Today's Main Course
The Unorthodox Orthodox Super PAC
Tzedek PAC, which backs prison reform legislation, raised $1M in January.
More than a year ago, a new super PAC filed its registration with the Federal Election Commission. Nothing terribly unusual about that; creating a super PAC is easy enough that basically anyone with an Internet connection can do it.
Like a lot of other super PACs, Tzedek PAC didn’t see much activity in 2021: it raised a total of $36,652 last year and spent barely $1,800. Then came January 2022, and everything changed.
In its first regular report of the year, this super PAC told the FEC that it raised nearly $1.2 million from donors, a massive increase. Sometimes when that happens, it’s because one person gave a seven-figure donation, but that’s not what occurred here. Instead, there are more than 1,000 donations listed on the FEC filing.
Even though it can accept donations of unlimited amounts, the largest contribution was $5,500. Because Tzedek PAC is both a super PAC and a regular one, it could give almost all of the money it has raised directly to congressional candidates during the 2022 cycle.
And the people behind the PAC absolutely have congressional allies. Tzedek PAC is the political arm of an organization with the same name that advocates for prison reform legislation, and in particular for Orthodox Jewish prisoners. The organization was involved in the passage of the First Step Act, which became law in 2018 and was intended to accomplish two goals: cut unnecessarily long federal sentences and improve conditions in federal prisons. The bill had bipartisan support and has been called “the most significant criminal justice reform legislation in years.” The Tzedek Association’s site includes an approving quote from Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Tzedek turned its attention to securing early release and/or home confinement for elderly prisoners at risk of catching the virus in the close quarters of prison. The latest round of fundraising appears to be connected to an effort to extend or make permanent those releases. Under Biden Administration policy, individuals released must return to prison a month after the official state of emergency is lifted. Last June, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would expand eligibility for home confinement for elderly prisoners (a companion bill was introduced in the House but has seen no action).
A video posted as part of the fundraising campaign mentions an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and shows testimonials from Jewish men released under the program. “There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that the Tzedek Association saved my life,” says a man named Nevin Shapiro who appears in the video.
Almost all of the donors listed on the PAC’s most recent filing list New York addresses, many in Brooklyn but also in upstate towns with significant Orthodox populations such as Monroe and Spring Valley. And you can tell that FEC regulations might not be familiar to the PAC, because its contributor list contains 120 records missing either the first or last name of the donor totaling more than
$48,000.
More than half of the money raised in January came from sources that provided no employer or occupation information as required by federal law. Other donors did not list an address of any kind, including a state of residence. Although the PAC lists no contributions to federal candidates on its filing, it filed a separate report showing that it made donations to two Democratic and two Republican House members
on Jan. 25. All of those issues should be flagged by the FEC in its review of filings. With the cash it has, Tzedek PAC could make $5,000 donations to more than 240 federal candidates if it wanted to, or it could pay for ads lobbying key lawmakers.
Harris Commissioners Rake in Vendor Money
In the run-up to the Texas primary last week, you might have missed a blockbuster story from Zach Despart of the Houston Chronicle that focused on the Harris
County Commissioners Court, which consists of a county judge and four commissioners who represent individual parts of the county.
During the past two years, donors to incumbent commissioners have given $5.9 million - and “most of that money has come from executives at companies awarded no-bid contracts by those commissioners.”
Although a majority of contracts approved by commissioners are competitively bid or chosen by a committee. But individual commissioners also approve vendors for work performed in their “precincts” (the equivalent of districts), and standard practice is not to weigh in on projects outside their territory, thus handing significant authority to individual commissioners.
Other large Texas counties and the City of Houston don’t use the same system, which campaign finance experts say increases Harris vendors’ incentives to contribute to incumbents’ re-election efforts. And there’s more: unlike the FEC, which requires committees to list the employer and occupation of donors, that information is optional in Texas. Most commissioners leave those fields blank, so Despart looked them up. “Each commissioner received at least 70% of his contributions from vendors” during the past two years, he found. For one of them, the figure was 88%.
The amazing thing is how much of an outlier Harris County is compared to other counties. Harris commissioners' campaign accounts raised an average of $2 million in 2020-2021. In Dallas County, the state’s second-largest, the average is $109,000.
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