Harris funds Trump loyalists
Maryland congressman contributed over $325K, including to the far right
Maryland congressman Andy Harris’ biggest expense during the last election wasn’t fundraising, campaign commercials or staff. It was contributions to political friends, allies and organizations mostly loyal to then-President Donald Trump.
The Republican from Baltimore County sent more than $325,000 from his 2020 campaign account to conservative groups and candidates — including Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a right-wing gun activist who once tweeted that she would “carry my Glock to Congress,” and a fund supporting Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who was recently stripped of her House committee assignments because she indicated support for political violence and bizarre conspiracy theories.
Some of the money went to state and national GOP organizations and others in the U.S. House of Representatives who — like Harris — supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the presidential election, Federal Election
Commission records show.
Beyond contributions from his campaign account, Harris also donated $70,000 through his political action committee, Chesapeake PAC.
Colleagues in the House who got donations from Harris included Boebert, Utah’s Burgess Owens, Minnesota’s Michelle Fishbach and West Virginia’s Alex Mooney, who is a former Maryland state senator. All were among the 147 lawmakers who opposed formal certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral win.
Some deep-pocketed corporate funders, including American Express, Comcast, Marriott International and Blue Cross Blue Shield, said last month that they were halting campaign donations to any lawmaker who voted to subvert state-certified presidential election results.
It is not uncommon for incumbents of both parties to give campaign cash to like-minded candidates.
That is particularly true of lawmakers, such as Harris, who represent districts that rarely produce competitive challengers.
His 1st Congressional District was redrawn by Maryland Democrats after the 2010 census and packed with GOP voters to maximize Democrats’ chances in the state’s seven other districts.
The result gave Harris a relatively safe seat and plenty of unneeded campaign cash.
Harris’ contributions are noteworthy, particularly in such a blue state, because of the recipients who represent the far right of the GOP at a time when the party is split over whether to support Trump or tack away from the twice-impeached former president.
Harris has said he “held legitimate constitutional concerns” about the handling of the presidential election.
While courts have rejected claims of election fraud, Trump called the balloting “rigged” and urged rallygoers on Jan. 6 to march to the U.S. Capitol. The crowd stormed the building, leading to the deaths of a Capitol Police officer and four other people.
Harris, who is in his sixth term, did not respond to questions from The Baltimore Sun for this article.
Even after making his gifts, Harris had about $1 million in campaign cash at the end of the year.
Harris, an anesthesiologist, has routinely topped 60% of the vote in his five reelection campaigns in the 1st District, which includes parts of Carroll, Harford and Baltimore counties, as well as the Eastern Shore. He has said he will seek a seventh, two-year term in 2022, despite promising in 2010 to serve no more than six terms.
“In his own district, which is very conservative, he is able to blast out his own message,” said Roger E. Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs.
“In his own district, which is very conservative, he is able to blast out his own message.”
“What he’s also able to do is really deepen the political message in other parts of the nation,” Hartley said.
The campaign committees of Harris and other lawmakers are legally permitted to contribute up to $2,000 each to fellow candidates and $5,000 to political action committees during a two-year election cycle.
The records show Harris’ campaign and PAC combined to spend $70,000 in the 2019-20 campaign cycle on the House Freedom Fund, which supports conservative candidates including Georgia’s Greene.
Last year, Harris’ campaign donated $2,000 apiece to David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the Republican U.S. Senate candidates from Georgia who were candidates in runoff elections.
Their losses meant that Democrats were able to gain control of the Senate this year.
Harris’ campaign also made 17 contributions to the Susan B. Anthony List totaling $32,000, according to his Federal Election Commission reports.
The fund backs conservative anti-abortion candidates, including South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis and Boebert.
West Virginia’s Mooney, a former chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, got $4,000 from Harris during the campaign, plus another $5,500 from Harris’ PAC.
Boebert received $2,000 each from Harris’ campaign and the PAC, while Fishbach and Owens each got $2,000 donations from the campaign.
Harris formed the PAC in 2018. Such committees are used by current and former members of Congress to dole out contributions to political allies.
Harris reported raising $1.5 million overall and spending $984,000 of it during 2019-20. He spent $328,850 — about one-third — on political contributions, according to a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics, which advocates for government transparency. More than $120,000 went
to GOP organizations such as the Maryland Republican Party and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
His PAC reported raising $93,500 during the period, including $5,000 contributions from Hunt Valleybased Sinclair Broadcast Group vice president and board member Frederick G. Smith and Scott Dorsey, chair and CEO of Merritt Properties, headquartered in Baltimore.
Candidates contribute to other candidates for a variety of reasons.
“It’s done often to advance them in the leadership,” said UB’s Hartley. ”It builds up political favors.”
