Remember when Hillary people informed us that she was doing the state parties a big favor by creating her Hillary Victory Fund, whereby money would be shared by her campaign, the DNC and the local parties, money they wouldn’t ever have been able to obtain without access to her wealthy donor base? Well, despite charges by some that it was a big money laundering scheme to primarily benefit the Clinton campaign, many Democrats still believed that she was the candidate doing the most for the party overall.
But now, Politico has issued its second report on the Hillary Victory Fund, and what their report claims doesn’t sound like much of a deal for the local parties. It sounds like the local parties’ were fleeced to be exact, as her “rebuild the party” plan has returned less than one percent (1%) of the monies raised to local state Democratic parties, while holding on to the rest – you know, 99 percent of $61 Million raised.
[L]ess than 1 percent of the $61 million raised by that effort has stayed in the state parties’ coffers, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission filings.
The venture, the Hillary Victory Fund, is a so-called joint fundraising committee comprised of Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees. The setup allows Clinton to solicit checks of $350,000 or more from her super-rich supporters at extravagant fundraisers including a dinner at George Clooney’s house and a concert at Radio City Music Hall featuring Katy Perry and Elton John.
The victory fund has transferred $3.8 million to the state parties, but almost all of that cash ($3.3 million, or 88 percent) was quickly transferred to the DNC, usually within a day or two, by the Clinton staffer who controls the committee, POLITICO’s analysis of the FEC records found.
By contrast, the victory fund has transferred $15.4 million to Clinton’s campaign and $5.7 million to the DNC, which will work closely with Clinton’s campaign if and when she becomes the party’s nominee. And most of the $23.3 million spent directly by the victory fund has gone toward expenses that appear to have directly benefited Clinton’s campaign, including $2.8 million for “salary and overhead” and $8.6 million for web advertising that mostly looks indistinguishable from Clinton campaign ads and that has helped Clinton build a network of small donors who will be critical in a general election expected to cost each side well in excess of $1 billion.
So Hillary got 15.4 Million directly, plus most of another $23 Million that directly benefited the Clinton campaign and is being spent now in the primary on her behalf rather than being saved to help state parties in the general election. Meanwhile, the DNC holds onto another $8 Million, which if the recent past is prologue will go to the presidential nominee for the general election.
So far all of the 32 State Democratic parties who signed up for this deal have received a sum total of around $500 Thousand buckaroos, which averages out to $15,625 per state. So much for the rebuild.
“It’s a one-sided benefit,” said an official with one participating state party. The official, like those with several other state parties, declined to talk about the arrangement on the record for fear of drawing the ire of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
In fact, the DNC, which has pushed back aggressively on charges that it is boosting Clinton at the expense of other Democrats, has advised state party officials on how to answer media inquiries about the arrangement, multiple sources familiar with the interactions told POLITICO.
“The DNC has given us some guidance on what they’re saying, but it’s not clear what we should be saying,” said the official. “I don’t think anyone wants to get crosswise with the national party because we do need their resources. But everyone who entered into these agreements was doing it because they were asked to, not because there are immediately clear benefits.”
Better luck in four years folks. Assuming the local branches of the Democratic Party still exist in any real sense in many states after another four years of leadership like we’ve seen over the last 8 years. Too bad Howard Dean and his 50 state strategy was kicked to the curb for the many splendid benefits provided under the leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, instead.
Interesting that it was 32 state committees. Were 18 states wise to the scheme or have we lost that many state organizations in fact?
Any territorial organizations involved? DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, Western Samoa
iirc all were informed of how it would work, and on that basis some declined to participate.
Were 18 states wise to the scheme or have we lost that many state organizations in fact?
They refused to participate. Probably because most of them are so crappy at fundraising that it would look especially dubious. If the HVF sent a state party $80,000 and then the state party sent that same money back to the DNC or HVF that same day, you better believe it would look shady especially for the smaller states.
Wendi Muse:
Hmm, I have seen the exact opposite posted here with no questioning…
Obviously those that make such statements like to wallow in ignorance if they think it will support or benefit his/her team. On this one, HVF never even claimed that it was raising money for other candidates; so those who make such claims are dumb as well as ignorant.
