The campaign for Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent has insisted that freshman U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez “is lying when she says she isn’t taking corporate money” from political action committees (PAC) and pushed back on reporting published by The Chronicle Friday.
“The PAC she leads has received hundreds of thousands from drug companies, the alcohol and tobacco industries, and defense contractors whom she’s voted to give billions of taxpayer dollars,” Kent Campaign Manager Flo Rossmiller said in a statement Saturday morning. “These corporations are donating to this PAC which is funding her congressional campaign because they expect favors in return, and she has been delivering.”
In the statement, Rossmiller encouraged voters to visit mariewatch.com or review her FEC records.
Rossmiller’s statement Saturday came after reporting by The Chronicle published Friday in which the Gluesenkamp Perez campaign insisted she is abiding by a pledge to reject corporate PAC money. On Friday, End Citizens United, a political action committee founded in 2015 that has supported and endorsed Democratic candidates and has endorsed and contributed to Gluesenkamp Perez' campaign, said she has abided by a pledge she made prior to the 2022 election.
During both campaigns for Congress, Gluesenkamp Perez frequently said she would reject such contributions on her campaign website, commercials and in statements to the press.
“I’m running to take on politicians who are bought and paid for by large corporations who refuse to pay their fair share while working families who follow the rules fall further behind,” her website read prior to the 2022 election. “I’m not taking a dime of Corporate PAC money and will put people over profits. I like to get my hands dirty fixing things, not working the system.”
On Friday, Emmett Avery, a spokesman for the Gluesenkamp Perez campaign, told The Chronicle that two donations from a corporate PAC directly to the Gluesnekamp Perez campaign were received “in error” and had “since been returned.”
According to filings with the Federal Election Commissioner (FEC), CRH Americas, Inc. PAC donated $1,000 to Gluesenkamp Perez on Oct. 25, 2022, and a separate $2,500 contribution from the CRH Americas, Inc. PAC on March 31 was also returned.
In her statement Saturday, Rossmiller cited FEC filings that showed the Blue Dog PAC, an organization Gluesenkamp Perez co chairs that financially supports Democrats around the country, has accepted more than $800,000 in corporate PAC contributions between 2023 and 2024.
On Friday, Avery said Blue Dog PAC's “contributors include a wide variety of individuals and organizations, and its overhead costs and staff time are paid for by the grassroots contributions made to the PAC.”
“Blue Dog PAC is not a corporate PAC by any definition, and portraying it as such would be inaccurate,” Avery said in a statement to The Chronicle.
Donations to the Blue Dog PAC include $2,500 from the Fedex Corporation PAC on July 31, $2,500 from Pfizer Inc. PAC on July 31 and $2,500 to the Weyerhaeuser Company PAC on July 25. The filings show the contributions were intended to support primary elections.
