| Friend, During the 2016 presidential election, voters were inundated with radio and television ads from dozens of PACs, including the Liberty Action Group PAC and Progressive Priorities PAC. Those two PACs in particular solicited more than $3.5 million in donations. But the PACs donated only $19 to political causes. The people running them pocketed the rest.(1) Due to the dark money and fuzzy laws surrounding PACs, the groups are ripe for ripping people off for millions of dollars and lining the pockets of the people who run them. That’s why it’s critical that Representative Katie Porter’s bipartisan bill, the Stop Scam PACs Act, be passed immediately. Sign our petition calling on Congress to pass the Stop Scam PACs Act!
If a person is found to be defrauding the public with a PAC, as the founders of Liberty Action Group and Progressive Priorities were, they can be prosecuted.(2) But by then, the money is gone. Plus, plenty of PAC money goes for fraudulent purposes that are allowed by law. Donald Trump’s Super PAC has been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on fighting his lawsuits and paying consultants instead of on a reelection campaign.(3) And Trump’s PAC was also found to have used shady practices to defraud donors, especially senior citizens, out of thousands of dollars in unintended gifts.(4) The Stop Scam PACs Act would allow the Federal Election Commission to stop fraudsters from setting up and continuing to run political groups that have no plan to do any campaigning or they use the money for personal purposes. Congress needs to pass this bill before more people are defrauded. We need the Stop Scam PACs Act in place before the next election cycle. Sign the petition now!
Yours in the fight for ethical elections, Irene, along with Annie, Isidra, Lindsay, Mai, Mai, Raquel, and Scottie (and the rest of the Courage team) Footnotes:  |
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