WASHINGTON — After joining the House Republican leadership earlier this year, Rep. Tom Emmer has raised more than $5 million in campaign cash, sharing that haul with his re-election campaign, the national Republican Party and Minnesota’s 6th District Republican Party – the district he represents.
Since he was elected in January by House Republicans to as their majority whip, Emmer has created two new political action committees that are joint fundraisers, meaning they can share what they raise with other campaign organizations. One new PAC, called Team Emmer, jointly fundraises with the congressman’s personal campaign account and with Emmer’s leadership PAC, called the Electing Majority Making Effective Republicans (EMMER) PAC.
A second new joint fundraising committee, called the Emmer Victory Committee, jointly fundraises with the National Republican Congressional Committee, the CD6 GOP Federal Committee and the EMMER PAC.
Joint fundraisers allow donors to write big checks, which are then distributed to the other campaign committees by a formula that is based on the donation limits of each account. For instance, individual donations to Emmer’s re-election account are capped at $6,600 per election cycle, while donations to the NRCC can be as large as $123,900 per year.
“It’s an easier way to get more money out of a donor,” said Brendan Glavin, Open Secret’s senior data analyst, of joint fundraisers. “They bring (donors) all together and have them write big checks that they divvy up.”
Glavin said joint fundraising accounts have become more popular and both Republicans, like former President Donald Trump, and Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-Calif., who are using these accounts to raise money for themselves, their party and their colleagues. According to Open Secret, joint fundraising committees raised nearly $2.6 billion in 2020, the past presidential election year.
Because of the large and frequent transfer of money from joint fundraising committees, “there are ways in which they help obscure the true volume of contributions and spending,” Glavin said.
Emmer’s various PACs have transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to his other campaign accounts, the NRCC, fellow House Republican campaign accounts, and other fundraising partners.
Michael McAdams, the executive director of Team Emmer, said the congressman is just doing his job as GOP leader.
“Whip Emmer is committed to raising the money necessary to help Republicans expand their House majority and he appreciates everyone who has stepped up to help support that mission,” McAdams said.
Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance in the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, also said massive fundraising is a part of Emmer’s job description as a Republican leader.
“If he does not do it, he will be replaced,” Jacobs said. “Emmer is the No. 3 leader in the House and fundraising, especially for vulnerable candidates, is a must.”
Jacobs also said “Emmer is ambitious, and he knows what is expected of him.” Although fundraising is a time-consuming chore for most lawmakers, Jacobs said Emmer is raising money to help make a reality of his ambitions – to rise up the GOP ranks to the position of majority leader or even House Speaker.
Besides holding the job of House Majority Whip, Emmer is a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee. Both positions that are huge assets when it comes to raising political money. Emmer has raised about $5.3 million in the first six months of this year in his personal campaign account and his PACs, more money than he raised in the entire, two-year, 2021-2022 campaign cycle.
According to Open Secrets, Emmer’s top contributors in the most recent election cycle worked for financial industries. PACs and individuals with ties to security and investment firms donated the most, $418,000, to the Republican’s re-election campaign, followed by those with ties to insurance, commercial banking and real estate firms.
And Open Secrets determined Emmer, a major crypto booster, received $95,466 from individuals and PACs with ties companies in his re-election campaign account in the last election cycle. That’s more money from the crypto industry than all other House members, except for House Financial Service Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.
Emmer continues to receive generous donations from the financial services industry in this campaign cycle, both to his re-election campaign and his PACs, but his coast-to-coast donor base has grown.
Why must the Emmer photo always be an angry photo but Omar, McCollum, and Phillips are always more pleasant?
Isn’t snarling Emmer’s most frequent look?
Because he, like every other member of his party, is in a perpetual state of outrage.
Just when you think the right-wing claims of media bias couldn’t get any more absurd . . .
Why limit it to “claims of media bias” when discussing the right-wing and absurdity?
Two reasons. One, it’s so very important to them. Bias is an article of faith and a foundation of their politics.
Two, have you seen some of their other absurdities? Pretty skeevy.
Given that his state party’s bank account contains not quite 60 bucks, you’d think Rep. Emmer would consider doing his fellow home-grown subversives a solid and float them a loan.
Why would they?
Minnesota is a lost state. The only competition left is the fight with California and New York to the bottom.
Minnesota is a “lost state” because Republicans have decided that trying to turn their moralistic obsessions and their fake religion into law is more important than governance.
If Republicans lose in Minnesota, they have only themselves to blame.
There are swing districts in Minnesota, especially at the state level, where Republican candidates might get a boost if the state party showed more competence. Might help them get a majority back in the state house or senate.
