Kansas Candidate's Father Spends $100,000 in Effort to Get Son Elected to Congress
The father of a Republican congressional candidate is the sole donor and founder of a political action committee behind a $64,000 ad campaign on behalf of his son’s candidacy.
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The phenomenon of candidates’ parents funding super PACS on behalf of their candidacies has become increasingly common in the years since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, said Brendan Fischer, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center’s federal reform program.
“Before Citizens United, Steve Watkins’ dad could only give $2,700 to his campaign, and then he could give another $5,000 to a PAC,” Fischer said.
But the 2010 ruling enabled individual donors to spend unlimited amounts of money through super PACs, and that has allowed wealthy families to make a “mockery of our campaign finance laws,” Fischer said.