Sarah Palin's PAC, like her TV career, on the wane
Like her television career, Sarah Palin’s political action committee — once a veritable money machine fueling the former Republican vice presidential nominee’s ambitions — has entered the doldrums.
SarahPAC has this year depleted much of its once prodigious cash reserve, spending about a quarter-million dollars more than it raised, new filings with the Federal Election Commission indicate.
SarahPAC’s financial malaise coincides with Palin’s own star power dimming: Fox News in June declined to renew Palin’s contract as a commentator, and the Sarah Palin Channel, a subscription-based online TV feed Palin launched in 2014, is going dark this week.
While SarahPAC’s $562,000 cash-on-hand figure is better than what most political committees could boast, it’s the PAC’s lowest total since mid-2009, the year Palin founded the operation. Since late 2009, SarahPAC has almost always carried more than $1 million on its books and never less than $800,000.
So where’d the money go?
Unlike many political action committees, very little of the $753,000 it spent from Jan. 1 to June 30 went directly to political candidates and committees.
Instead, SarahPAC’s top expenditures largely helped fortify its own existence — or help Palin personally.
Federal rules governing spending by “leadership PACs” — committees run by current or former elected officials — are notoriously permissive, with both Democrats and Republicans regularly using the cash to fund lavish travel, pricey gifts or just about any other self-indulgent expense.
Top SarahPAC expenditures include:
$230,250 on consultants, including $80,500 to longtime aide and PAC treasurer Timothy Crawford
$139,932 on direct mail, produced by conservative fundraising firm HSP Direct
$128,482 on postage, printing and related supplies
$82,213 on travel and accommodations, including airfare, hotels, car and SUV rentals, travel agents and taxis. The Waldorf Astoria in New York City ($4,562) and Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas ($797) were two particularly pricey hotel choices. The $3,854 SarahPAC paid a New York-based limousine company came on Feb. 19, right after Palin appeared at the staging of Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary special, where she sat in the audience next to musician Taylor Swift.
$48,000 on speech writing, mostly to Aries Petra Consulting, a small limited liability company registered in Virginia and based in Los Angeles
$37,354 on Internet fundraising through Austin, Texas-based Harris Media LLC, which works for numerous conservative politicians
SarahPAC spent $25,000 on candidate contributions during the first half of 2015 — less than 4 percent of its overall expenditures.
Related: Fundraising performance for SarahPAC
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.
Related stories
Copyright 2015 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.
