'I Can't Breathe' now a federal super PAC
Eric Garner’s dying words are now the name of a federal super PAC.
The “I Can’t Breathe PAC” received the Federal Election Commission’s stamp of approval this week after New Yorker Tarik Mohamed, a visual communications strategist for Outfront Media and a volunteer for Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign, filed paperwork registering the group.
The super PAC is named to honor the man whose death in July while in New York City police custody — and captured on video — has sparked nationwide outrage and protests.
Mohamed said he got the idea for the super PAC, which may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against political candidates, while participating in a recent “die-in” in New York City’s Grand Central Station protesting police mistreatment of minorities.
“It’s about capturing that social inertia and giving it a political voice, not just a voice in the street, but a voice in the airwaves come election time,” Mohamed told the Center for Public Integrity.
Mohamed said the super PAC will support candidates who favor criminal justice reform, including requiring special prosecutors for police brutality cases.
Who those candidates are is still an open question for Mohamed and the volunteer staff he is currently assembling.
So, too, is its funding: Anyone may set up a federal super PAC, as comedian Stephen Colbert famously demonstrated. But finding money to get off the ground is another issue, let alone securing the firepower for substantial political influence.
The FEC currently lists 916 registered super PACs, but most have little to no financial activity.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Primary Source. Primary Source keeps you up-to-date on developments in the post-Citizens United world of money in politics. Click here to read more stories in this blog.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
