Mitch McConnell PAC Reports They Got $100K From Dead Guy, Then Backtracks

A Mitch McConnell PAC is under fire after the Kentuckians for Strong Leadership disclosed its financial report last week.

There’s an extensive report on the super PAC’s funding in Kentucky local news source The Courier-Journal. It’s the first filing by the super PAC with the Federal Election Commission.

The super PAC was formed to support the re-election of Senator Mitch McConnell, the conservative Republican Senate Minority leader. Candidates can’t accept very large campaign contributions, but the PACs can.

And the finances disclosures revealed by Kentuckians for Strong Leadership are stunning.

• The PAC has received $1.2 million in campaign contributions in the first six months of 2013. But only 2 percent of those donations come from people actually living in Kentucky.
• Bob J. Perry of Houston, Texas donated $100,000 on June 3. At that point, Perry had already been dead for some seven weeks.

USA Today took a deeper look and said that Mitch McConnell isn’t alone in getting money from dead donors. The FEC has exposed almost $600,000 in such contributions to campaigns from dead people since 2009.

According to USA Today, most of that money has actually gone to Democrats and Libertarians.

However, the money must be donated under the same rules that the living have to abide by. An individual can’t give more than $5,200 to a federal candidate per election or more than $32,400 to a political party each year.

If you plan to die and leave behind a bigger gift than that, the campaign or party will only receive the money in increments over a period of years — unless, of course, your estate exploits the super PAC loophole that Perry’s estate could have used.

But Kentuckians for Strong Leadership has a different take. Treasurer Caleb Crosby said that the super PAC’s filing was just wrong.

According to Crosby, Bob Perry sent the check on April 12, the day before he died. The record stating he sent it on June 3 is an error.

Therefore, the Mitch McConnell PAC plans to amend their financial disclosure.

[Senator Mitch McConnell photo credit: ConspiracyofHappiness via photopin cc]