For a lost state, we’re doing very well here.
Yeah James, y’all are living the dream up there….
https://www.thecentersquare.com/minnesota/minnesota-s-ranked-in-top-10-of-highest-outbound-migration-states/article_8e3967ae-6cea-11ec-a7b7-6f393f74050c.html
Emmer never opposed trump’s and trump campaign’s racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, transphobia, LGBTQ hatred, etc.
He can’t, Mike. Those are all core tenets of the GOP platform.
I wouldn’t have thought so many companies wanted to invest so much $ in overthrowing our democracy!
Sorry, Ben, it looks like we couldn’t keep it.
Actually, we did. It’s ironic that the party and person who squeals 24/7 about voter fraud are the ones that actually engaged in it and tried to overthrow the United States government.
This is a perfect demonstration of what a sick society we have evolved into by allowing the creation of an arrogant and egotistical billionaire class, committed to improperly influencing our elections.
The disastrous Supreme Court decision in the mid ’70s declaring “Money is Speech” combined with the (later) rise of the billionaire class (through decades of tax cuts by “conservative” forces) has thoroughly wrecked and perverted our electoral system and our politics. And of course any attempt at regulating the money monster gets struck down by the Repub Supreme Court.
“Money is Deception” is a far more accurate a description of the current appalling situation, for which other democracies can only have rightful contempt.
The more recent rulings that grant corporations many of the same constitutional rights granted to the people exacerbate the “money is speech” problem.
Yet Mark Zuckerberg donated $400 million to fund local and state “election offices” for the 2020 election and no one here complained.
You are complaining – here are the facts from the AP
CLAIM: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spent more than $400 million in 2020 to elect Joe Biden, violating campaign finance rules that limit donations.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. While Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, collectively donated at least $400 million to two nonprofit organizations to help various government election offices across the country, the funds were not contributions to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and did not violate campaign finance laws.
THE FACTS: Posts suggesting that Zuckerberg improperly spent a large sum of money to elect Biden have circulated widely as some social media users and conservative lawmakers continue to push the unfounded claim that fraud played a significant role in the 2020 presidential election.
“The legal maximum an individual could donate to a Presidential campaign in 2020 was $5,600. Mark Zuckerberg spent over $400,000,000 in 2020 to help elect Joe Biden,” one social media user wrote in a tweet that was shared more than 13,000 times. “Why isn’t this being investigated?”
Zuckerberg didn’t donate directly to Biden’s 2020 campaign, federal campaign finance records show. He and his wife donated at least $400 million to two nonprofit organizations which distributed grants to state and local governments to help them conduct the 2020 election during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The donations came at a time when election offices were trying to transition to mail voting. The money helped pay for material and services such as equipment to process mail ballots, protective equipment to curb the spread of the coronavirus, and drive-thru voting locations, The Associated Press reported.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Chicago-based nonprofit, received and distributed the bulk of the money. The Center for Election Innovation and Research, which is based in Washington, also issued grants.
The FEC does impose limitations on contributions to candidates for office, and capped individual donations to candidate committees at $2,800 per election in 2020. But Zuckerberg and Chan’s donations don’t violate those rules because they weren’t donations to a political candidate.
“The federal election rules have nothing to do with any of this,” said Barry Burden, founding director of the Elections Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “These were not campaign donations. These were grants to governments, mostly county and municipal governments that run elections across the united states.”
Ben LaBolt, a spokesperson for Zuckerberg and Chan, described the online claims as “not accurate.”
“Mark and Priscilla provided funding to two non-partisan organizations that helped cities and states ensure that residents could vote regardless of their party or preference,” he wrote in an email to the AP. “Nearly 2,500 election jurisdictions from 49 states applied for and received funds, including urban, suburban, rural, and exurban counties.”
LaBolt wrote that the grants were “made in full compliance with the law.”
A review of online FEC records show that Zuckerberg did not directly donate to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. LaBolt also confirmed that Zuckerberg did not make any direct donations.
Conservatives have criticized the donations due to suspicion that the money aided Democrats, the AP reported in August 2021.
Some of the Center for Tech and Civic Life’s founders were once involved with the New Organizing Institute, which provided training to liberal activists. Conservative groups have argued that the funds disproportionately went to Democratic-leaning counties in key states, including Pennsylvania.
