Alexi Giannoulias Keeps Promise to Keep Out Corporate PACs
The Supreme Court may have given corporations the green light to spend unlimited amounts on congressional campaigns, but that doesn’t mean candidates must accept the money.
Alexi Giannoulias, the winner of yesterday’s Illinois Democratic Party nomination for U.S. Senate, declares on the front page of his website that:
Alexi’s campaign doesn’t take money from the corporate PACs and federal lobbyists that have a grip on the status quo in Washington.
At first glance, it might appear from Federal Election Commission data that Giannoulias’ claim is wrong:
But take another look:
Giannoulias has kept his pledge to refuse corporate PAC contributions by returning them to their source. Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk, on the other hand, has accepted $705,000 in corporate PAC contributions over the past year. It’s quite a contrast.
The Decision was not about PACS, it was about corporate spending from general funds (both unions and corporations were prohibited) and it was about spending not direct contributions.
He isn’t refusing funds from big union pacs I notice, must be he only is afraid of corporate big money buying him off.
Wyn, I didn’t say the Supreme Court decision had to do with PACs; I introduced this post with reference to “corporate spending”. But it is related to the broader issue of campaign spending which does include PACs.