A group of progressive lawmakers announced today the creation of Progressive America PAC, an organization dedicated to electing progressive candidates and advocating for progressive legislation.
The PAC’s board will be made up of some of Pennsylvania’s most progressive lawmakers, State Sen. Daylin Leach, State Rep. Brian Sims and State Rep. Mary Jo Daley.
“This PAC will be dedicated to recruiting, training, supporting, exposing and electing progressive candidates,” Sen. Leach said in a conference call announcing the PAC.
Leach, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination in PA-13, mentioned that his experience partly inspired this effort. He noted that too often progressive PAC’s wait too late to get involved in campaigns and he found it much easier to fundraise after some of the prominent endorsements he received.
“We hope this to be almost like an EMILY’s List model for progressive candidates,” he said.
Concerning current issues, Leach stated that Progressive America PAC will focus on legislation to ban anti-LGBT discrimination and increase the minimum wage.
“We’re preparing to start in the 2015 cycle for local, state and national elections; particularly in contested primaries,” Leach said in summation of the group’s short-term future.
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3 Responses
@David:
My understanding is yes and no. Basically if you’re operating by the more stringent rules, you can support anyone. So if Local 98’s PAC raises according to federal rules (they are more stringent than PA rules) they can donate $100k to Allyson for Governor but only $10k to Brendan Boyle for Congress. That’s because they are following the federal limits for federal races, and there are no limits for state races, so it doesn’t matter.
They couldn’t take $100k from say Gerry Lenfest and then distribute that money to congressional candidates at $10k a pop though. So they can use federal money on state races, but can’t use state money for federal races. If that makes sense.
Not sure the Emily’s List comparison is so great. In the interest of getting women elected, they bypass progressive men who care just as much as some women about choice and paycheck equality. Some women are only liberal on typical women issues, but conservative on matters of the military or privacy.
Can a PAC mix state and federal campaign dollars to directly help local and national candidates?