Their cup overflows in their pockets...
Tea party PACs reap money for midterms, but spend little on candidates
By Matea Gold, Published: April 26 E-mail the writer
When the Tea Party Patriots threw its support last month behind Matt Bevin, the underdog conservative challenger trying to unseat top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, President Jenny Beth Martin vowed the group would be “putting our money where our mouth is.”
So far, its super PAC has mustered just $56,000 worth of mailers in Kentucky on Bevin’s behalf — less than half the amount it has paid Martin in consulting fees since July.
The Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, which blew through nearly $2 million on expenses such as fundraising, polling and consultants in the first three months of this year, is not alone in its meager spending on candidates.
A Washington Post analysis found that some of the top national tea party groups engaged in this year’s midterm elections have put just a tiny fraction of their money directly into boosting the candidates they’ve endorsed.
The practice is not unusual in the freewheeling world of big-money political groups, but it runs counter to the ethos of the tea party movement, which sprouted five years ago amid anger on the right over wasteful government spending. And it contrasts with the urgent appeals tea party groups have made to their base of small donors, many of whom repeatedly contribute after being promised that their money will help elect conservative politicians.
Out of the $37.5 million spent so far by the PACs of six major tea party organizations, less than $7 million has been devoted to directly helping candidates, according to the analysis, which was based on campaign finance data provided by the Sunlight Foundation.
The dearth of election spending has left many favored tea party candidates exposed before a series of pivotal GOP primaries next month in North Carolina, Nebraska, Idaho and Kentucky.
Roughly half of the money — nearly $18 million — has gone to pay for fundraising and direct mail, largely provided by Washington-area firms. Meanwhile, tea party leaders and their family members have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees, while their groups have doled out large sums for airfare, a retirement plan and even interior decorating.
The lavish spending underscores how the protest movement has gone professional, with national groups transforming themselves into multimillion-dollar organizations run by activists collecting six-figure salaries.
Three well-known groups — the Tea Party Patriots, the Tea Party Express and the Madison Project — have spent 5 percent or less of their money directly on election-related activity during this election cycle. Two other prominent tea party groups, the Senate Conservatives Fund and FreedomWorks, have devoted about 40 percent of their money to direct candidate support such as ads and yard signs.
On average, super PACs had spent 64 percent of their funds on directly helping candidates by roughly this stage in the 2012 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data.
Leaders of the tea party PACs defended how they have been using their resources, saying that securing the small-dollar contributions that sustain their organizations requires investment.
“I don’t have Adelson money,” said Dan Backer, a campaign finance lawyer in Alexandria, Va., who serves as treasurer of the Tea Party Leadership Fund, referring to the GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson. “I have grass-roots money. Grass-roots money is a lot harder and more expensive to raise.”
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“I’m just so disappointed with the Republican Party and was hoping the tea party can have some influence,” said Adele Ward, an 81-year-old resident of Kerrville, Tex., who wrote a check for $1,000 to the Tea Party Patriots at the end of March. “I was certainly hoping it was to further their agenda and to support the candidates.”
But of the $7.4 million that the Georgia-based group’s super PAC has spent since the beginning of 2013, just $184,505 has gone to boost candidates, The Post found. Three-quarters of the spending by the Citizens Fund — $5.5 million — has been devoted to fundraising and direct mail.
Tea Party Patriots spokesman Kevin Broughton said the super PAC, which formed in January 2013, has had to spend time “marshaling resources” and plans to be more active in races throughout the summer and fall.
Martin, the super PAC’s chairwoman, oversees all its expenditures, according to Broughton, meaning she sets her own $15,000 monthly fee for strategic consulting — payments that have totaled $120,000 since July.
She also draws a salary as president of the Tea Party Patriots’ nonprofit arm — getting more than $272,000 in the 2012 fiscal year, according to the group’s most recent tax filing.
Her twin salaries put her on track to make more than $450,000 this year, a dramatic change in lifestyle for the tea party activist, who had filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and then cleaned homes for a period of time to bring in extra money.
Martin, through Broughton, declined to comment. But Broughton said Martin’s fees could not “objectively be considered unreasonable.”
“She works the equivalent of two full-time jobs,” Broughton said. “When I say she probably works 90 to 100 hours a week, that’s not an exaggeration.”
Martin’s cousin, Kevin Mooneyhan, is also on the payroll as a strategic consultant.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tea-party-pacs-reap-money-for-midterms-but-spend-little-on-candidates/2014/04/26/0e52919a-cbd6-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html
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