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Beyond that, according to the FEC, he's been the biggest recipient of PAC spending. His stance is that it's okay because he isn't fund-raising for those PACs,
by bmelton 11y ago
Beyond that, according to the FEC, he's been the biggest recipient of PAC spending.
His stance is that it's okay because he isn't fund-raising for those PACs, and that they are union PACs, not business. I personally don't see a distinction between unions and corporations.
Full disclosure, I think that Citizens United was decided correctly.
- guelo 11y agoHere it says Bernie has received virtually no PAC spending, https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00000528 https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N0000052...
- bmelton 11y agoThis article cites the FEC. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-is-democrats-top-beneficiary-of-outside-spending-like-it-or-not.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders... In one sense, it's hard to track the dollars directly. For example, an Anti-Hillary PAC at this point is effectively a pro-Bernie PAC.
- guelo 11y agoOh, I see it now. It's in OpenSecret's "Total Spent by All Outside Organizations Targeting Sanders". $1,881,017 spent on Bernie, mostly from the nurses. On Hillary's page it says outside money spent $2,921,391 for Hillary and $4,413,617 against. So NYTime's reporting is probably out of date since it was before the Iowa vote. Spending is a bad metric this early anyway since most PACs are just starting to ramp up their spending. Looking at spending + warchests, the Nurses have a couple million to play with while Bush, Clinton, Rubio, etc have 10s of millions. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?chrt=V&type=S https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?chrt=V&...
- bmelton 11y agoPossibly. Not sure which is more out of date; the numbers from the FEC didn't jive with OpenSecrets the day the article was published either. It's just as easy to believe that OpenSecrets has a reporting delay as it is to believe that the FEC is using some legacy software that doesn't update quickly.
- flubert 11y agoMaybe you guys are both correct? In that PACs aren't donating to the campaign, but are advertising on the candidates behalf. Anyway you can get the raw data at: http://www.fec.gov/data/IndependentExpenditure.do?format=html&cf=superPAC http://www.fec.gov/data/IndependentExpenditure.do?format=htm...
- matthewowen 11y agoNot all PACs are Super-PACs.
- astronautjones 11y ago>> I personally don't see a distinction between unions and corporations. The only workers' rights you have were gained by unions in spite of corporate opposition