Republican vs. Republican

Yass’ money isn’t just causing intraparty divisions among Democrats. His dollars are also financing a number of competitive Republican legislative primaries against top incumbents.

In March, Students First donated $1.2 million to Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania, a PAC

that has a long history of successfully challenging legislative

Republicans for not being conservative enough. That amount represents almost 95% of what the PAC has raised this year.

CAP is currently backing three primary challengers, as well as one

incumbent who was drawn into a race with another incumbent as part of redistricting.

Wendy Fink, a conservative former school board candidate in York County who is running against House Appropriations

Committee Chair Stan Saylor, has received at least $265,000 from Citizens Alliance, according to a campaign finance report.

Fink’s website says she has an “unwavering commitment to freedom, capitalism, and the constitution,” while CAP-funded ads have attacked Saylor’s record on pensions, Gov. Tom Wolf’s budgets, and the gas tax. Fink did not reply to a request for comment.

Leo Knepper, executive director of CAP, said he’s never had a conversation with Yass. But speaking broadly of the group’s donors, he argued they all share a commitment to an ideology of personal liberty and free markets — “classical liberal values.”

They also share a skepticism of the Republican Party, he added, for breaking with those values.

In an interview, Saylor said Yass’ prolific donations were a reason to distrust those who receive his aid.

In particular, he pointed to Students First’s support for House Minority Whip Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, who has received more than $800,000 since 2012; and Josh Shapiro, the only Democrat running for governor, who received $125,000 during his 2016 attorney general campaign.

“Is he trying to buy people?” Saylor said. “That’s the question, because he’s not giving to all conservatives or all liberals. He picks and chooses, and is it who he thinks he can control? Because

I don’t know why else you would be giving to all sides of the political spectrum.”

Saylor tried to downplay the extent of Yass’ donations to Republicans. He received $6,500 from Students First before 2016 and $5,000 from the Brouillette-run Commonwealth Children’s Choice Fund in 2021.

To Working Families Party activist Rosso, Yass’ bipartisan investments hint that the accomplished gambler is hedging his bets.

Rather than putting it all on blue or red, Rosso said, Yass “wants to have elected officials who he is close to,” that he “can pick up the phone and exert [his] influence on, no matter what the question is in front of them.”

Samuel Chen, a political strategist who has worked for former U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent R.-Pa., and Toomey, said he’s had clients ask to meet with Brouillette because they think he has enough money to “choose the next governor.”

However, unlike Rosso, Chen argued Yass’ goals, like those of other modern super-donors, are driven less by a desire to call in favors and more by Yass’ hope to shape Pennsylvania politicians to his own worldview.

“They are not mercenaries,” Chen said. “They have an ideological agenda, but they want to control the shift in politics ... They want to have some level of control of who gets in.”

Chen highlighted Yass’ position on the board of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, as proof of Yass’ ideology. The think tank argues for orthodox Republican positions on taxes and regulations but is also pro-immigration and criminal justice reform.

But with the resources and will to spend millions, the merits of his or any candidate’s ideology may not matter, Chen said, because Yass has enough to buy an election.

“We risk stifling debate when we do this,” Chen said. “It becomes who shouts the loudest and longest.”

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