ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: MITCH MCCONNELL

McConnell Has Made It His Life’s Work To Corrupt Our Democracy By Handing it To Wealthy Mega-Donors

• Despite ample evidence to the contrary, McConnell has claimed that our campaign finance system doesn’t need any reform and that Americans don’t care about it. Multiple polls have shown that the American people rank the corrupting influence of money in politics it as one of their most pressing concerns, and they support regulations to limit campaign spending.
• In 2019, the House introduced and passed the most comprehensive package of anti-corruption legislation since Watergate — the For The People Act (H.R. 1). But even before H.R. 1 was introduced, McConnell pledged that the bill would die in the Senate. Once it actually was introduced, McConnell wasted no time excoriating the bill for its disclosure requirements and efforts to reform the FEC, among other things. McConnell continued to maintain that he would stop at nothing to prevent the bill from getting to the Senate floor.
• McConnell has spent his whole career fighting for big donors instead of the American people. One of his most hated pieces of legislation was the DISCLOSE Act—a bill that would require greater transparency into the flood of big money funding mysterious TV ads. McConnell even said that blocking the DISCLOSE Act was “one of the most important things we did in the past few years.”
• McConnell voted to block a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United.
• McConnell embraced his status as the figurehead of the anti-reform movement. He was described as “perhaps the leading advocate for unrestricted campaign donations” and said that his “high-visibility” role in opposing reform was a “big plus” on his resume.

• Not only does McConnell not think big money in politics is a problem—he actually supports MORE big money in politics, saying that it “ought to be applauded and encouraged” while shrugging off the potential corrupting influence.
• McConnell has been consistently dismissive of the problem of big money in politics, saying that “there’s nothing wrong with money” and “you’ve got to have money in politics”
• To McConnell, “campaign contributions are speech.” We will never have to guess whose side he’s on when it comes to big money in politics.

• McConnell sees absolutely nothing wrong with anonymous, unaccountable spending in politics.
• He fought to allow anonymous mega-donors to keep their donations secret, and cheered a decision from the Treasury Department saying they would no longer collect information about donors to some political nonprofits. As his home state paper editorial board said, “more dark money in U.S. politics pleases Mitch McConnell.”
• McConnell opposed the most basic of disclosure laws, saying that the rules should only cover donors to candidates and parties—leaving the American people in the dark about the million-dollar donors to super PACs and other political spenders.
• McConnell even expressed concern about disclosure of any individual donors at all, saying that it was time to “roll back” public disclosure of campaign donors. Even Antonin Scalia agreed that requiring disclosure of donations fostered political courage, but McConnell said “I don’t think regular citizens should have to experience any political courage at all.”
• McConnell held up efforts to require electronic filing for Senate candidates, a practice that would make Senate campaign finances more transparent and easier for ordinary citizens to access.

• McConnell supports corporate money in political campaigns. He called a bill that would eliminate corporate soft money—essentially, the practice of allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts to influence elections—a “travesty” and a “joke.”
• McConnell defended the role of corporate money in politics—including singling out oil company executives, hedge fund managers, and millionaires and billionaires. McConnell said that campaign finance reform efforts incorrectly assumed that “the collision of private interests with politics is somehow inherently corrupting.” He also said that the goal of such efforts were to seal Congress “from anyone engaged in the private economy.”
• McConnell even said that if campaign finance reform efforts were successful, “private interests would end up with minimal influence on the direction of public policy.”
• McConnell also rejected the idea that unlimited corporate spending has somehow corrupted the political process.
• McConnell saved his choicest praise for the billionaire Koch Brothers, telling them “I don’t know where we’d be without you.”

• Contrary to nearly everyone, McConnell thinks that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision was actually a good thing for America, saying that it “took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of political groups.”
• Talking to a group of conservative millionaire and billionaire donors, McConnell said that Citizens United “allowed all of you to participate in the process in a variety of different ways.”
• McConnell did not think that Citizens United had a detrimental effect on our political system, stating that there was nothing to suggest that it had enabled corruption.
• McConnell even said that “all Citizens United did was to level the playing field for corporate speech.”
• McConnell also fought to preserve Citizens United in the courts, including filing an amicus curiae against a Montana case that was in “direct contravention” of Citizens United and defending the destructive Buckley v. Valeo decision.