Harris is a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, though his influence was reduced after Democrats gained control of the House in the 2018 elections.
House members are contributing to what Rep.
John Sarbanes, a Baltimore County Democrat, calls an “escalating arms race” — an increasing amount of campaign money being raised in federal elections.
The surge of money — powered partly by billionaires contributing to super PACs — means many lawmakers are raising more than they need in case they become targeted by interest groups trying to defeat them.
Super PACS can raise unlimited sums and have no cap on “independent expenditures,” provided they aren’t coordinating with a candidate or campaign.
Not only are members raising more for themselves as a safeguard, they are also raising more for party allies whose fortunes “can impact who wins and loses control of Congress,” said Sarbanes, who has introduced bills that would tighten rules on super PACs.
Roger E. Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs
A group of health care workers hurried out of a Boston hospital on a recent weekday morning, clutching small red coolers filled with COVID-19 vaccines.
Their challenge: Beat traffic, a looming snowstorm and the clock. They had to get shots in the arms of their homebound patients before the vaccines expired in a few hours.
“That clock is in the back of my mind the whole time,” said Dr. Won Lee, a home care specialist at Boston Medical Center.
Millions of U.S. residents will need COVID-19 vaccines brought to them because they rarely or never leave home.
Doctors and nurses who specialize in home care are leading this push and starting to get help from state and local governments around the country.
But they face several challenges. Researchers say many homebound people don’t receive regular medical care, which makes it hard to identify everyone who needs a vaccine.
Supplies also are limited, and both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines expire a few hours after syringes pull the vaccine from vials.
That makes it tough for one doctor to see many patients when they must also stay in someone’s home for at least 15 minutes after the shot in case an allergic reaction develops.
“They don’t live next door to each other,” said Dr. David Moen of Prospero Health Partners, which delivers care to patients in several states. “It’s challenging to go
to multiple locations.”
Even so, health care providers report progress. Lee figures she can deliver five or six doses during an average day. That will be her main focus the next several weeks.
One of her recent stops was at the second-floor apartment of a regular patient, 106-year-old Domingas Pina, who hasn’t left home in about a year.
Lee sat with Pina at her dining room table, swabbed the patient’s shoulder and then swiftly administered the shot as Pina looked away.
The patient then smiled beneath her surgical mask and flashed a thumbs-up. Pina, who speaks mostly Portuguese Creole, will get her second dose of the vaccine next month, right around her birthday.
“She misses all her grandchildren
and her friends that used to come all the time,” daughter Maria Lopes said. “We don’t want to lose her.”
Lee’s office sets up the appointments and explains the vaccine in advance. That helps the visit go smoothly, and Lee tries to see patients who live near each other to conserve time.
She also tells them she can’t stay too long after the shots “because I have to make sure I get these vaccines to all the patients that need them today.”
Dr. Karen Abrashkin hopes to take a similar approach. She will use mapping software to plan stops among clusters of patients who live near each other in the New York City area.
But the director of Northwell Health’s House Calls program is still waiting for the vaccine.
“We get many questions
each day about when we’re going to have vaccines to give in the home,” she said. “The supply just isn’t there yet.”
One of her patients, 103-year-old Ida Sobel, has no plans to leave her apartment building until she gets vaccinated.
While she waits, Sobel, who is legally blind and lives with a home health aide, has food delivered. She walks the hallway outside her front door for exercise and opens a window when she wants fresh air.
“I am in a very crowded area,” the Floral Park, New York, resident said. “People are not conscious enough to avoid you and stay far away, so I avoid them.”
Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Christine Ritchie estimates that about 2 million U.S. residents are homebound. Another 5 million have trouble leaving
home or need help doing so. Many of them may need vaccines brought to them as well.
This population generally includes older people with lower-than-average income levels and serious medical problems like dementia, advanced heart conditions or arthritis.
Ritchie noted that homebound people draw less attention from public health officials than those who live in group settings like nursing homes, which are receiving vaccines from major drugstore chains.
On Staten Island, James De Silva has grown frustrated because he has no good vaccine options for his 96-year-old mother, but people much younger than her can get shots if they leave home. Mary Stella De Silva is mostly bedbound and receives around-theclock
home care.
That care doesn’t include the vaccine, and De Silva will need to arrange an ambulance or special transportation to take her to an appointment, if he lands one.
“I think the homebound should be given a little bit more priority than someone who is just 65 and might not have an underlying illness,” he said.
That appears to be changing. Fire departments around the country have started delivering vaccines.
This month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said his city would start sending medical personnel to the apartments of homebound people as soon as a one-shot vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson is available. Federal regulators may approve that vaccine in a few weeks.