National Nurses United
The California-based nurses’ union National Nurses United endorsed Sanders and reported spending roughly $70,000 in late 2019 on
placards and t-shirts through its affiliated super PAC. The group has not reported making any independent expenditures so far this year. Unlike traditional super PACs, the union’s PAC is funded mostly with member dues from the union itself. It also received $14,700 from Reclaim Chicago PAC, a progressive group that spends money on Illinois state elections and has endorsed Sanders.
The nurses’ union backed Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary as well, and a February 2016 article quotes National Nurses United Director RoseAnn DeMoro as saying, “
It’s not a super PAC. It basically lacks the appropriate definition at the FEC.” She told Time that her group was fully funded by its members. “We don’t take outside money from anyone,” she said.
On Jan. 30, nine progressive groups announced a collaboration called People Power for Bernie. The groups, which include the Sunrise Movement, racial justice organization Dream Defenders, and immigrant rights group Make the Road Action, are combining forces to knock on doors, text and call potential voters, and organize on college campuses and online to help get out the vote. The groups, which “represent a total of 2.2 million primarily Black, Brown and working people and young people,” according to a press release, hope to mobilize 1.4 million voters in early-voting states, swing states, and large Super Tuesday states.
Here are these groups, some of which formed super PACs in order to spend directly on politics.
Sunrise Movement
“We realized in 2018 that because of the way our election laws work, forbidding traditional nonprofits from engaging in elections, that doing any work in support of politicians and political candidates meant we would need a PAC of our own,” said O’Hanlon. “We have it so that passionate young people can get involved to help elect Green New Deal champions across the country, and fight back against the millions of dollars in PAC money flowing to politicians from the oil industry and right wing billionaires to block climate action.”
Sunrise PAC is a traditional PAC that can also make independent expenditures. Formed in March 2018, it has no full-time staff. The PAC has received most of its funding, $400,000, from the Sunrise movement, which is a
501(c)(4) youth-led group that works to promote the urgency of addressing climate change. An additional $86,000 has come from individual donations, most of which were under $1,000. The PAC had reported making
$49,000 worth of independent expenditures benefiting Sanders as of the date of publication. Unlike traditional super PACs, which typically log ad production and placements costs, Sunrise’s IE reports detail meals, lodging, gas, staff time, as well as some small Facebook ad purchases.
O’Hanlon contrasted the Sunrise PAC spending with that of more traditional super PACs.
“None of that money went to slick TV ad makers, and none of it came from secretive right-wing billionaires, unlike the enormous amounts of cash pushed into Super PAC’s on behalf of corrupt, fossil fuel-funded politicians,” he said. “Our grassroots-funded and entirely youth-run operation just exists to help young people knock on doors, make calls, distribute Green New Deal campaign literature, and send texts to boost our candidates nationwide who will fight for our generation.”
Dream Defenders
The Florida-based Dream Defenders is a racial justice group formed in 2012 after the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was racially profiled and killed by George Zimmerman. One of the co-founders, Philip Agnew, is a Sanders campaign surrogate and spoke at rallies in Iowa before last week’s caucuses.
The group launched its super PAC,
Dream Defenders Fight, in late November 2019. It has spent roughly
$22,000 on independent expenditures, mostly backing Sanders. Of the $60,000 it has raised, $25,000 came from the
Movement Voter Project, a group that helps donors support “the best and most promising LOCAL community-based organizations in key states with a focus on youth and communities of color,” $22,500 came from the
Indivisible Project, a group founded “to resist the Trump agenda,” and $10,000 came from progressive philanthropist Rachel Gelman.
Nailah Summers, communications director of the Dream Defenders, told Sludge about the group’s super PAC’s organizing efforts.
“We’re knocking doors, phone banking, throwing events in communities all over Florida,” she said. “One of our organizers is from Sanford, Florida and he’s putting together a basketball tournament called ‘Ballin’ for Bernie’ there. We’re throwing events on campuses at HBCUs and most of the major colleges in Florida. We’re sending a bus of our members to canvass for Bernie in South Carolina ahead of their primary.”
In contrast to traditional super PACs funded by corporate executives, Summers said, Dream Defenders is “an organization of young, working-class Black and Brown people learning to use the political tools that have been available to these entities that have unlimited resources for at least a decade. We’re not in Washington, we aren’t career campaigners, no one over here interned for the DNC or anything. We’re a bunch of young people in the South directly impacted by the games these politicians and their camps play.
