2nd District, where Golden is facing a rematch of his 2018 campaign against former Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican.
Single-issue groups can raise money from donors and use it to fund advertisements or other campaign activities in support of their preferred candidate. But most super PACs dedicate the vast majority of their resources to campaigning. For example, the top-spending super PACs in Maine’s 2020 U.S. Senate race all spent at least 80 percent of their funds on political campaigning or direct contributions to other groups, with relatively little going to overhead.
By contrast, the American Veterans Support Group PAC devoted only 15 percent of spending last year to supporting candidates, according to campaign finance filings. The vast majority of its fundraising went to operating expenses. The group’s treasurer, Paul Deridder, did not respond to inquiries this week about its activities in Maine or why it had such high operating costs.
A super PAC spending most of its money on overhead rather than direct political spending raises “red flags,” said Aaron McKean, legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit watchdog organization focused on campaign finance and elections.
The American Veterans Support Group PAC spent most of its funds with a small number of generically named vendors, such as Cloud Data Services, based in a handful of states including Nevada and Arizona. Many of those vendors have also been paid by other PACs with similarly high overhead costs that have names indicating they support law enforcement or firefighters.
A network of more than a dozen of those groups, including the American Veterans Support Group PAC, were named in a class-action lawsuit last year alleging they were misusing telemarketing activities in violation of federal law.
It argued the groups were “masquerading as legitimate political action committees, which purport to raise money for political candidates or important causes such as supporting veterans, law enforcement, firefighters, or victims of deadly disease, but are in fact ‘Scam PACs'” that pay vendors in order to funnel money back to telemarketers.
The lawsuit has yet to be resolved. Despite ethical concerns, there is nothing in campaign finance law barring PACs from spending most of their funds on operating costs, said McKean, of the Campaign Legal Center. But he said it was “unfortunate” that people were left on their own to determine whether political groups soliciting donations via phone actually spend most of their money on causes they claim to support.
“Having scam PACs taking money from individuals that might not go into the causes that they think they’re supporting really does create a real problem with trust in the system,” McKean said.
___
(c) 2022 the Bangor Daily News
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
