As you all know, the Hillary Victory Fund is in the news.
One of the first diaries on this subject was mine, back when the agreements where still local news in Alaska. A problematic portion of the Hillary Victory Fund, was that it took money away from state parties and diverted it to the national party.
Turns out that the national party agreed to do some pretty unethical things in return for the money. But that wasn’t the most important part of the problem.
The problem is that the Hillary Victory Fund was using a law designed to help local parties in a way that robbed them of resources. State parties are important entities that should be used to improve the party brand and expand the bench. They are not NY condos whose primary function is to launder money.
Our current news cycle opens an opportunity to change joint fundraising agreements back into a party expansion tool.
As a party we should agree to the following restrictions:
- All joint fundraising agreements must leave at least 75% of donated funds in the state party.
- Funds from joint fundraising agreements which are transferred to the national party must be used for get-out-the-vote operations. They cannot be spent on consultants, pollsters, or general expenses.
- Funds from joint fundraising agreements that are left in the state party coffers must be used for either get-out-the-vote operations or down ballot campaigns. No joint funds remaining in state coffers can be used to assist with federal or gubernatorial races.
So if a rich donor wants to buy favors from a candidate, they certainly can. But the state party will use some of those funds to fund down ballot wins.
Let’s use this opportunity to demand that the party institutes rules to help local Democrats.
If the DNC had spent the victory fund on local get-out-the-vote we would have won both the presidency and the school board. Instead, we won neither.