“We are an organization made up of young, working-class people of color,” Summers continued. “Our organization is run by young black women. We are immigrants and people affected by the criminal justice system. Many of us don’t have insurance. We’ve got queer, gender-non-conforming and trans members. We’ve got members taking care of their aging family members. We’ve got people in our organization working 2 and 3 jobs. We live in superfund sites. We’re pretty much all drowning in student debt. Our lives are deeply, deeply affected by who wins this election. We are fighting for our safety, for our livelihoods, for the families we represent. We are keenly aware of what the stakes are in this election. So no, it isn’t fair to lump us in with the likes of Wall Street or billionaires who want to maintain the status quo. It’s because of the status quo that we’re in this mess and we have a vested interest in dismantling it.”
This is the first time that Dream Defenders has
endorsed a presidential candidate.
Center for Popular Democracy Action
Center for Popular Democracy Action, the 501(c)(4) nonprofit arm of the progressive organizing group Center for Popular Democracy, formed its Popular Democracy PAC last month so it could make independent expenditures in the presidential race. The Center for Popular Democracy “works to create equity, opportunity and a dynamic democracy,” according to its website.
The PAC has spent
$19,500 so far on canvassing for Sanders. Because it was so recently formed, it hasn’t reported the names of its donors, but the group told Sludge that it is raising money from small donations, other individual contributions, and other organizations.
“There is a dangerous false equivalency that equates Super PACs that corporations and billionaires set up to ensure that the political deck continues to be stacked in their favor, and efforts like ours,” Natalia Salgado, political director at Center for Popular Democracy Action, told Sludge. “When evaluating independent expenditures, one must ask the question: is this effort meant to keep power in the hands of billionaires and the corporate elite, or is it meant to bring people who have been historically left out of the political system in? When you look at efforts backing Biden and Buttigieg, you see Wall Street bankers, you see the credit card industry, you see billionaires who are willing to wade into politics if it means that it will help them to keep their billions and their power.
“We are sick of the stranglehold that millionaires, billionaires and big corporations have on our economy and our democracy,” said Salgado. “We’re flooding the streets with real people—Black and Brown people and communities affected by the harmful impacts of the current administration. It takes money to mobilize our communities, and that’s why we’re raising and spending money through the structures set up and called Super PACs.”
People’s Action
Membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit
People’s Action is a “national network of state & local grassroots power-building organizations” representing 1.3 million members that fights for a clean environment, health care for all, housing justice, and free college, according to its website. It has spent
$13,500 on canvassing, phone banking, literature, and staff time backing Sanders. It is in the process of creating a hybrid PAC/Super PAC that can devote all of its resources to electoral politics. The group is reallocating $100,000 that it raised before endorsing Sanders to its independent expenditure effort, and it has also raised a few thousand dollars in small donations specifically for the effort.
“Our members in the multiracial working class will not be told to sit on the sidelines when white supremacy, corporate power, and the climate crisis are all reaching a boiling point,” Derrick Crowe, communications and digital director of People’s Action, told Sludge. “We are spending no funds on TV ads. Ninety percent of our money goes to salaries for organizers who mobilize volunteers to talk with voters, especially Black, Latinx, and API voters within the multi-racial working class.
“We reject any comparison between us and corporate front groups funneling cash from corporate interests to prop up their political puppets,” said Crowe, who also noted that People’s Action appreciated that Warren engaged with its membership and sought its endorsement last year. “While our members endorsed Senator Sanders as the best choice to win the presidency and win on our issues, Senator Warren was our second choice, and we look forward to working together with her in the future,” Crowe said.
Our Revolution
501(c)(4) nonprofit Our Revolution, which was formed in the wake of the 2016 election by Sanders campaign officials and surrogates, is organizing phone banking, canvassing, and other volunteer efforts to boost Sanders’ campaign. The group is not a super PAC, as a poorly worded Associated Press
headline has led some social media users to believe.
Local Our Revolution branches are supporting Sanders by “mobilizing their members to vote in primaries,” Paco Fabián, director of communications and campaigns at Our Revolution, told Sludge. The group will not use “ads, flyers, or paid phone bankers or canvassers,” he said. “Our total base of support is several million people, and they do not need persuasion, as our members overwhelmingly support Bernie. Our strategy is to make sure folks turn out.”
Fabián said that all Our Revolution donors are individuals. The largest donation in 2019 was $25,000, and several individuals gave $5,000 each, but the average contribution that year was less than $18, he said. The group
lists every donor who gave more than $250 on its website.
that shows how low her traction was with us...and wth would be the point of me trying to do “revisionist history” for her?
you're better than this.
my brothers and sisters this who we should be voting for