March 8, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Alex Altman, [email protected]
ICYMI: NorthJersey.com Exposes Andy Kim’s Lies About Accepting Funding from Corporations
RED BANK, NJ — New reporting today from NorthJersey.com exposes the many lies Congressman Andy Kim has told about accepting corporate money to fund his campaigns. NorthJersey.com reports, “Despite a longstanding pledge to avoid donations from corporate political action committees, Rep. Andy Kim has taken more than $300,000 from similar groups since first running for Congress in 2018.”
Congressman Kim talks about not taking Corporate PAC Money, but in typical D.C. fashion, has figured out every other way to take corporate money, while lying to voters about it. He has actually taken money from: the American Hospital Association, the American Crystal Sugar Company, and the National Association of Realtors.
Despite this money from corporations, Congressman Kim repeatedly highlights that he does not take Corporate PAC money and further peddled this claim in the New Jersey Globe debate in February by proclaiming, “I’m not going to get funded by corporations, and that’s something I held true to…. I’m one of the only few people in Congress that has held to that.” Congressman Kim has repeated this lie in a social media post, proving that he is willing to tell voters exactly what he thinks they want to hear in order to further his own self interest.
Highlights from the story are below:
Are Andy Kim and Tammy Murphy taking money from PACs? Here’s how they compare
NorthJersey.com
By: Katie Sobko
Despite a longstanding pledge to avoid donations from corporate political action committees, Rep. Andy Kim has taken more than $300,000 from similar groups since first running for Congress in 2018.
Kim declares on his campaign website that he will “refuse all money from corporate PACs” and he has “kept this promise to not accept corporate PAC money.”
During his Senate run, Kim has received 71 donations — totaling $150,356 — from groups that are considered PACs. Of that, $84,500 has come from labor and business groups.
These groups are not necessarily the same thing as a corporate PAC, though both are considered traditional PACs, or groups controlled by corporate interests, according to Brendan Quinn of the Campaign Legal Center.
These PACs can take up to $5,000 from individual donors per cycle and give up to $5,000 directly to candidates and have been around since the 1940s, Quinn said.
A PAC typically represents business, labor or ideological interests and havs to be registered with the federal government. Affiliated PACs are treated as one donor when it comes to contribution limits.
Among the groups that have given to Kim are the American Crystal Sugar Company PAC and National Association of Realtors PAC.
First Lady Tammy Murphy, meanwhile, has received less than 10 donations from PACs for about $15,000 in all. Murphy has been in politics for about four months, while Kim has served in Washington for seven years.
Understanding ‘business PACs’
Sarah Bryner of OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that analyzes FEC filings, said that her organization uses the designation business PAC for entities that represent business, which is a “broad category” whereas the FEC designation is self-reported and not policed.
“One big difference that we encounter is that OpenSecrets classifies something like a trade association as a business interest while the FEC classifies that as a trade association,” Bryner said. “It would not be showing up in kind of corporate PAC lists even though its interests are very aligned with corporate interests.”
Bryner said that almost anything can be classified as special interest but the difference that some politicians try to articulate revolves around business interests having a bottom line and an interest in getting policy passed, which is different from somebody who is aligned with an ideological group.
“I’m somewhat skeptical of these kinds of pledges there that people make. I think it’s good to draw awareness to the power of special interest writ large, and the potential posed by corruption, but this is a political statement that people make,” Bryner said. “It is not a legalistic one and it’s not one that always it makes it clear that they are devoid from like a potential to be influenced by one donor over the other.”
But groups like trade associations, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is made up of businesses, also see financial implications based on the decisions made in Washington, which is why Bryner said her organization considers them business PACs.
Bryner said that candidates see PACs as “very reliable donors” who “tend to be early to donate and tend to give in large amounts” but that they also “tend to come knocking after an election.”
How did Kim respond? What did Murphy say?
The Kim campaign referred a request for comment to End Citizens United. That organization is focused on changing the way money is involved in the political system and has spearheaded the “no corporate PAC” movement.
Jonas Edwards-Jenks, the organization’s communications director said that Kim is “one of the founding members of the no corporate PAC pledge movement.
“He knows that to make government work for the people, we need to end the stranglehold corporate special interests hold in Washington,” he said. “Our government should work for the people, not corporate bottom lines and members who refuse corporate PAC money should be applauded for their leadership.”
Alex Altman, a spokesperson for the Murphy campaign said that Kim is “being dishonest about campaign finance.”
“Kim has said he ‘won’t be funded by corporations,’ while he has taken over $300,000 from trade groups like the American Hospital Association which are funded by — you guessed it — massive corporations,” Altman said. “This is yet another example of Kim’s pattern of hypocritical behavior as a typical DC politician who tells voters what he thinks they want to hear.”
Bryner also noted that the “key difference” with corporate PAC money is that they also tend to employ lobbyists and have a financial stake in policy outcomes. Lobbyists work as advocates to influence political decisions for the individuals or groups that hire them.
Both Kim and Murphy have accepted money from lobbyists during this cycle as well — more than $7,000 for the former compared to more than $16,000 for the latter. Kim has taken more than $38,000 during his six years in the House.
Neither candidate is running what would be considered a small donor campaign though, Bryner said.
Kim gets about 81% of his funding — or $3.1 million of the $3.8 million he’s raised — from large donors and Murphy gets almost 100% of hers — or $3.14 million of the $3.19 million she has, which Bryner noted is “a lot.”
A large donor is anyone that gives a candidate a donation worth more than $200.
A heated primary for Democratic Senate nomination
Both Kim and Murphy are vying for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Bob Menendez. Though the primary is still three months away, the campaign season has been heated as Kim and Murphy battle for the coveted county line ballot placement at party conventions throughout the state.
Kim has won the line in Monmouth, Hunterdon, Sussex and Warren counties where an open convention with a secret ballot was used to determine ballot position. He also won the endorsement of the county party in Sussex, though they have a block design format on the ballots there.
Murphy has garnered the line in Passaic and Union counties, where the former allows for a private screening committee vote while the latter has the party’s screening committee of the municipal and county chairs vote publicly. She won at the open convention in Bergen County as well.
Kim filed a lawsuit last month calling the ballot design in New Jersey unconstitutional and saying that the design used in the other 49 states — a block style — should be used here as well.
The hearing for that case will be held March 18.
“The system provides preferential ballot position for such candidates and displays them in a manner that nudges voters to select them, even when they otherwise might not,” Kim’s filing says. “By contrast, their opponents are often excluded from a chance at preferential ballot placement, displayed in a column by themselves or in a manner that is less appealing to or harder to find for voters, separated by one or more blank ballot spaces from their opponents, stacked in a column with candidates for other offices with whom they do not want to be associated, and/or otherwise strewn about haphazardly on the ballot.”
Kim, alongside the two other candidates in the primary, Patricia Campos-Medina and Lawrence Hamm, has already called for the line system to be dismantled and the block system, which is used by every other state in the nation as well as two New Jersey counties, to be implemented statewide.
In response to the suit, a spokesperson for Murphy said that “Andy Kim doesn’t have a problem with the county line system, he has a problem with the idea of losing county lines — as he is perfectly happy to participate in the process when he wins, and he has benefited from the lines in every other election he’s run.”
