NewsPronto

 

Men's Weekly

.

imageimage
imageimage

Mayday PAC, the self-styled anti-super PAC super PAC fighting big money in politics, raised $1.5 million since mid-August, with $650,000 coming from just five super-rich donors.

Former children’s shoe mogul Arnold Hiatt, a major liberal donor who has championed campaign finance reform, wrote the biggest check — $250,000 — to Mayday PAC, according to a report filed Wednesday afternoon with the Federal Election Commission, covering Aug. 21 through the end of last month.

During that span, the PAC also received $100,000 donations from BuzzFeed co-founder John Johnson, Twitter and Tumblr investor Fred Wilson, green energy executive David Milner and Ian Simmons, the husband of Hyatt hotel heiress Liesel Pritzker Simmons.

(Also on POLITICO: Land held state meetings at family business)

The five major donors combined to give more than the roughly $525,000 the PAC collected from donors who gave less than $200 — a distribution that highlights the power of major donors in politics and seems to strain the group’s characterization of itself as the “crowd-funded super PAC to end all super PACs.”

To be sure, a majority of the $1.5 million haul in its recent report did come from hundreds of small and mid-sized contributions. A combination of tech types (Google, Twitter and Facebook appear often in the employer field of the PAC’s donor rolls), regular folks, and at least one celebrity (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) gave to the super PAC. Even a Democratic super PAC (House Majority PAC) gave a $219 in-kind contribution of polling.

The recent report brings Mayday’s tally for the year to nearly $7.6 million — a significant haul for a PAC with the admittedly ironic goal of raising big money to fight big money in politics.

So far, Mayday has reported spending $3.9 million on ads supporting congressional candidates who support reforms to reduce the role of money in politics.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama cancels trip, vows Ebola 'SWAT team')

The super PAC was co-founded by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, who has worked hard to cast it as nonpartisan, despite the fact that its animating issue has very little support from Republican politicians. Lessig actually featured himself doing the voiceovers in its highest-profile ad campaign to date — in support of Jim Rubens’ long-shot campaign for New Hampshire’s Republican Senate nomination.

When Rubens lost badly to former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, Lessig wrote on his blog that the result “forces me to rethink how much we can do right now.”

The group is currently airing ads against a pair of Republican congressional candidates — Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who it’s attacking for taking money from insurance and drug companies, and David Young of Iowa, who it accuses of trying to weaken Medicare.

(Also on POLITICO: Supreme Court leaves mark on midterms)

And Mayday last week made a big splash by committing $1 million to support Democrat Rick Weiland’s surging campaign in South Dakota’s three-way Senate race. Mayday went up with an ad praising Weiland as a small-business owner working to reduce the influence of “big money that controls our democracy.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story reported that Lawrence Lessig was the founder of Mayday PAC. He co-founded it with Republican strategist Mark McKinnon.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect the nature of House Majority PAC’s contribution to Mayday PAC....

Rural hospitals will be hit hard by Trump’s signature spending package

Health policy experts predict that cuts to Medicaid will push more rural hospitals to close. sneakpeekpic via iStock / Getty Image...

‘Big’ legislative package shifts more of SNAP’s costs to states, saving federal dollars but causing fewer Americans to get help paying for food

People shop for food in Brooklyn in 2023 at a store that makes sure that its customers know it accepts SNAP benefits, also known a...

Why Texas Hill Country, where a devastating flood killed dozens, is one of the deadliest places in the US for flash flooding

A Kerrville, Texas, resident watches the flooded Guadalupe River on July 4, 2025.Eric Vryn/Getty ImagesTexas Hill Country is known...

How to Prepare for Interviews and Succeed with Top Employers

Most job seekers are very nervous during interviews, yet it need not be the case. Applying to your first job or switching indust...