Mayday PAC
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| Mayday PAC | |
 | |
| Basic facts | |
| Location: | Cambridge, Mass. |
| Type: | Super PAC |
| Founder(s): | Lawrence Lessig and Mark McKinnon |
| Year founded: | 2014 |
| Website: | Official website |
Mayday PAC is a super PAC founded by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon on May 1, 2014. From its founding the group stated that its aims were to achieve "fundamental reform in the way political campaigns are funded by 2016."[1]
According to The New York Times, the super PAC aims to achieve this goal by supporting "lawmakers of both parties who support proposals to diminish the influence of big donors."[1]
Background
Mayday PAC's work focuses on identifying candidates who support campaign finance reforms and supporting those candidates through independent expenditures and advertising.[2]
After the 2014 election cycle, in which the group achieved limited success, the group changed its approach to include a crowdsourced approach to identifying potential legislators who support their mission. According to a report in Crowdfund Insider, Mayday PAC also began to connect citizens to members of Congress and began to "experiment with efforts to recruit large donors of targeted Members of Congress to make a very different kind of donor pledge: A commitment not to contribute to any candidate who doesn’t support fundamental reform."[3]
Work
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| Read more about super PACs and the super PACs covered on Ballotpedia. |
2016 elections
Throughout the 2016 election cycle, Mayday PAC spent $32,893. The following table details the independent expenditures made during the 2016 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.[4]
| Top candidate contributions in 2016 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | State | Party | Office | Total | For | Against |
| John Faso | N.Y. | U.S. House | $8,315 | $0 | $8,315 | |
| Zephyr Teachout | N.Y. | U.S. House | $6,780 | $6,780 | $0 | |
| Jamie Raskin | Md. | U.S. House | $4,216 | $4,216 | $0 | |
| Tim Canova | Fla. | U.S. House | $3,770 | $3,770 | $0 | |
| Russ Feingold | Wis. | U.S. Senate | $2,830 | $2,830 | $0 | |
| Jason Kander | Mo. | U.S. Senate | $2,252 | $2,252 | $0 | |
| Taylor Griffin | N.C. | U.S. House | $2,250 | $0 | $2,250 | |
| Walter Jones | N.C. | U.S. House | $2,250 | $2,250 | $0 | |
| Debbie Wasserman Schultz | Fla. | U.S. House | $230 | $0 | $230 | |
2014 elections
Throughout the 2014 election cycle, Mayday PAC spent $7,888,825 on eight races around the country.[5] They invested in five pilot races during the 2014 U.S. House elections along with three U.S. Senate elections.[1] Of the eight races, two of the candidates endorsed by Mayday PAC—Walter Jones (R) in North Carolina and Ruben Gallego (D) in Arizona—won their elections.
Mayday PAC spent money on the following U.S. House and Senate races:[5]
| Top candidate contributions in 2014 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | State | Party | Office | Total | For | Against | Result |
| Staci Appel | Iowa | U.S. House | $17,334 | $17,334 | $0 | ||
| Scott Brown | N.H. | U.S. Senate | $128,747 | $0 | $128,747 | ||
| Paul Clements | Mich. | U.S. House | $403,573 | $403,573 | $0 | ||
| Ruben Gallego | Ariz. | U.S. House | $149,999 | $149,999 | $0 | ||
| Walter Jones | N.C. | U.S. House | $99,999 | $99,999 | $0 | ||
| Pat Roberts | Kan. | U.S. Senate | $1,430,775 | $0 | $1,430,775 | ||
| Mike Rounds | S.D. | U.S. Senate | $290,522 | $0 | $290,522 | ||
| Jim Rubens | N.H. | U.S. Senate | $1,512,261 | $1,512,261 | $0 | ||
| Carol Shea-Porter | N.H. | U.S. House | $299,999 | $299,999 | $0 | ||
| Fred Upton | Mich. | U.S. House | $1,684,501 | $0 | $1,684,501 | ||
| Rick Weiland | S.D. | U.S. Senate | $875,390 | $875,390 | $0 | ||
| David Young | Iowa | U.S. House | $714,638 | $0 | $714,638 | ||
Mayday PAC initially spent money on two elections. The group supported Jim Rubens (R) against Scott Brown (R) in the Republican primary for the 2014 U.S. Senate race. Brown won the primary but was defeated by incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in the general election.[1] Mayday PAC also supported Democratic candidate Staci Appel against Republican David Young in the race for the 3rd Congressional seat in Iowa. Republican incumbent Tom Latham did not run for re-election, leaving an open seat. Young defeated Appel in the general election.[1]
Leadership
As of July 2017, the website for Mayday PAC listed the following individuals as part of the organization's leadership:[6]
- Chris Tallent, National campaign director
- Teddy Rube, National organizer
Former leadership
Mayday PAC was started by Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Harvard University, and Mark McKinnon, a Republican campaign consultant. The group was also supported by public relations consultant Bill Burton, a former aide for President Barack Obama (D).[7]