• McConnell gained notoriety for his vehement opposition to the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, a.k.a. McCain-Feingold. Despite the bill’s obvious benefits — banning unlimited soft money contributions to parties, attempting to curtail phony “issue ads,” requiring enhanced disclosure of contributions — McConnell repeatedly voted against the bill.
• McConnell positioned himself at the forefront against McCain-Feingold, including fighting all the way to the Supreme Court. McConnell v. FEC challenged the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold — but the bill survived.
• McConnell even called the passage of McCain-Feingold “the worst day of my political life.”

• The Federal Election Commission exists to enforce campaign finance laws and ensure candidates are operating on the same playing field. But McConnell has made it impossible for the FEC to do its job effectively.
• McConnell handpicked an FEC Commissioner — Don McGahn — that made the FEC much more partisan. McGahn whipped Republicans “into a solid voting bloc that nearly always opposed additional regulation, oversight or even investigation.” This led to the FEC becoming a “completely broken agency, incapable of enforcing any election laws.”
• McConnell has consistently placed members on the commission with “little appetite for enforcement” — his way of demonstrating his longtime opposition to the agency. McConnell also demanded that FEC commissioners be voted on as a package, grinding the agency to a standstill.
• In recent years, the FEC has barely been able to function. They had millions of pages of backlog waiting to be analyzed for campaign finance violations. As of December 2013, they had nearly 270 unresolved enforcement cases. And for years, the FEC had numerous vacancies for vital positions, including general counsel and chief financial officer. The number of deadlocked votes has reached a new high, and enforcement actions have reached a new low. But that’s just the way McConnell likes it.
• McConnell also personally lobbied for pro-Citizens United, anti-campaign finance reform activist Bradley Smith to be an FEC commissioner.

• McConnell is the embodiment of the way big money in politics has corrupted our democracy. A former NRSC chair, McConnell is famous for being a relentless fundraiser. One former Republican aide said McConnell was “completely dogged in his pursuit of money. That’s his great love, above everything else.”
• McConnell rewarded big donors with private dinners and briefings with powerful lawmakers. In one case, McConnell treated the CEO of Delta Airlines to breakfast in the Senate dining room, and a week later received $10,000 from the CEO and his wife.
• McConnell maintained a close insider network that helped him remain on top as Senate Majority Leader. One of McConnell’s biggest allies were lobbyists, many of whom were former staffers that maintained their loyalty and access to McConnell.
• McConnell also relied on a network of shadowy groups to prop up his political operation. His former chief of staff was head of American Crossroads and its dark money affiliate, Crossroads GPS — both of which poured millions of dollars into helping Republicans in Senate races. Another pro-McConnell dark money group, Kentucky Opportunity Coalition, was staffed by several McConnell alumni and funded by millions of dollars from just a handful of anonymous benefactors.
• But the jewel in the crown of McConnell’s fundraising behemoth was Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC funded by millions of dollars with of dark money and by the country’s biggest billionaires. In 2018 alone, SLF raised a whopping $130 million. They’ve taken money from Koch Industries, private prison company GEO Group, and a company controlled by a shady billionaire with ties to Russian oligarchs. In 2018 alone, SLF accepted over $1.5 million from mysterious shell companies with connections to multi-level marketing firms and oil and gas interests.

• Our system of democracy is failing because Mitch McConnell is serving his donors and special interests. He has wholly embraced the destructive system that has corrupted our politics and browbeat industries into giving him and his allies money in exchange for representation in the Senate.
• McConnell has used taxpayer-funded earmarks as rewards for big donors and lobbyists, receiving $120,000 from the lobbying clients of his former campaign manager while recommending millions in earmarks for those clients.
• Over the years, McConnell took nearly $6 million from the financial industry, and has been their number one ally in Congress. He supported a bankruptcy law backed by big banks and the bailout for major financial firms, calling its passage “one of the finest moments in the history of the Senate.” When Congress was considering legislation to hold big banks accountable, McConnell didn’t turn to the American people for their thoughts — he flew up to New York for fundraisers with hedge fund investors and private equity executives, assuring them that he and his party would have their back.
• McConnell is famous for his relationship to the tobacco industry, having received more money from the industry than almost any other member of Congress — as well as gifts like fancy food and concert and football tickets. Tobacco companies guided McConnell behind the scenes, providing him with talking points and writing legislation for him to introduce. McConnell even questioned the science of efforts to curb indoor smoking. In 1998, McConnell helped kill a proposal to curb youth smoking and within months, he had raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from tobacco companies.
• McConnell helped block a bill to ban gambling on youth sports, ensuring that only Nevada would be able to continue allowing it, and told other Republicans to oppose it too — lest they lose out on money from the Nevada gambling industry. He went on to further “please his Las Vegas donors” by helping preserve the federal tax deduction for gambling losses. Coincidentally, McConnell has received over $250,000 from the gambling industry and in 2018, SLF received a whopping $50 million from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife.
• Over his career, McConnell has received $712,127 in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, and has helped block multiple plans to allow Medicare to negotiate for cheaper drug prices.

