Fourth Quarter 2008 FEC Report Round Up

Okay, here we go again. First off, you can browse these reports yourself at www.fec.gov. As always I apologize in advance for any errors or misinterpretations. I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant, just an interested observer and these thoughts should be taken as such.

This quarter covers Oct – Dec of 2008.

The 4th quarter of election years there are actually three reports filed. The pre-general covers Oct. 1 – Oct. 15th. The post-general covers Oct. 16th – Nov. 24th. The year end coverts Nov. 25 though Dec. 31. That is just too much info to handle in the usual format for quarterly FEC report roundups. I just put together some basic financials and noted anything that struck me as interesting. I encourage you to review all of the reports for your district.

For challengers I will only be noting when a final report was filed, if one was, and anything else that looks interesting.

Sometimes I note salary payments or reimbursements from campaign funds to someone on an incumbent’s congressional staff. It occurred to me that I only knew the names of some of the Democratic congressional representatives staff and that was not a fair and equitable examination. To rectify this I looked at the list of people on the campaign payroll and then compared it to a publicly available list of people on the congressional staff. All of the incumbents in the region: Dent, Gerlach, P Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak have paid congressional staff for some campaign work. The staff list I had to work with was compiled before some of the FEC reports were filed so it is possible that congressional staff had left that job, if even temporarily, to work on the campaign. It is also possible that congressional staff were doing minor consulting work for the campaign and the campaign was, correctly, paying them for it. The amounts varied. Oddly, neither of the Philadelphia congressmen, Brady and Fattah, showed any paid campaign staff at all in 2008, though this seems very unlikely. There were fundraising and media consultants but no paid staff.

In most reports, there were sizable expenditures in the year end reports; one might speculate that expenses were deferred until after the election to keep numbers strong. Also interesting, most reports did not indicate a rush of donations in the year-end, which was surprising. I thought PACs would rush in to donate to the winners. I expect those will show up in the next round.

Keep your eye on individual donations vs. PAC’s


6th Congressional District

Jim Gerlach, Incumbent Republican

In the 2008 election cycle he raised: $2,379,714.04, spent $2,268,244.59. The amount raised included $1,117,436.45 from individuals and $1,173,985.20 from PACs. In the year-end report, Gerlach raised $68,321.05 from PACs. Cash on hand at the end of December: $71,061.55

Bob Roggio, Democrat

Over the election cycle Roggio raised $666,092 and spent $607,241. The campaign owes the candidate approximately $80,000 in the form of personal loans. In late October, the candidate transferred over $30K to the state Democratic party.


7th Congressional District

Joe Sestak, Incumbent Democrat (elected 2006)

In the 2008 election cycle he raised $2,768,193.44 from individuals and $1,010,646.45 from PACs. He spent $995,059.57 in the 2008 cycle. In the post-general report Sestak donated $96,500 to the DCCC. In the year-end report the campaign spent $154,587.77 for operating expenses. At the end of December Sestak had $2,937,140.09 on hand.

Craig Williams, Republican

Over the 2008 election cycle Mr. Williams raised $546,020.83 from individuals and $53,100.00 from PACS. He spent $566,458.69. The year-end statement shows an additional $32,390.37 in operating expenditures. To his credit Mr. Williams has paid off all of his campaign debts.


8th Congressional District

Patrick Murphy, Incumbent Democrat (elected 2006)

Actor Ben Affleck made a donation; some other Hollywood names also appear in the donor’s list. In the 2008 election cycle Murphy raised $2,726,003.66 from individuals and $1,206,017.95 from PACs. Operating expenditures for the election cycle came to $3,755,821.07, with an additional $91,565.07 listed in the year-end report. There was a $10,000 donation to the DCCC, and $115,000 to the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. The campaign buys a lot of pizza and donuts. My kind of place. Murphy has over $100,000 in debt to a handful of campaign vendors. At the end of December the campaign had $146,956.92 on hand.

Tom Manion, Republican

In the 2008 election cycle Manion raised $890,098.39 from individuals and $223,290.00 from PACs. He spent $1,099,316.26 in operating expenditures. An additional $33,034.02 was listed for operating expenditures in the year-end report.

13th Congressional District

Allyson Schwartz, Incumbent Democrat (elected 2004)

In the 2008 election cycle Schwartz raised $1,976,541.58 from individuals and $1,091,960.00 from PACs, spending $1,349,940.82 in operating expenditures. There are several payments to various Philadelphia ward committees for election day services. There is a $25,000 donation to the Democratic City Committee, $50,000 to DCCC, and $10,000 to the state Democratic Party. In the post-general report there were 13 individual donors employed at Teva (total $8300) plus a cycle total of $5000 from the Teva PAC. The year-end report shows for the next election cycle donations of $23,358.50 and $62,279.13 in operating expenditures. At the end of December she had $1,980,215.91 in cash on hand.

Marina Kats, Republican

This campaign committee terminated in December. Last January I wrote a post noting the fact that this committee’s campaign finance reports went from online to pdfs of printed reports; you used to be able to view reports online and now you can only view a pdf of a printed report. This seems to be very unusual. I’ve never seen it done before.