Scam PACs are political groups that deceive voters — and often donors — by fundraising under the pretext that they are supporting a specific candidate or issue-based cause, like fighting cancer or supporting veterans. In turn, this money is used to engage in more fundraising, setting in motion a vicious cycle of political swindling, often hurting elderly constituents. One way to identify a scam PAC is when a PAC reports that the majority of their expenses went towards ambiguous “fundraising” or “consulting,” or a large chunk of spending is attributed to covering “compliance and other administrative costs.” This is often a sign that PACs are not engaging in any political advocacy, because little or no money is actually being directed to support certain electoral outcomes.
OpenSecrets identified 86 potential scam PACs in the 2022 federal election cycle. These 86 PACs were identified by two criteria: (i) they spent over $100k and (ii) at least 50% of their itemized expenditures were classified by OpenSecrets as fundraising expenses. Of these PACs, 42% were identified as Republican or conservative groups and 19% as Democratic or liberal. |
