With a relatively short campaign beginning in the race to succeed Brian Higgins in NY26, all candidates and potential candidates need to move quickly. A campaign team, likely including some out-of-town consultants, will be assembled.
Candidates need to file a committee with the Federal Election Commission. The FEC notes: “An individual running for a seat in … the House of Representatives … becomes a candidate when he or she raises or spends more than $5,000 in contributions or expenditures. [House] candidates must designate a campaign committee. This ‘authorized committee’ takes in contributions and make expenditures on behalf of the campaign.”
As of November 20th the only committee related to a prospective 2024 congressional candidate in NY26 that is filed with the FEC is Kennedy for Congress. Mayor Byron Brown this past Friday told WGRZ-TV “I think it’s important for me to look at the potential of a run to replace Congressman Higgins.”
Last week the Threshold Group, a NYC firm “specializing in advertising, fundraising, and public affairs,“ was sending out emails for Kennedy for Congress.
For a point of reference the Brian Higgins for Congress Committee, as of September 30, 2023, had $994,955 cash on hand. There is also a Leadership PAC (New Economy PAC) sponsored by Higgins which had $55,363 cash on hand as of June 30, 2023. According to the FEC, a Leadership PAC is a “political committee that is directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained or controlled by a candidate or an individual holding a federal office. The committee is not an authorized committee of the candidate or office holder, and is not affiliated with an authorized committee of a candidate or office holder.” Some of his federal authorized committee and Leadership PAC funds, if Higgins chooses, can be transferred to the federal campaign account of the candidate he supports. Or maybe to a relevant Super PAC – more on that following.
A NY26 candidate need to start directly raising big money. All the potential candidates will start from scratch in raising money for a federal campaign. The major potential candidates, however, each have long lists of donors (with some considerable overlap) from their previous campaigns.
The three Democratic names most prominently mentioned for the party nomination in NY26 – Mayor Byron Brown, County Executive Mark Poloncarz, and State Senator Tim Kennedy – have existing political campaign accounts with the state Board of Elections. Money from state campaign accounts cannot be directly transferred to a congressional election because the state accounts include corporate donations, which are generally prohibited from use in a federal campaign. Here are the numbers from the most recent state BOE filings:
- Brown for Buffalo. Last filing was as of July 15, 2023. Balance in the account: $212,542
- Kennedy for Senate. Last filing was on July 15. Balance in the account: $2,130,444
- Friends of Mark Poloncarz. Last filing was on October 27, 11 days prior to his recent re-election. Balance information has changed as his campaign concluded its activities. The next filing is due on December 4.
A congressional candidate can use his state campaign account to contribute to the county party committees, city and town committees, and local candidates. There has been some anecdotal evidence that Kennedy made contributions like that during the most recent election to committees and candidates outside of his current Senate district. We will need to see the next campaign filing to document the numbers but we do have Kennedy’s filings from July 15 which provide examples of relevant political contributions that he has made. They include:
- Erie County Democratic Committee: $5,250
- Niagara County Democratic Committee: $1,000
- Zellner for Chair of the Erie County Democratic Committee: $1,000
- A total of $9,000 to 15 different candidates and committees
- New York State Democratic Committee: $57,000
We’ll see what Kennedy’s state committee files on January 15.
Over the first six months of this year, Brown contributed $2,000 to the Erie County Democratic Committee plus a total of $500 to three local candidates including Kennedy.
There is another option for the use of state campaign funds but it is rather convoluted. A federal Super PAC, not directly associated with a candidate for Congress, could be formed to provide uncoordinated assistance to the candidate by running TV ads, paying for campaign materials, etc.
According to the FEC, “Super PACs are independent expenditure-only political committees that may receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions and other political action committees for the purpose of financing independent expenditures and other independent political activity. The committee will not use those funds to make contributions, whether direct, in-kind or via coordinated communications, to federal candidates or committees. A Super PAC becomes a political committee once its contributions or expenditures exceed $1,000 in a calendar year. After the committee crosses that threshold, it must register within 10 days, using the Statement of Organization, Form 1. A PAC may register and begin reporting before it exceeds the $1,000 threshold.”
In order for a Super PAC to function in this current instance and receive money from a candidate’s state campaign account the candidate would need to totally remove himself from the state-regulated political committee, turning in any connected credit cards, not signing checks, and so forth. The committee would probably need to re-name itself and would also need a treasurer who is independent of the candidate.
There is a major recent example of such an arrangement. After Governor Ron DeSantis was re-elected last November his campaign still had $80.5 million unspent in his state campaign account. A Super PAC was established to assist his presidential run. According to CNN, “DeSantis has disassociated from his state committee; his chairperson stepped down and a new chairperson, … a DeSantis ally, now has stewardship over the leftover funds. The committee, formerly called Friends of Ron DeSantis, changed its name to the Empower Parents PAC. And its website says the reformed political committee ‘supports the national advancement of issues and candidates committed to protecting parental rights in education.’”
Empower Parents subsequently sent its remaining funds to Never Back Down, a Super PAC which is assisting DeSantis efforts in many ways including organizing events, paying for airfare, etc. The legality of such a transfer has been questioned but the FEC has thus far not taken any action to prohibit it.
In the recently concluded race for county executive we saw the first entry into WNY politics of a PAC supporting the campaign of one of the candidates. A Super PAC supporting but not directly affiliated with a congressional candidate is a 2024 financial option in NY26.
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