Hayes has accepted over $100K from corporate PACs
WASHINGTON — In 2018 during her first run for Congress, then-candidate Jahana Hayes said she wouldn’t take campaign contributions from corporate political action committees as part of her commitment to clean up the influence of money in politics.
But now as a two-term congresswoman, Hayes, D-5, has accepted $102,000 for her campaigns from PACs run by many of the nation’s largest corporations, Federal Election Commission filings show. In the first quarter of 2021, as she builds her next reelection warchest, Hayes collected $9,500 from PACs operated by the likes of Walmart, Comcast, T-Mobile and General Dynamics.
“The congresswoman accepts corporate PAC money,” Hayes’ campaign manager Barbara Ellis said. “Her position evolved from the time she was a new candidate.” The Center for Responsive Politics found 20 percent of Hayes’ PAC contributions came from businesses over the last two election cycles. About 5 percent of her total contributions in those elections came from corporate PACs.
Hayes took her original stance against corporate PAC money in Newtown at a 2018 Democratic debate before the 5th District primary,
“I would not take corporate PAC money,” Hayes said. “I would not take money from firearms manufacturers or what was the other one you said? ... Private prison corporations? No.”
House Republicans’ campaign arm attacked Hayes for going back on her word as it targets her seat for pickup in 2022.
“Jahana Hayes is a hypocrite who broke the simplest promise she made to her constituents the moment she got to D.C.,” said Samantha Bullock, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
In 2018 when Hayes renounced corporate PACS, she was part of a wave of first-time progressive Democratic candidates who made pledges not to take corporate PAC dollars. The declaration was a simple signal to voters as Democrats tried to place themselves on the sides of voters, not special interest groups or wealthy businesses.
“All PACs are not created equal,” Hayes told voters. “When I go to Congress, I will fight and make sure campaign finance reform is a priority.”
Ellis said Hayes’ answer shows “her foundational beliefs [on campaign finance] have not changed.”
“She still believes all PACs are not created equal and has come to realize that PAC money in many
cases includes voluntary employee contributions, often from her own constituents, and is not reserved simply for amorphous, dark money,” Ellis said. “She also has not wavered in her conviction that the money in politics is a broken system. Since being elected, Rep. Hayes has consistently supported campaign finance reform, including the For The People Act, which seeks to limit the influence of money in politics.”
Many Democrats, like now-U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., made opposing corporate PACs a fundamental part of their 2018 campaigns. Since then, refusing corporate PAC money has continued to balloon in popularity among Democrats.
A record 155 congressional incumbents and challengers vowed to reject corporate PAC money during the 2020 campaign, according to End Citizens United, which tracks such pledges. Neither Hayes nor any member of the Connecticut congressional delegation has made the pledge.
In the 2020 presidential race, then-Sen. Kamala Harris, DCalif., Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., thenRep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro all swore off corporate PAC dollars. As a candidate, now-President Joe Biden said he’d go without contributions from corporations and lobbyists, but his political action committee continued to accept the payments, the Intercept reported.
Most members of Congress fuel their campaigns with contributions from corporations, unions, trade associations and other advocacy groups. Even if they pledge no to take corporate PAC dollars, they can support their campaigns with contributions from other candidates who do.
Connecticut Democrats Reps. John Larson, Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro and Jim Himes all accept more corporate PAC money than Hayes, the Center for Responsive Politics found.