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: SUSAN COLLINS

• Collins’ campaigns have been supported by millions of dollars of corporate special interests and groups that spend unlimited and undisclosed money.
• Throughout her career, Collins has taken over $2.9 million from corporate PACs. Her reliance on corporations comes as no surprise, considering the fact that during her last campaign, only 2.8% of Collins’ fundraising came from small contributions.
• In 2014, Citizens For Responsible Energy Solutions, a dark money group, spent over $267,000 on Collins’ behalf.
• The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce, one of the biggest dark money groups in the country, considers Collins a favorite. In 2008, the Chamber spent over $342,000 to help Collins get elected.

• Collins has cashed in over $1.4 million from the securities and investment industry and over $311,000 from the commercial banking industry.
• Collins cosponsored a bill that would undermine regulators’ authority to hold banks accountable by crippling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which protects Maine families from fraud and abuse by Big Banks. Shortly after its release, major lobbying groups representing the financial sector seeking to limit the Bureau’s efforts endorsed the bill.
• Collins voted to repeal the CFPB’s rule on arbitration, stripping many consumers of their right to sue when banks deceive them.
• When Mainers open credit cards or bank accounts, there’s often fine print requiring them to settle any disputes through arbitration, rather than through a lawsuit. Arbitration is “a private system where an individual has to go up alone against a deep-pocketed corporation.”
• By requiring arbitration, companies “take away one of the few tools that individuals have to fight predatory and deceptive business practices.”

• Collins voted for the Republican tax plan — a massive giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, including slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and allowing them to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on profits stashed overseas.
• Some of Collins’ biggest donors saved billions thanks to her vote, including General Dynamics, which gave Collins over $200,000 and received a massive cut in their tax rate, and Blue Cross Blue Shield, which gave Collins nearly $100,000 and received $2.3 billion in savings in the tax bill.
• To pay for the tax plan and the $1.9 trillion it will add to the deficit, Congress will need to make deep cuts to Medicare And Social Security or force massive tax hikes on younger Mainers.

• Collins has taken over $140,000 from the telecommunications industry.
• Collins also voted to allow Internet Service Providers to sell customers’ personal data without their permission. That data could include precise location, financial information, children’s information, health information, web browsing history, and even Social Security numbers.
• Verizon — a major Collins donor — defended the legislation and said it would benefit consumers and “innovations.” Collins has taken nearly $60,000 from Verizon.

• When Collins first ran for Senate in 1996, she supported limiting out-of-state campaign contributions. Now she relies on them — she’s accepted $3 million from corporate special interests and in 2019, only one percent of her first quarter donations came from Mainers.
• Collins has voted multiple times against getting Big Money out of politics.
• Collins voted against the DISCLOSE Act. The DISCLOSE Act “would require certain tax-exempt groups involved in political advertising — which currently are not required to disclose the names of their donors — to release the names of those who give donations of $10,000 or more.”
• In 2014, Collins also voted to block a Constitutional Amendment that would overturn Citizens United.

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: DUNCAN HUNTER

Republican Duncan Hunter’s brazen corruption represents a casual disregard for his voters, campaign finance laws, and the most basic values of representative democracy. He’s in it for himself, and no one else. He looted his own campaign funds to pay for everything from petty expenses to luxury trips, and now finds himself under federal indictment with his trial set to begin next year. Taking corruption to the point of near absurdity with a mind-boggling sense of entitlement is the Hunter brand, and for that he more than earns an anti-endorsement.

A 48-page federal indictment detailed the spending of campaign funds by Hunter and his wife. From food, alcohol, restaurants, tequila shots, dentistry, and crafts to hotels, ski trips, flying family abroad, and vacations to Italy, Hawaii, Disneyland, Virginia Beach, and more, the spending binge by the couple seems to have practically no end. Perhaps most notoriously, Hunter spent $600 in campaign funds on a plane ticket to have the family pet bunny flown across the country.

