STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Refusing corporate cash has been a cornerstone of Rep. Max Rose’s campaign: “Keep your damn money, because it’s not you I’m working for,” the freshman congressman warned lobbyists and “corporate kingpins” in his first TV ad in 2018.
And while Rose says he has never taken a single dollar from a corporate PAC, he did receive a $4,000 donation from Across the Aisle, a PAC that is itself funded almost exclusively by special interest groups and corporate PACs.
Good government groups are split on what Rose should do with Across the Aisle’s contribution. One thinks Rose should return the money, while another group and Rose’s office say the freshman congressman did nothing wrong.
When asked if Rose would be keeping the money, his spokesman Jonas Edwards-Jenks said the donation does not “violate either the letter or spirit of the pledge against Corporate PAC contributions.”
After Rose was elected, he and fellow Democrat, California Rep. Josh Harder, introduced legislation dubbed the Ban Corporate PACs Act, a bill that would prevent for-profit corporations from funding PACs.
According to federal campaign finance reports, both Rose and Harder accepted a combined $9,000 in campaign contributions from the Across the Aisle PAC.
Of the 60 donations the PAC accepted since it was created in March 2019, it received at least 40% of its donations from Corporate PACs and the rest from special interest groups.
Major Corporations like Google, Exelon, Dominion Energy, Comcast, Capital One and AT&T, all donated the maximum of $5,000 to the PAC.
The PAC also has ties to Rose himself; the congressman’s treasurer Janica Kyriacopoulos is listed as the PAC’s treasurer too.
According to recent filings, first reported by Sludge, Rose accepted $4,000 from the PAC since it was set up last year and his fellow anti-corporate PAC congressional colleague Rep. Harder received $5,000.
Of the 22 members of Congress the PAC supported, six of them including Rose and Harder pledged to boycott corporate PAC money in 2018, according to a list of lawmakers tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics. The four other anti-corporate PAC lawmakers include Democrats Reps. Anthony Brindisi of New York; Elaine Luria of Virginia; Abigail Spanberger of Virginia; and Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico.
Harder and Kyriacopoulos did not return requests for comment, but Rose maintains he does not accept campaign cash from corporate PACs and federal lobbyists.
He also said Across the Aisle is not a corporate PAC and that Kyriacopoulos is an independent consultant and compliance professional for more than 100 candidates and committees and not exclusively an employee of Rose.
"Anyone alleging that Max Rose takes Corporate PAC money is either lying and or has lost the ability to comprehend basic facts,” said Edwards-Jenks. “Not only does Max refuse money from Corporate PACs or federal lobbyists, but he wrote the bill to eliminate Corporate PACs once and for all.”
“The facts haven’t changed and neither has Max. So if some idiotic DC hack thinks otherwise, we urge any Corporate PAC to try giving Max a check and watch as he rips it up in their face,” he continued.
Watchdog group Common Cause’s Director of Money and Politics and Ethics, Beth Rotman, thinks Rose should give the $4,000 contribution from Across the Aisle back if he intends to “follow both the rule and spirit” of his anti-corporate PAC commitment.
However, Rotman said even well-intentioned lawmakers like Rose who have pledged to not accept corporate cash are often pressured into taking it one way or the other because of the political pressure candidates are under to have plush campaign coffers.
“I think there’s a lot of this shell game going on, where corporate PACs know that it doesn’t look good for people that they want to help to give them even what they can out of their corporate PACs,” Rotman said. “So, individuals start entities which they’re legally allowed to do called ‘Americans for a Brighter Tomorrow,’ because who’s against that? It’s not as obvious as coming from a corporation ... sometimes it might be obvious and sometimes it isn’t, it’s more often unclear where the funds are actually coming from.”
“Part of the challenge is this, if you limit these contributions, in all kinds of ways and don’t give people an alternative, it’s always a bit disingenuous because you can’t just cut off all of the funding sources from the people who are interested in giving without giving public financing which provides an alternative,” Rotman continued.
The group End Citizens United, which championed Rose and Harder’s Ban Corporate PAC Act legislation, said at the end of the day, if corporate PAC money is being bundled and redistributed to candidates through another PAC, it is not the same as direct campaign donation to a candidate from a corporate PAC.
End Citizens United does not think corporations will get the same access to lawmakers if its money is being bundled into one pool.
"Max Rose kept his word, hasn’t taken a dime of corporate PAC money and it’s what sets him apart from typical politicians in Washington. Thousands of small donors support Max because he’s fighting against the big money that too often dominates Washington, whether its drug company lobbyists or corrupt politicians like Mitch McConnell blocking bills to lower health care costs,” said End Citizens United’s spokesman Patrick Burgwinkle.
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