{"id":1590809,"date":"2024-04-04T16:43:34","date_gmt":"2024-04-04T16:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.factcheck.org\/?p=250264"},"modified":"2024-04-04T16:43:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T16:43:34","slug":"congressional-leadership-fund-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/04\/congressional-leadership-fund-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Congressional Leadership Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Political leanings:<\/strong> Republican<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2022 total spending: $260.6 million<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Congressional Leadership Fund<\/a>\u2019s purpose is to maintain and expand the historically thin<\/a> Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The group was formed in October 2011 as the conservative counter to the liberal House Majority PAC<\/a> and is endorsed by House Republican leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLF is what\u2019s known as a hybrid PAC or Carey committee<\/a>, meaning it \u201chas the ability to operate both as a traditional PAC, contributing funds to a candidate\u2019s committee, and as a super PAC, which makes independent expenditures<\/a>,\u201d according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics. Such organizations must have separate bank accounts for those purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dan Conston<\/a> serves as the CLF\u2019s president<\/a>, as well as the president of its sister 501(c)(4), the American Action Network<\/a>. Conston has managed communications for several Republican congressional campaigns<\/a> and served as communications director for former Chief Deputy Whip Rep. Peter Roskam<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of March 4, the CLF had raised more than $65.6 million and spent about $15.3 million in the 2024 election cycle, Federal Election Commission records show<\/a>. American Action Network once again leads all donors to the group, having contributed roughly $17.3 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major individual donors include Jeff Yass<\/a>, co-founder of the trading firm Susquehanna International Group, who has given $10 million<\/a>, and Timothy Mellon<\/a>, businessman and grandson of banker and former Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who has contributed $5 million<\/a>. Paul Singer<\/a>, founder of the hedge fund Elliott Investment Management, and Craig Duchossois<\/a>, executive chair of private equity firm The Duchossois Group, have donated $2.5 million<\/a> and $2 million<\/a>, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of March 6, the CLF had spent over $10 million<\/a> on independent expenditures, which are ads or other communications that advocate the election or defeat of federal candidates. That includes over $5 million advocating against the election of 13 Democratic House candidates \u2013 most of which was dedicated to opposing<\/a> Tom Suozzi, who defeated Republican Mazi Pilip in the special election<\/a> for New York\u2019s open 3rd Congressional District seat in February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also has spent nearly $1.1 million<\/a> supporting GOP Rep. David Valadao\u2019s reelection campaign<\/a> in California\u2019s 22nd Congressional District and over $750,000<\/a> backing Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin<\/a>\u2019s campaign to unseat<\/a> Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in Ohio\u2019s 9th Congressional District. Additionally, the CLF has given<\/a> $420,000 in contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee and 48 Republican candidate campaigns — all donations were $15,000 or less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2022 cycle, of the nearly $260.6 million<\/a> the CLF raised for the midterm elections, it spent over $227 million on independent expenditures, according to OpenSecrets. In all, the PAC spent more than $203.9 million<\/a> against 62 Democratic House candidates, and 25 of the targeted candidates went on to lose their races. The group also donated roughly $840,000<\/a> to the campaign committees of 102 Republican House candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost $50.7 million<\/a> of its 2022 fundraising came from American Action Network, while the CLF’s top individual donor during the midterms was Ken Griffin<\/a>, CEO of the hedge fund firm Citadel, who contributed $27 million<\/a>. Timothy Mellon also donated $15 million<\/a>, while Miriam Adelson<\/a>, a longtime GOP donor, gave $12.5 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FactCheck.org Undergraduate Fellow Sean Christensen contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Congressional Leadership Fund<\/a> appeared first on FactCheck.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on FactCheck.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conservative super PAC seeking to preserve a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

The post Congressional Leadership Fund<\/a> appeared first on FactCheck.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1725,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77790,72468],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1725"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1590809"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1593338,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590809\/revisions\/1593338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1590809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1590809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1590809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}