I chased down Duncan Hunter in a bright yellow hazmat suit when the Congressman arrived at federal court in the fall of 2018!

And Hunter didn’t stop there. The Department of Justice accused him of spending funds on “intimate encounters” with multiple women and campaign staffers. According to Hunter, expenses for hotels, drinks, and trips should be considered legitimate because the women involved included lobbyists – a defense that was rejected by the courts.

Hunter didn’t just misuse campaign funds, he repeatedly lied and committed fraud to cover his tracks. He tried to justify a vacation to Italy as a visit to a Naval base and with the help of his wife lied about buying clothing at a golf store in Florida, shamelessly claiming the campaign was purchasing golf balls for wounded warriors.

Yet, when federal prosecutors brought their indictment against Hunter his first response was to throw his wife under the bus. Hunter had in fact instructed campaign staff to make a credit card for funds under her name in order to abuse funds. Hunter’s wife finally agreed to cooperate with prosecutors earlier this year, and the couple admitted to misusing $250,000 in funds.

Beyond his front-page corruption scandals, Hunter has elicited complaints about conflicts of interest with the vaping industry, and tried to gut the House’s independent ethics watchdog. He also openly admits to killing innocent civilians during his tour in Iraq.

Hunter’s trial for misuse of campaign funds is set to begin in January of next year.

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: JOHN CORNYN

• Over his many years in Washington, John Cornyn has come to represent the worst of big money special interests. He has taken over $5.3 million from corporate PACs, and has used his fundraising prowess to aide his rise to power. This fundraising has taken Cornyn all around the country, but he still refuses to hold regular town halls with his constituents.
• Cornyn even defended the role of big money in politics, calling the DISCLOSE Act a way to assault freedom. The DISCLOSE Act is aimed at shining a light on the flood of dark money in elections. It would also address serious vulnerabilities in the system that currently allows foreign actors and big corporations to flood the airwaves and influence elections without any accountability.

• Cornyn has been a longtime, reliable friend to lobbyists, raising over $800,000 from the lobbying industry. He frequently fundraises with lobbyists at DC’s poshest spots, and had a reputation for being good to their clients.
• When Cornyn faced a tough reelection in 2014, it was lobbyists who raced to his rescue, bundling over $1 million for his campaign.

• As Republican Whip, it was Cornyn’s job to ensure that the Republican tax bill passed the Senate — the same bill that cut taxes for Cornyn’s big corporate donors while raising taxes on the middle class.
• Cornyn even slipped in a last-minute amendment that give a massive tax break to Big Oil and Gas, the kind that have given Cornyn over $3.3 million.

• Cornyn has been enjoying the DC high life on the dime of big corporate donors. His leadership PAC, funded by nearly $3 million from corporate PACs, has paid for his Virginia hunting license, private air travel, music festival tickets, and fancy ranches for the PAC’s annual dove hunt.
• Corporations have also paid for Cornyn’s expensive trips around the world, including a trip to the Caribbean paid for by a financier who would later be convicted of running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

• Cornyn has taken over $388,000 from the pharmaceutical industry and has done their bidding in Congress. He voted against allowing importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, voted against letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, voted against advancing a bill that would stop big pharma companies from monopolizing the market, and supported a rule that would raise drug premiums for Medicare beneficiaries. He also voted for a health care bill that contained a $28 billion tax break for Big Pharma.
• Cornyn has taken over $3.7 million from the financial industry, and has consistently taken their side by voting to give big banks a $700 billion bailout, opposing Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform, and stripping consumers of their right to sue when banks deceive them.

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: RODNEY DAVIS

• Davis has been the face of the GOP’s obstructionist campaign to prevent the For the People Act, a once-in-a-generation anti-corruption, voting rights, and money in politics reform bill, from ever becoming law.
• Davis has railed against the For the People Act on social media, in op-eds, and on the House floor and says he has “no concerns” over how his constituents back home feel about him standing in the way of reform.
• During the 2018 cycle alone, Davis raised over $76,000 from registered lobbyists and even had the Senior Vice President of one of the most powerful lobbying firms in America help him out with a commercial shoot for his campaign.
• Davis needs this special interest money because he has no grassroots support. Throughout his entire career Davis has never raised more than 7% of his campaign funds from small dollar contributions.
• H.R.1 would require “all organizations involved in political activity to disclose their large donors” but that would put a strain on Davis’ campaign that has relied on $2 million dollars in outside dark money spending to hold his seat.

