House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has climbed her way back into the majority and the speaker’s office. Now she wants to pull the money ladder up behind her. Pelosi pledged that the next Congress would “reduce the role of dark special interest money.”
A nice line, it doesn’t mean much coming from her after the midterm elections. Look no farther than this New York Times story about just one dark money group, the Hub Project, that dropped $30 million to help Democrats retake the House. This was the norm for Democrats, who enjoyed a substantial financial advantage in this election.
That is a drop in the 2018 bucket on its own. A green wave of money washed over the country as both sides spent a record-breaking $5.2 billion. But it is a single group and it was part of a coordinated strategy from day one. Democrats made healthcare their top issue and then, as the Times reports, used “invigorated fund-raising on the left to challenge Republicans even in conservative-leaning areas.” That money bomb didn’t deliver a blue tsunami, but it did get the job done.
If Pelosi wants her dark money pledge to mean anything, she needs to address the groups who bolstered her candidates. Otherwise, the good government talk is just that, meaningless talk.
