Web money for candidates goes further
Democratic donation Web site ActBlue wants to extend its campaigns beyond candidates to include unions and corporations. Congress will decide today whether or not they can. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports.
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Scott Jagow: The Federal Election Commission has an important call to make today: Should a Web site called ActBlue be allowed to raise money for unions and corporations, and not just candidates? Nancy Marshall Genzer has more.
Nancy Marshall Genzer: Say you want to show the striking TV writers you care. You’d be able to use ActBlue to give to their union’s political action committee.
ActBlue Treasurer Matt DeBergalis says right now, the Web site can only raise money for issue-specific PACs.
Matt DeBergalis: We want to expand that set of committees, not to just include committees that support a particular issue, but also committees that are associated with a particular union.
But Fred Wertheimer of the watchdog group Democracy 21 says those contributions would just go to lobbyists.
Fred Wertheimer: These groups are giving money for a purpose. They normally engage in lobbying Congress and trying to influence presidential decisions.
The new donations would be limited to $5,000 per person, per calendar year.
In Washington, I’m Nancy Marshall Genzer for Marketplace.