• Davis has taken nearly $500,000 from Wall Street and repaid them by voting for a bill that would roll back the 2010 Dodd Frank Law and strip power away from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: the agency that holds Wall Street accountable.
• He also cosponsored the TAILOR Act which would require any regulatory actions against financial institutions to be “tailored” to place as little burden on Wall Street as possible.
• Davis also voted for the disastrous American Health Care Act (AHCA) which would give pharmaceutical companies a $28 billion dollar tax cut; the same pharmaceutical companies that have given Davis over $96,000 in campaign contributions.
• The AHCA would drive up the cost of healthcare by slashing protections for people with preexisting conditions and imposing an “age tax,” where insurance companies could charge older Americans more than younger people.
• While Davis was taking $262,000 from the oil and gas industry for his campaign account, Davis voted to make sure their royalties wouldn’t go up for the oil and gas they produce on federal land.

• Since 2012, Davis has received over $32,000 from Koch Industries, the massive corporation owned by the Koch Brothers.
• Davis has also taken over $10,000 from Ken Griffin, a billionaire who complains that rich people have “insufficient influence” in politics. And when Davis was the executive director of the Illinois Republican Party, he helped Ken Griffin and his wife circumvent campaign finance laws so they could contribute over $200,000 to county GOP parties.
• Griffin went on to give $6 million to Illinois Republican leaders in 2018 and gave $31.8 million in political contributions in 2017 and 2018 alone.
• In the 2014 cycle, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $500,000 in ads attacking Davis’ opponent and was not required to disclose any of their donors.
• Fast forward to 2017, and the Chamber announced that Rodney had a 100% voting record with them for the entire year and presented him with the “Spirit of Enterprise” award.

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: STEVE KING

• Between 2010 and 2018, King received $34,000 from the Family Research Council (FRC). FRC, which openly fights against same-sex marriage, hate crime laws and anti-bullying programs, was named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Southern Poverty Law Center also accused the FRC of promoting false claims that the LGBT community sexually abuses children.
• Between 2006 and 2012, Steve King took $2,550 from groups affiliated with the Minutemen Movement, including the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. The group was founded by a Neo-Nazi who was the subject of an FBI investigation in connection with the deaths of several migrants.
• Steve King took $53,000 from Eagle Forum over the course of 2005 to 2017. The group was formed by the former right-wing leader Phyllis Schlafly to mobilize opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. Schlafly has promoted various demeaning stereotypes about women, including stating that marital rape is not real and that women should not be firefighters or construction workers due to “inherent physical inferiority”.
• King accepted $15,500 from The National Association For Gun Rights, a pro-gun group that is more extreme than the NRA. The National Association For Gun Rights has cast itself as an ultra-right alternative to the NRA and has stated that they believe “in absolutely 100% no compromise” on guns.
• King took $26,500 from the National Pro-Life Alliance, an extreme anti-choice group that supported the idea of jail time for women that had abortions.
• Steve King took $11,000 from The U.S. Immigration Reform PAC that has white nationalist and anti-semite ties. The group is linked to John Tanton, an anti-immigrant extremist, who supported eugenics for population control.

• Over the course of his career, Steve King has taken $187,000 from the commercial banking industry and $163,000 from the securities & investment industry.
• King cosponsored the Financial Institutions Examination Fairness and Reform Act, which would allow banks to appeal regulatory decisions, including those made by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to an independent ombudsman. Critics of the bill said it would “undermine regulators” authority and create delays in addressing the problems faced by troubled banks.
• Steve King cosponsored and voted for the TAILOR Act, which critics said would force regulators to put the needs of big banks over consumers.
• King also voted during the housing crisis against the “Cramdown” provision that would have let bankruptcy judges cut mortgage terms to help borrowers avoid foreclosures. He then went on to also vote against Dodd-Frank and its new regulations on the financial services industry.

• Steve King has spent has at least $118,000 on government-funded fact-finding trips abroad, including trips with well-known anti-immigrant politicians throughout Europe.
• King has gone to more than 20 countries while in office, with six trips costing taxpayers more than $10,000 each. Other Iowans in the House, such as Congressman Dave Loebsack, spent a fraction of that cost on official foreign travel.
• During a trip to Russia, King stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow and allegedly asked a diplomat to arrange for a “Chinese masseuse” to be sent to his room. The trip was sponsored by the House Small Business Committee and cost taxpayers a total of $24,000.
• Meanwhile, King referred to unemployed people as “slackers” and tried to cut food stamps by $20 billion.

