A liberal Harvard professor’s anti-money in politics political action committee appears to have run afoul of the Federal Election Commission, thanks to sloppy campaign finance practices.
Mayday PAC was created by Larry Lessig as a super PAC to end all super PACs, advocating for campaign finance reform to end a system where, he says, corporate donors send secret donations to politicians who do them favors.
Now, the PAC must respond to four harshly-written letters from the FEC warning of a serious lack of timely and accurate disclosure in its own filings. The errors made it impossible to tell who had donated to the PAC, and where it was spending its money, until after the primary elections.
“Your amended report discloses an increase in disbursements totaling $478,682.84 from the amounts disclosed on your original report,” said one of the four FEC letters.
“Your amended report discloses an increase in receipts totaling $216,966 from the amounts disclosed on your original report,” said another.
“The beginning cash balance of this report does not equal the ending balance of your Amended October Quarterly Report,” a third said.
A fourth had “Per Election total(s) for Iowa Congressional District 3, North Carolina Congressional District 3, and New Hampshire Congressional District 1 which appear to be incorrect.”
Each of the letters scolds: “Failure to adequately respond by the response date noted above could result in an audit or enforcement action.”
Three of the problems found by FEC analysts were in amended reports that had already been resubmitted to correct previous errors.
Mayday PAC was funded by grassroots support but also by numerous donations in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy donors. Its website says major political donors are “less than .01%” of the population and such payments by the elite “give[] the funders of political campaigns enormous power.”
It’s an irony of which the PAC was certainly always aware.
But the results of November’s election seemed to prove it wrong. The PAC raised $10 million, yet it bet on the losing candidate in nearly every race, in what Politico characterized as “How to waste $10 million.”
Almost certainly less intentional was the PAC’s apparent embrace of something else it accuses its enemies of, hiding its activities. The submission of deeply inaccurate disclosures would amount to a blow to transparency, a value much promoted by Lessig.
The PAC had already run into the practical limitations of its idealism. After pledging to disclose all donors of more than $200 on its website (even though they are already available on the FEC’s website), the PAC reversed course, offering a download only of donors giving more than $10,000, under the heading “Mayday is committed to transparency.”
Neither the PAC’s treasurer, Mark McKinnon, nor its assistant treasurer, Shauna Polk, responded to requests for comment.
