How Massachusetts Corporations Play the National PAC Game

There are well over 100 active federal political action committees (PACs) based in Massachusetts, but what we look at this week are the 31 directly associated with companies based here. As you will see in the main chart below, those companies—mostly in financial, medical, and insurance fields—spent more than $3 million last year, mostly in contributions to national lawmakers:

MASSACHUSETTS-BASED CORPORATE PACs: 2013 ACTIVITY

The single biggest recipient of those PACs’ largesse, as shown in the accompanying charts, was the Bay State’s own new Senator Ed Markey. That’s not too surprising since he was engaged in a rare off-year special Senate election (and faces another this year). Much of Steve Lynch’s take was also for that Senate campaign.

It’s striking, however, that those same 31 corporate PACs gave absolutely nothing in 2013 to the other home state Senator, Elizabeth Warren. That’s partly because she’s not up for re-election until 2018, but also because she’s not exactly corporate America’s darling.

Richie Neal, the other top local recipient, is a high-ranking member of the House Ways & Means Committee. As you can see below, of the 22 lawmakers outside Massachusetts who received more than $10,000 last year from these 31 PACs, nine are on that budget-making committee; its Chairman, Dave Camp of Michigan, tops them all with $32,000. Another seven are on the House Financial Services Committee, which regulates financial institutions such as Fidelity (listed as FMR, Fidelity Management and Research), OppenheimerFunds, MassMutual, Liberty Mutual, State Street, and LPL Financial.

Connections between these companies’ interests and the lawmakers they fund are often not difficult to find. Take, for example, the recently notorious New York Republican Michael Grimm, who made news by threatening to throw a journalist off a balcony. He was the lead sponsor last year of two bills specific to homeowner flood insurance—bills that Liberty Mutual listed on other disclosure forms as specific objects of its multi-million-dollar lobbying efforts.

The top recipient in the Senate—Markey aside—was North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan. She got $25,500 for her campaign committee, and another $14,500 for her own PAC, through which she funds other candidates. Hagan, like many Senators, has her hands in many areas of interest to corporations. As Chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Hagan deals with issues that could result in large technology contracts. As Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families, she handles bills of great interest to pharmaceutical and insurance companies. She is also on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.

In 2013 Hagan sponsored the Swaps Regulatory Act, and the SAFE Act Reauthorization—two financial areas that Massachusetts Mutual specifically mentions in its lobbying disclosures. Her Disabled Military Child Protection and Newborn Screening bills are of particular interest to Biogen and EMD Sorono. She recently offered amendments to the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act and Flood Disaster Protection Act, both critical to Liberty Mutual; and no fewer than four amendments to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, which EMC and other labor-hungry companies lobbied on, according to their disclosures.

In the main chart above, you’ll notice a column for “other disbursements.” These are mostly contributions to non-federal campaign accounts—thousands and thousands given to state legislators, in Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia, and other targeted states. Liberty Mutual, which has a stake in how states regulate insurance, led the way on that front.

MASSACHUSETTS RECIPIENTS

TOP OUT-OF-STATE RECIPIENTS