In July 2015, Zephyr Teachout—a law professor at Fordham University and first national director of the Sunlight Foundation—took over the role of CEO and board chair for Mayday PAC. The following January, she left to become a 2016 Democratic candidate seeking election to the U.S. House to represent the 19th Congressional District of New York.[8][9][10]
Finances
The following table identifies total federal receipts and disbursements for Mayday PAC according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission:
| Annual federal receipts and disbursements for Mayday PAC, 2014-2016 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Total receipts | Total disbursements |
| 2016[11] | $213,550 | $465,054 |
| 2015[12] | $270,085 | $551,440 |
| 2014[13] | $11,231,645 | $10,695,067 |
Legal status
Mayday PAC is a super PAC. A super PAC is a political committee that can solicit and spend unlimited sums of money. A super PAC cannot contribute directly to a politician or political party, but it can spend independently to campaign for or against political figures. These committees are also called independent expenditure-only committees. A super PAC is not legally considered a political action committee (PAC) and as such is regulated under separate rules.[14][15]
Opposition
The group received criticism for trying to fight big money's influence in politics by spending large amounts of money. In response, Lessig developed the motto, "Embrace the irony."[16]
Noteworthy events
Campaign finance complaint
In November 2014, the Institute for Free Speech (CCP) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), accusing Mayday PAC of violating campaign finance law. The complaint stated that various ads put forth by the super PAC did not contain the required disclaimers. The CCP stated, "no matter how silly or pointless these hyper-technical disclaimer requirements may seem, the law is the law."[17] The group's president, David Keating, added, "The hypocrisy is stunning. Mayday PAC's board and advisors constitute a who’s who of advocates for more speech regulations, yet either they didn’t understand the already complex law or they simply ignored it. If it’s the latter, what Mayday PAC seems to be saying to the public is that if you are big enough, and have the ‘right’ advisors, and care enough about campaign finance regulation, the law doesn’t apply to you. The FEC should make crystal clear that the law does apply to groups such as Mayday PAC."[17] On his blog, Mayday PAC's founder Lawrence Lessig responded to the allegations: "To be clear: Every Mayday.US ad fully identified Mayday.US as its sponsor. And unlike superPACs that accept dark money, Mayday.US discloses every contribution (over $200) as well. None could be confused about whom the ad was from, and anyone who cared could identify whom the PAC was funded by."[18]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Mayday PAC. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External link
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 New York Times, "Money Is Raised; Now Lessig’s Super PAC Must Win," accessed July 7, 2014 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "nyt" defined multiple times with different content Cite error: Invalid<ref>tag; name "nyt" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Politico, "The PAC to End All PACs Is a Farce," August 25, 2014
- ↑ Crowdfund Insider, "Mayday PAC Resurfaces at SXSW as Lawrence Lessig Reveals 'Next Steps,'" March 15, 2015
- ↑ Center for Responsive Politics, "Outside Spending: Independent Expenditures, Electioneering Communication & Communication Costs by Targeted Candidate," accessed July 5, 2017
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 OpenSecrets, "Mayday PAC, Outside Spending: Independent Expenditures, Electioneering Communication & Communication Costs by Targeted Candidate," accessed November 25, 2014
- ↑ Mayday PAC, Team Mayday," accessed July 5, 2017
- ↑ Politico, "How to waste $10 million," November 6, 2014
- ↑ Poughkeepsie Journal, "Zephyr Teachout will run in 19th Congressional District," January 25, 2016
- ↑ Politico, "Zephyr Teachout takes over Larry Lessig's PAC," July 27, 2015
- ↑ Roll Call, "Zephyr Teachout Announces Run for Congress in New York," January 25, 2016
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Mayday PAC Year-End Report, 2016," January 31, 2017
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Mayday PAC Year-End Report, 2015," January 31, 2016
- ↑ Federal Election Commission, "Mayday PAC Year-End Report, 2014," January 30, 2015
- ↑ The Atlantic, "The New York Times' Disingenuous Campaign Against Citizens United," February 24, 2012
- ↑ The New York Times, "Who's Financing the 'Super PACs?" May 7, 2012
- ↑ The New Yorker, "Embrace the Irony," accessed November 25, 2014
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 NH Journal, "Granite Reports: Campaign finance reform PAC accused of violating campaign finance law," accessed November 25, 2014
- ↑ Lessig Blog, V2, "On the Institute for Free Speech Complaint," accessed August 13, 2015
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