PAC-less O’Rourke now has created his own
When Democrat Beto O’Rourke was a candidate for office, he swore off political action committees and warned of their corrupting influence in politics.
But now, just over a month after ending his campaign for the White House, the former congressman from El Paso is creating his very own federal PAC, which he said will be used to “organize grassroots volunteers to do the tough, necessary work that wins elections.”
Federal Election Commission records show that O’Rourke created Powered by People on Dec. 13 with the same treasurer and same El Paso Post Office box as an address he used for Beto for America — his campaign for the White House.
“Powered by People helps Texans volunteer in critical races,” O’Rourke wrote on Twitter in promoting the new PAC. “Organizing grassroots volunteers is how we win the state house, overcome racist gerrymandering, defeat (U.S. Sen.) John Cornyn & help our Presidential nominee win Texas’ 38 electoral college votes.”
During his campaigns for U.S. Senate and president, O’Rourke took no PAC money.
“I don’t take a dime of PAC money — no corporations, no special interests,” O’Rourke said during an interview on HBO’s “Real
Time with Bill Maher.”
O’Rourke said in the interview that PACs represent corporations and special interests with business before Congress and that their donations give them access to Congress.
“They’re also buying outcomes, actual legislative language that appears in the bills and in the bills that become laws,” O’Rourke said. “When you wonder why Congress is so dysfunctional, why it doesn’t represent the interests of the people it purports to serve, it’s because it’s so tied to the sources of money that are coming in.”
Since dropping out of the presidential race, O’Rourke has thrown himself into campaigns for the Legislature. He’s trying to help Democrats win enough seats to flip the Republican-controlled House to Democrats. Last month, he urged his supporters to donate to another group called Flip the Texas House, which has targeted 17 House Districts in which Republican candidates won by fewer than 10 percentage points last year. More than half are districts in which O’Rourke won the majority of votes when he ran for the Senate.