Rep. Lawler Pledged to Refuse Corporate PAC Money, Then Took It Through a Side Door Marked 'Leadership PAC'
The corporate cash, turned away politely at the front porch, was found to have entered through a hatch labeled with the party's own logo
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — A lawmaker who campaigned on refusing corporate PAC money has been accepting it after all, routed through leadership PACs — the funds party leaders raise for their candidates — which themselves collect generously from the corporate PACs the lawmaker publicly declines.
The arrangement allows Rep. Lawler to keep the yard sign on the lawn while the cash arrives around the side, an act supporters describe as pragmatic and detractors describe as the pledge equivalent of ordering a diet soda with the cheesecake.
The Press's money desk confirms that laundering a principle through an intermediary is 'playing by the rules that exist' when your side does it and 'a cynical betrayal of the voters' when theirs does, and that both descriptions are, in this case, correct.
The lawmaker's office noted that the leadership-PAC money is technically distinct from corporate-PAC money, in the way that a river is technically distinct from the several corporate springs that feed it.
Reached for comment, the congressman reaffirmed a deep commitment to getting money out of politics, a goal he pursues, sources confirm, with money.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: Reporting found that candidates who pledged to reject corporate PAC money are receiving it indirectly through leadership PACs, which accept significant corporate-PAC donations, with one lawmaker cited as taking such money after previously swearing it off.