PACs Continue to Give … and Give … and Give

Political campaigns are expensive and the cost of running them continues to soar.

The total cost of congressional campaigns reached more than $5.7 billion in 2018, up from $2.5 billion just a decade ago, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The money’s got to come from somewhere and that somewhere is Political Action Committees.

National credit union trade groups operate PACs, as do the banking trade groups.

CUNA recently announced that it would spend some $7 million during the 2020 election cycle.

“This record figure is a testament to the fact that credit union members have a vested interest in the political process,” Trey Hawkins, CUNA deputy chief advocacy officer for political action, said.

The end-of-year campaign finance reports were recently released, and they show how much the trade groups rely on campaign contributions to help tell their story. The trade groups generally do not contribute to presidential campaigns and instead give their money to House and Senate candidates.

In 2019, CULAC, CUNA’s political action committee, took in about $2.85 million in contributions. And in the non-election year, the committee made almost $1.8 million in contributions. Going into this year, CULAC had almost $1.8 million on hand.

NAFCU operates a much smaller committee, which took in $200,000 in contributions, while making $145,000 in contributions. And going into 2020, NAFCU’s committee had about $525,000 on hand.

Of course, the battle between credit unions and banks also plays out in political giving. The American Bankers Association took in some $1.8 million in 2019, made about $2.2 million in contributions to campaigns and had $1.977 million on hand at the end of the year.

The Independent Community Bankers of America took in more than $982,000 last year, while contributing $757,000. And going into the election year, the committee had almost $425,000 on hand.

The amount the committees had on hand at the end of the year is not an indication of how much the political committees will spend in this election year.

The committees will continue to raise money throughout the year and continue to contribute to campaigns.

So, if you’re a credit union official, expect to be approached by people with their hands out.

Consider yourself warned.

Adam Schiff

Whether you agreed with him or not, you’ve got to admit that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was one of the stars of the recent impeachment trial of President Trump.

He behaved like the federal prosecutor he once was – he was well-spoken and prepared.

Just a few years ago, he gained prominence in the credit union community for having written a letter with Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) to former CFPB Director Richard Cordray, which asked the then-director to make sure he tailored the agency’s rule to consider the regulatory burden on community banks and credit unions.

They were joined by more than 300 House members in sending that letter.

If Schiff’s name sounded familiar to you even before he jumped head-first into the impeachment fray, that may be why.

‘Fake News’

I’m not the biggest fan of social media. It’s an understatement to say that people post things without giving them much thought.

And the various social media tools out there are open invitations to spread phony, inflammatory rumors and downright lies.

People go on rants about demonstrably true stories being “fake news.” And people post easily-debunked stories while calling them the absolute truth.

Here’s a modest suggestion – how about we all agree to check out the veracity of stories whose links we post on social media? It really doesn’t take much work.

And how about this: When we see a post that is demonstrably false, we say so and cite the source that debunks the post?

Yeah, you might be called a few names if you do it, but so what?

If you’ll bear with me, here’s an example. A Facebook friend recently posted a supposed story about Benghazi. Now, anytime you read anything about Benghazi, you’d better check it out.

And this one did seem strange.

So, I typed a couple of keywords into Google. And up popped an item from the great fact-checking website “Snopes.” The story had gained enough traction on social media that there was a specific story about it on Snopes.

It didn’t take long to find information that demonstrated the information was false. And so, I posted a link to the “Snopes” story debunking it.

The House Ethics Committee recently sent a memo to House offices warning members and their staffs that posting information they know to be false may violate the Code of Official Conduct.

Yes, House staff and members are expected to participate in the political discussion, the committee said.

“However, manipulation of images and videos that are intended to mislead the public can harm that discourse and reflect discreditably on the House,” the committee said, adding, “Members and staff are expected to take reasonable efforts to consider whether such representations are deep fakes or are intentionally distorted to mislead the public,” the Ethics Committee said.

Fact-checking websites, such as Snopes and PolitiFact, were designed to do your job for you.

(Full disclosure: I did some work for PolitiFact in its early days.).

So, how about we vow that in this election year, we simply are not going to post things without checking them out first. And when we see stories posted that don’t pass the smell test, we check them out.

Yeah, you’re going to be called some nasty names by true believers who insist you are doing the devil’s work.

Hopefully, though, you’ve got thick skin.

David Baumann is a correspondent-at-large for CU Times. He can be reached at dbaumann@cutimes.com.