But election officials have said there is no indication of favoritism in how the money was distributed, according to previous AP reports. The board of the Center for Tech and Civic Life also includes Pam Anderson, a Republican and former elected clerk of a suburban Denver-area county. Republican election officials have also vouched for the program’s impartiality, including Brian Mead, a Republican election director in Licking County, Ohio.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life announced in April that it won’t distribute similar donations this year, the AP reported. At least eight Republican-controlled states passed laws last year banning private donations to election offices.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
“Tiana Epps-Johnson, Donny Bridges, and Whitney May, the founders of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, were co-workers at the New Organizing Institute (NOI) for several years before the organization dissolved in 2015. 4 NOI, described by a Washington Post reporter as “the Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry,” was a major training center for left-of-center digital activists over the decade of its existence.” [Digital activists. lol!]
“Additionally, a few members of CTCL’s board of directors have strong ties to Democratic political operations, notably Tammy Patrick, a senior advisor to the elections program at Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, and Cristina Sinclaire, who was previously employed by NOI as well as by the progressive data service Catalist.
In the months leading up to the November 2020 election, Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan reportedly donated a total of $350 million to CTCL through the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), although the actual figure reported in SVCF’s IRS disclosures was roughly $328 million. ”
influencewatch.org/non-profit/center-for-tech-and-civic-life/
Move along…nothing to see here.
Well, I don’t approve of tax laws that permit the creation of a Zuckerberg, but that money was actually used by cities to aid voting in a national election, not bribe some candidate. Or entirely fund the vanity campaign of some rightwing crank. So of course the “conservative” movement opposed it!
We all know that urban turnout must be suppressed in a true democracy…
You don’t seem to follow Zuckerberg’s politics very closely if you think he would contribute to any progressive candidate. His efforts are on a par with FOX News in misleading and misinforming (or enabling it).
Spending tons of money is how minority rule achieves its power. The Rs will always be a minority party based on wealth and power.
The groups Zuck donated to all have direct ties to the Democrat party.
These comments count towards your daily “20 minutes of hate”.
Regards
O’Brien
lol!! Ain’t that the truth!
Emmer, along with the rest of the GOP, supports Trump, agrees with the party platform that is racist, anti-women, anti-LGBQT, and anti-democracy. They want to suppress the vote and they want a more control with less oversight. (Star Tribune, July 18, 2023, p.4) In 2024 when more younger voters turn out, it is hoped that Emmer along with all the GOP who still support Trump will be gone. 2025 will be the end of Emmer’s term. Thankfully.
I hope so, but I don’t have much faith. I’m in his district. I have signed up for his newsletters, just like I’ve signed up for the newsletters from ALL my reps (state and federal). His are regularly misleading and often improper campaigning from his official account. When I send a letter about an issue, I’m respectful, but he (or his aides) often send either canned responses with little relevance to my original letter OR (as recently happened) they literally twist my words into support for something I don’t support. He won’t see constituents outside of his gladhanding tours, either. He’s afraid of his constituents disagreeing with him in public. I don’t know what it will take to beat him in the next election, especially given how gerrymandered this district is, but I’m open to ideas. Young people not liking him isn’t enough – they must VOTE AT EVERY ELECTION.
Your experience with Emmer mirrors mine with Betty(!) McCollum exactly. She was one who never gave me the courtesy of answering my correspondence with a canned response…just silence.
I remember back in 2008, Betty(!) graced us poor wretches with an appearance at the AFL-CIO HQ in Saint Paul. You had to be vetted by a union thug at the gate to get in…”What is your issue? What do you want to say to the Congresswoman? Are you in her district?”
I didn’t get in, and neither did another dozen or so that had come with complaints.
It’s been >10 years since I’ve had to suffer that kind of disenfranchisement.
Emmer looks terrible for his age. Maybe the locals who feign concern about Biden’s age should worry more about their own team’s health. He likely only has 4 years left based on the size of his jowls compared to his face.
So says someone who voted for Tim Walz.
Ahhh! The new Rudy Boshwitz. Not much use for anything other than raising money.
I do feel we as tv watchers deserve a piece of the action. It is us, after all, who bought the televisions on which their ads run. Shouldn’t we charge them a form of rent?
I don’t know why Minnpost has decided that how much money Emmer raises requires weekly coverage but the Fascism, corruption, and dishonesty he routinely promotes are not worth covering? From Trump’s big lie to basic SCOTUS ethics requirements Emmer is all-in with the reactionary attempt circumvent democracy. One would think that his extremism would warrant more analysis and discussion than his campaign budget eh?
Let me put it this way. People who give money to Hunter Biden get paintings in exchange for the cash. What are people who give money to Tom Emmer getting in exchange?
Given the fact that Hunter is no one’s elected official I’m not sure the comparison makes a lot of sense.
I don’t think raising cash for the Republican Party is within the scope of employment of a congressman representing the sixth district. How much of this money goes back to Mr. Emmer’s constituents?