Campaign Finance

On Tuesday evening, Congressman Joaquin Castro shone a light on those funders in his hometown of San Antonio. That publicly-available information is crucial to running fair and transparent elections.

As our nation grieves back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend, Common Cause calls attention to the increasing connections between recent mass killings in which the shooters claim, or are found to have been part of, fringe white supremacist groups.

“I see no way to reconcile the statement that the ‘email did not come from the Kobach campaign or any association there of’ and the reference to whoever sent the email as a ‘vendor,’ presumably a vendor of the Kobach campaign,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at the group Common Cause. Ryan’s group filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice alleging “reason to believe that solicitations for campaign contributions to [Kobach’s] Senate campaign distributed by We Build the Wall, Inc. violated multiple campaign finance laws [and] the ban on corporate contributions to a federal candidate.”

“One way or the other Kris Kobach appears to have violated federal campaign finance laws through this solicitation for contributions to his U.S. Senate campaign,” Paul S. Ryan, Common Cause vice president for policy and litigation, said in a statement.

Today, Common Cause filed complaints with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging reason to believe that solicitations for campaign contributions to former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s Senate campaign distributed by We Build the Wall, Inc. violated multiple campaign finance laws. The email solicitation appears to violate the ban on corporate contributions to a federal candidate and the prohibition on candidates spending “soft money” in connection with their election. The email also lacks the “paid for by” disclaimer required by federal law when candidates solicit political contributions.

On August 2, 2019, Common Cause filed complaints with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging reason to believe that solicitations for campaign contributions to former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s Senate campaign distributed by We Build the Wall, Inc. violated multiple campaign finance laws. The email solicitation appears to violate the ban on corporate contributions to a federal candidate and the prohibition on candidates spending “soft money” in connection with their election. The email also lacks the “paid for by” disclaimer required by federal law when candidates solicit political contributions.