State political parties and the DNC can and do make contributions to candidates, but so too does the DSCC and DCCC and many PACs, but it’s a high cost method to boost contributions to individual candidates and it would be illegal for a donor to direct contributions through other campaign committees to skirt the donation limits. An example. Say I max out on a congressional candidate ($2,700 primary and $2,700 general). Other committees (state, DNC, DCCC, and PACs) can each contribute up to $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for general to that candidate. I could give $10,000 to four committees and each of them could donate that $10,000 to my candidate guy, but I can’t direct the committees to do that; it’s in their discretion. Also, as those committees have operating costs, only a portion of the contributions to them will end up in the coffers of individual candidates.
It’s not that $15.4 million has been transferred to HFA, it’s that HVF has taken over the small dollar donation fundraising for Hillary’s campaign and her campaign gets with money with zero costs to the campaign and for PR purposes they are double counting those donations.
On that second point — HVF fundraising has been $15.4 million less than it claims.
On the first point, Hillary For America campaign costs have been have been more than what’s being reported in the FEC filing. An easy example. Say both the Hillary and Sanders campaign “sells” a t-shirt for $25 and the costs (including shipping and handling) of the t-shirt are $10, this is how that transaction appears in the campaign reporting:
Sanders:
Donation $25
Merchandise cost, expenses $10
That’s a 40% fundraising cost.
Hillary:
Donation $25
0% fundraising cost.
There’s was also something hinky going on in the last two quarters of ’15. I’m not talking about the transfers to state funds that are then transferred to the DNC, but a method to actually launder soft money. The reports are now too voluminous to track and see if the hinky stuff continued or if it only looked hinky because the HVF hadn’t figured out how to manage the whole process. Handled in a completely above board fashion, HVF could have made far more state to DNC transfers in ’15 than it did. Why they chose to let that cash sit in the HVF and remain as soft money was actually dumb.
This article lists the states who in August 2015 at the Democratic convention partnered with the HVF. One interesting quote concerns the Super Delegates.
“One could reasonably infer that the tacit agreement between the signatories was that the state parties and the Hillary Clinton Campaign would act in unity and mutual support. And that the Super Delegates of these various partner states would either pledge loyalty to Clinton, or, at the least, not endorse Senator Sanders. Not only did Hillary’s multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state’s Super Delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization’s re-election fund.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-loyalty-of-33-state-democratic
-parties/
Sounds like coruption to me.
No evidence that the HVF exceeded the individual campaign donation limits to the state. That would be campaign money laundering. The reporting requirements don’t make it easy to “follow the money,” but when I checked this out, I was unable to find such money laundering and you can bet your sweet bippy that I very much would have liked to find that money laundering was going on.
After the convention I plan to re-register as either unaffiliated (now close to 40% in my state) or Green. Probably the latter because it would be a more explicit slap in the face to the Democratic Party. After I have re-registered, I plan to mail documentation to all the upper ups in the state Democratic Party with a sharp message about why I did it and how their actions spurred me on.
Thanks for the idea. I’m going to wait until I get a fundraising letter and then include the documentation inside the envelope they provide. The postage is on them too! Ha!
I remember a conversation I had a couple of months with a poster who-shall-remain-nameless that the Democratic Party fundraising apparatus is a huge money-pit with no accountability nor proof of efficacy. Hence (this was in the context of Sanders not encouraging supporters to donate to the DNC) why I am not bothered at all by Sanders not doing his share to direct his followers to send their hard-earned cash to the Democratic Party.
Of course, this poster wouldn’t and probably couldn’t answer extremely basic questions from me. And I do mean basic. Such as ‘how much more money did the 2014 Democratic Party need to reverse its downballet fortunes’?
Posts like the Clinton money laundering are amusing because it exposes the hypocrisy of HRC partisans, but it’s really not necessary. I have a fat 200 dollars in my checking account just waiting to go to the primary winner, but now I’m not sure I want to waste my money like that. I still want an answer to this question before I, yet again, kick the Democratic Party more of my money this year.
So here goes: if the Democratic Party raises 50% more money from voters than it did in 2012, what kind of additional utility do we get for that money?
Better to donate to individual down ticket candidates. Fla 23rd?
Support Janet Garrett OH 4th District opposing FreedomCaucus chair Jim Jordan (R).
(DNC won’t be helping her, like Rep Marcy Kaptur of OH, she endorsed Bernie).
○ Hillary Victory Fund – Top Donors
Site also discloses beneficiaries and expenditures.
FEC filings per 31.03.2016
FEC form 3X and Itemized disbursements line #: 22
Hillary Victory Fund has NOT qualified as a multicandidate committee (see FEC Form 1M)
HRC losing one big donor…. to Donald Trump!