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: MARTHA MCSALLY

• By voting for the disastrous American Health Care Act, McSally put her pharmaceutical and health insurance company donors over the health of Arizona families.
• The AHCA would cut taxes for pharmaceutical companies, with the benefits going to wealthy shareholders and other investors. McSally has received over $39,000 from the pharmaceutical industry during her career.
• The AHCA would repeal taxes on insurance companies, and allow insurance companies to reduce the generosity of insurance while increasing deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. It would also give a tax break to insurance company executives. McSally has received over $44,000 from health insurance companies over her career.
• But Arizona families struggling with health care costs wouldn’t fare nearly as well under the bill as big health insurance and pharma companies. The AHCA would gut protections for preexisting conditions and impose an “age tax” on older Americans that would allow insurers to charge them five times more than younger adults.

• McSally supported the Republican tax plan– a massive giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, including slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Wells Fargo, one of McSally’s biggest donors, saved $3 billion thanks to the bill, and Bank of America, another big McSally donor, saw their income tax fall $1.8 billion compared to the same time in 2017.
• The Republican tax plan also allowed Big Pharma to reap “huge rewards”—just 5 companies were estimated to have saved over $6 billion from the bill. McSally has received over $39,000 from the pharmaceutical industry.
• The bill was great for McSally’s donors, but devastating for the middle class. Not only would the middle class see their taxes increase, the bill would also threaten massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare—as a result of $1.9 trillion it would add to the deficit.

• McSally represents the worst of big money Washington politics. She has earned the support of big dark money groups, mega-donors and big corporate special interests because they know that McSally is on their side.
• McSally’s political career has been propped up with millions of secretive, corporate special interest money. A group called Defend Arizona spent nearly $2 million supporting her in 2018, but their true donors were masked with massive donations from secretive, opaque LLCs. The donors we do know about were billionaire business tycoons, including one who said that rich people didn’t have enough influence on politics.
• One of McSally’s biggest boosters was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a tool for corporate special interests and one of the worst examples of dark money invading our elections.
• The Kochs and their dark money network readily opened their wallets to make sure McSally got elected. She has received over $30,000 from patriarch David Koch and their conglomerate, Koch Industries. And Koch-linked groups, fueled with dark money, spent nearly $800,000 boosting McSally over her career.
• McSally is the darling of the country’s biggest special interest mega-donors, who have readily supported McSally because they know she’ll protect their bottom line. Sheldon Adelson, Ken Griffin, the Mercers, the Ricketts, the Schwabs, Paul Singer, and Bernard Marcus have contributed thousands of dollars to make sure McSally stays in office.

• McSally has made a name for herself by failing to follow basic campaign finance disclosure rules, leading some to speculate whether she’s just inattentive and incompetent or actually deliberately misleading the public.
• Between 2012 and 2015, McSally’s campaign received 14 letters from the FEC pointing out errors and omissions in her reports. Those errors included everything from donations that may have exceeded contribution limits, not enough information on expenditures, and problems with summary totals for donations.
• McSally also allegedly violated campaign laws by spending money on her U.S. Senate campaign before she was an actual candidate, and she allegedly improperly fundraised for both her House and Senate campaign committees simultaneously.
• An FEC audit found that McSally’s campaign had failed to disclose the employer and occupation information for and received excessive contributions from hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donations.
• One of McSally’s biggest problems was disclosing the employer and occupation information of her donors, denying Arizonans the right to know who might be influencing their representative. In the first two quarters of 2015, McSally did not report the required employer and occupation of more than half her individual donors, a mistake she clearly didn’t learn from: over the whole 2016 cycle, she failed to report the information for 7,838 itemized individual donations—over 42% of those contributions.
• The FEC repeatedly rebuked McSally for those failures, and local papers excoriated McSally for failing to commit to transparency. The Arizona Republic even stated that “this many failures begins to look intentional.”

