Last week, the Houston Chronicle revealed Senator Ted Cruz was receiving regular and growing payments from iHeartRadio to a super PAC working to reelect him. The payments—which make up nearly a third of the super PACs funds—are from Cruz’s podcast that he claims he does not get paid for.
“No matter which way you cut it, corporate money is funneled into Senator Cruz’s super PAC in a way that flouts ethics and campaign finance laws. Even if it’s not directly going into his pockets, the funds are being used for his reelection,” said End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller. “With over $600,000 in reported payments, it’s clear there needs to be an investigation. Texans deserve a senator who is open and transparent—not one that breaks the rules to benefit himself.”
Houston Chronicle: Ted Cruz campaign says he doesn’t get paid to podcast. IHeartMedia gave $630K to a PAC backing him.
Benjamin Wermund
03/29/24
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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s office has repeatedly dismissed ethical questions about his three-times-a-week podcasting gig, saying he makes no money from the venture with a company that lobbies Congress.
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But over the last year, iHeartMedia, the massive radio network that picked up the “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast in 2022, has made regular, and growing, payments to a super PAC supporting the Texas Republican’s reelection effort. The payments, which the media company says are associated with ad revenue from the podcast, total $630,850 – about a third of the $2 million the Truth and Courage PAC reported raising since the start of 2023, according to the latest Federal Election Commission data.
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Ethics and campaign finance experts say the payments appear to be a novel arrangement that blur the lines between what is allowed under campaign finance law and Senate ethics rules. Cruz is the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the communications industry.
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“This is not an arrangement we’ve seen before, and it seems like Sen. Cruz is trying to find a way to walk the lines between not falling into an ethics violation and not falling into a campaign finance violation,” said Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, which filed an ethics complaint about the senator’s podcast deal in 2022.
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The Truth and Courage PAC’s stated focus is “ensuring that Ted Cruz is re-elected to the United States Senate in 2024.”
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Ports said the payments from iHeartMedia beg “the question of whether this is an unlawful contribution.” Federal officeholders are prohibited from soliciting a contribution of over $5,000 to a super PAC or directing over $5,000 to a super PAC. So if Cruz told iHeartMedia that it could or should move money to the super PAC, he could be in violation of that law, Ports said.
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IHeartMedia’s latest payment to the PAC, $214,752.98 on Feb. 15, was first reported by Forbes.
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The extent of the payments, which go back to March 1, 2023, have not been previously reported.
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The PAC reports the payments not as political contributions, but as “other receipts,” which Ports said is typically how super PACs report money they earn from things like selling lists of mailing or email addresses of past contributors.
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The payments come directly from the iHeartMedia company, which is headquartered in San Antonio. Cruz’s super PAC appears to be the only political organization to receive regular payments from the company, according to FEC records.
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But ethics experts say Cruz is clearly getting something out of the deal.
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“Volunteering generally means you’re doing something expecting no personal benefit, but Cruz here is clearly benefiting from the ad revenue that is being generated by his iHeartMedia show,” said Robert Maguire, research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group. “He will be getting political support from iHeartMedia’s ad revenues.”
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The iHeartMedia payments began with $48,797.87 on March 1, 2023, according to campaign finance reports. The company paid the PAC another $77,352 in April, $129,030 at the end of August, $160,916 in November and $214,752.98 on Feb. 15.
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