End Citizens United (ECU) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against David Valadao, candidate for California’s 21st Congressional District. The complaint states that Valadao broke campaign finance law by using his leadership PAC, Vitoria PAC, to supplement the salary of his campaign manager. FEC regulations do not allow for a candidate to use their leadership PAC as a means to finance their authorized campaign committee.
“David Valadao is a three term ex-Congressman who has no excuse for blatantly violating longstanding federal laws,” said End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller. “Californians voted him out in 2018 because they were fed up with his corruption-stained record. He knows full well that he can’t use his leadership PAC as a loophole to fund his campaign committee. The FEC should immediately investigate David Valadao’s illegal actions.”
By law, a leadership PAC can only donate a maximum of $5,000 in goods and services to the federal candidate with whom it is associated. It is against campaign finance rules for a candidate to use a leadership PAC to fund their authorized campaign committee, including supplementing the salaries of campaign staff. Before July of 2020, Valadao’s campaign paid its manager a monthly salary of over $6,400. Starting in July, the manager’s salary was lowered to $1,500 and the manager started receiving payments for “campaign manager services” from Valadao’s leadership PAC. These payments added up to the same total salary previously paid by Valadao’s campaign.
The Violation:
Under federal law, a leadership PAC is “a political committee that is directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained or controlled by [a Federal] candidate or [an] individual [holding Federal office] but which is not an authorized committee of the candidate or individual and which is not affiliated with an authorized committee of the candidate or individual.” The FEC has explained that contributions received by leadership PACs are “given to other Federal candidates to gain support when [an] officeholder seeks a leadership position in Congress, or used to subsidize [an] officeholder’s travel when campaigning for other Federal candidates.” The FEC has promulgated several rules to prevent Federal candidates from using their leadership PACs to finance their authorized campaign committees and thus, a leadership PAC may not provide more than $5,000 in goods and services per election to the Federal candidate with whom it is associated.
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Given the leadership PAC’s disbursements to Valadao’s campaign manager, it is reasonable to conclude that David Valadao has used his leadership PAC to subsidize his congressional campaign’s expenses, by paying portions of his campaign manager’s salary that the campaign should have paid in full. And to make matters worse, Vitoria PAC paid Valadao’s campaign manager for campaign services well in excess of the $5,000 limit for permissible goods and services that a leadership PAC may pay for on a Federal candidate’s behalf. Given the underlying record, and the fact that Valadao has been a Federal candidate for multiple election cycles under these same rules, it is improbable that this was some mere oversight by the former congressman and his staff. Although leadership PACs may play a critical role in helping Federal candidates and officeholders to make certain expenditures in pursuit of House leadership roles or to support other candidates, FECA and the FEC regulate permissible expenditures that a leadership PAC may make in part to prevent a Federal candidate from employing their leadership PAC as a tool to circumvent limits on permissible contributions. In other words, leadership PACs are not backup committees that Federal candidates can use to satisfy their campaign’s financial obligations, when their authorized campaign committees are strapped for cash.
Click here to read the complaint.
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