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: THOM TILLIS

• Small donors giving less than $200 account for less than five percent of all the campaign funds Senator Tillis has raised since 2015.
• In May of 2019, Tillis skipped out on his job and missed an important Veterans Affairs Committee hearing to attend a high-dollar fundraiser in Greensboro.
• It’s part of a pattern. In July 2013, then-Speaker of the House Thom Tillis skirted anti-corruption rules to raise millions of dollars for his U.S. Senate campaign. North Carolina bans state lawmakers from raising money from lobbyists while the legislature is in session – but Tillis was happy to take the money into his federal campaign account.
• Within weeks of announcing his Senate campaign, Tillis went to a campaign fundraiser with donors interested in legislation he oversaw as Speaker of the North Carolina House.
• A super PAC supporting Tillis raised $70,000 from George A. Sywassink, R. Doyle Parrish and W.G. Champion Mitchell. Then the State House appointed the three donors to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Board of Governors under Tillis’ leadership.
• When he was in the North Carolina House, including when serving as Speaker, Tillis skirted around rules set forth by the North Carolina legislature that prevented lawmakers from raising money from PACs with registered lobbyists and accepted $30,900 in career campaign contributions from registered lobbyists during sessions.

• Tillis’ campaigns and leadership PAC have received over $200,000 from the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.
• Tillis’ campaigns and leadership PACs have additionally received $59,000 from the health insurance industry, including from Anthem, UnitedHealth Group, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and Humana.
• Contributions from big pharma companies and the health insurance industry have showed their effect on Tillis’ votes in the Senate, including voting for the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) in July of 2017, which would have given pharmaceutical manufacturers a $28 billion tax cut.
• In addition, the BCRA would have gut protections for preexisting conditions, increase premiums, and allow insurers to charge older adults five times as much as younger adults.

• In 2014, outside groups spent over $13 million boosting Tillis’ campaign and over $20 million opposing his opponent, Kay Hagan.
• Tillis was aided by a single-candidate super PAC, Grow NC Strong, which spent over $660,000 in the 2014 North Carolina Senate election cycle.
• A dark money group, Carolina Rising, spent nearly $5 million on ads supporting Tillis’ campaign to defeat incumbent Kay Hagan in 2014.
• Despite being classified as a social welfare group, Carolina Rising spent 97 percent of the millions it raised on Tillis, and the group reported having no employees or volunteers.
• Of the $4.9 million Carolina Rising raised in its first year, $4.8 million is widely speculated to be sourced back to Art Pope, a conservative mega-donor who plays an influential role in North Carolina GOP political fundraising.
• In total, dark money groups spent over $17.3 million on Tillis’ behalf throughout the 2014 election.

ANTI-ENDORSEMENT: JONI ERNST

• Ernst owes her career to the Koch Brothers, their network and their millions of dollars. The Kochs brought her into the fold when she was still just an unknown state legislator, and used their vast and secretive network to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars shepherding her through a competitive primary.
• Just two weeks after her primary victory, Ernst gave credit where credit was due, telling big donors at a Koch summit that “this wonderful network” had “really started my trajectory.”
• In all, Koch-affiliated groups spent nearly $5 million supporting Ernst in her 2014 campaign.
• Outside of just the Kochs, Ernst has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the post-Citizens United, unlimited secret money landscape. The Iowa Senate race saw the third highest amount of outside spending in the country during the 2014 cycle, and $30 million of that went to helping Ernst. Dark money groups spent over $6.7 million helping Ernst, with one of the biggest and most insidious, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, spending a massive $3.1 million on her behalf.

• Once in Congress, Ernst went right to work for her big special interest donors. Ernst has taken thousands of dollars from the pharma and health insurance industries, and voted to give them massive, multi-billion dollar tax breaks while gutting protections for preexisting conditions, increasing premiums, and allowing insurers to charge older adults five times as much as younger people.
• Ernst supported the Republican tax plan — a massive giveaway to corporations and the wealthy, including slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% — a move that surely pleased the corporate PACs that have given Ernst nearly $1 million. Meanwhile, not only would the middle class see their taxes increase, it’s also likely the bill would threaten massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare — as a result of $1.9 trillion it would add to the deficit.
• Ernst is working for her big Wall Street donors in Congress, not Iowans. She has taken nearly $558,000 from the financial industry and cosponsored a bill that would require regulators to “limit any regulatory actions so as to limit burdens on the institutions involved” — with no thought about justice for consumers. Ernst voted to make it harder for people to sue when their banks deceive them, and cosponsored a bill that would subject the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the whims of whatever party controlled Congress.