PAC money in the 6th CD race (and a major FEC snafu)

This was supposed to be a pretty straightforward post looking at PAC contributions in the 6th district now that the April quarterly filings are in. But I couldn't make the numbers add up for Phil Krinkie. It wasn't even close. After a painstaking search through the online PDF images of Krinkie's campaign filings, the problem turned out to be a major reporting error in the FEC database.

I'm going to send a note to the FEC to see if they can get it sorted out (and I'll also alert the folks at Open Secrets). But in the meantime, journalists, bloggers, and all others writing about this race need to know that they cannot rely on the FEC database numbers when reporting PAC contributions in this race. (And who knows how many other races this has happened in??)

While waiting for the FEC to update its database of individual contributors (hopefully there's not a problem there too), I thought I would look at the PAC contributions data for the 6th district through the end of the first quarter of 2006. This was supposed to be easy, since I would only have to look at a couple of pages in the 1st quarter filings and add them to the database listings. Hah. Eventually, this is what I came up with on the Republican side.

Having looked through all the PDFs, I've adjusted Bachmann's and Krinkie's reported numbers to correct minor mistakes in their filings. Bachmann's campaign incorrectly lists the 'Republican Majority Fund' as a GOP party committee, when in fact it's a PAC associated with Don Nickles of Oklahoma. Krinkie's campaign got a couple of individual contributions mixed in with the PAC listings.

Now, here's the full listing of who's supporting whom. I have put in red the contributions reported by the campaigns which did not appear in the FEC database:

As you can see, there are a lot of contributions missing from the database, including every single contribution from Native American PACs in this race. From looking at the PDF filings, my best guess is that the problem has something to do with the campaign not listing the FEC ID numbers for the PACs that are missing; however, I found more than one instance where a listed contribution was missing an ID number and it still appeared in the database.

Updated II (4/21 evening): I have received a preliminary response from the public relations office at the FEC which suggests that the problem lies with how the Krinkie campaign reported the contributions -- that they should have been reported as individual donations, not PAC contributions. In my opinion, that statement raises about as many questions as it answers (and I responded with several of them). I suspect I will not hear anything more until sometime next week; I'll post when I do.

In any case, the numbers suggest how the various factions in the Republican coalition are choosing sides in this race. The business community is split between Knoblach and Krinkie, with Krinkie obviously being supported by the Indian gaming interests. For the most part, the ideologically-oriented PACs are staying out of it, at least until the nomination is decided -- only the Eagle Forum PAC makes an appearance.

Updated: I should have noted that none of the tables in this post include "independent expenditures." An independent expenditure occurs when, instead of contributing money to a campaign, a PAC actually spends the money itself to produce and send mailings, produce and publish/broadcast advertisements, field polls, turn out voters, or anything else that has the effect of supporting a candidate's campaign. So far, the only independent expenditures in the 6th district campaign which appear in the FEC database are from the Club for Growth PAC, which has spent $7855 in support of Phil Krinkie.

Now, to the Democrats. The problem here is that Wetterling's late entry and the fundraising she did for the Senate campaign completely confounds any conclusions we might draw from the fundraising which took place earlier. A tremendous number of Democratic PACs contributed to Tinklenberg under the assumption that he would be the only serious DFL candidate in the race. Wetterling, conversely, did not draw major PAC dollars in her senate bid, as the DFL rapidly coalesced around Amy Klobuchar. Had Wetterling and Tinklenberg both been in the 6th district race from the beginning, the size and distribution of PAC contributions would have been quite different.

So let's highlight the PAC numbers from the beginning of February, when Wetterling entered the race:

The trade unions are staying strong with Tinklenberg, while AFSCME has put its support behind Wetterling. Otherwise, most of the mainstream money has dried up while everyone assesses the new situation. The support from Cramer and Boyd suggests that the "blue dog" Democrats regard Tinklenberg as a more likely ally were he to make it to Congress.

For the sake of completeness, here's a list of all the PAC money that came Tinklenberg's way prior to February 1st. I found several contributions that didn't make it into the FEC database here, too. Even more oddly, the database listed a $500 contribution from AFSCME which didn't appear in Tinklenberg's filings.

posted by DK @ 7:09 AM permalink