Fancy meals. Trips to luxury resorts. These are among the purchases — classified as “necessary to raise money” — that House Minority Leader John Boehner’s PAC has spent the bulk of its money on in this election cycle, according to The Washington Post.
Leadership political action committees are supposed to help other candidates get elected. But the Post finds they are spending huge portions of their revenue funding themselves rather than the candidates they are set up to support.
Minority Leader John A. Boehner has collected more than $1.4 million from business interests this election cycle for a committee he says he created to help fellow Republican lawmakers. But Boehner’s committee has spent only about a third of its money helping other candidates.
About two-thirds of its expenditures have gone instead to costs the committee describes as necessary to raise money, including fine meals and trips to luxurious resorts where the congressman mingles with corporate-directed groups and lobbyists. Boehner (Ohio) has spent more than $182,000 through the committee on frequent travel with donors to Florida and similar vacation spots, according to Federal Election Commission records, including $70,403 at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples and more than $30,000 at Disney Resort Destinations.
A Boehner spokesperson said those trips were all “overhead costs for fundraisers that ultimately benefit Republican campaigns.”
Read the rest here.
Eric Lach
Eric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website’s front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl(at)talkingpointsmemo.com
Disqus Conversations
Click here to read the Disqus Commenting FAQ.