It’s a warm and fuzzy feeling when one is told that any amount of money they donate will be “matched” as though you have the ability to be twice as effective. Unless of course, that’s a big lie. Apparently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised her donors she would personally match campaign donations in multiple fundraising emails, but did not.
Lachlan Markay tweeted his axios article about the scam with the caption, “New: Nancy Pelosi’s campaign sent at least 50 fundraising emails from Jan to March promising she would ‘personally’ match donations, But she’s never reported giving to her own campaign, in Q1 or otherwise.”
Axios reports:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s campaign committee has repeatedly promised her donors she would personally match their financial contributions, but as of the last reporting period she hadn’t provided a dime of her own money, records show.
Why it matters: Deceptive political fundraising tactics are under scrutiny, and few are more popular than donation-matching pledges. Pelosi’s campaign has gone a step further than most — promising that she herself would put up those matching funds. It hasn’t reported any such contributions.
What’s happening: Nancy Pelosi for Congress sent at least 50 fundraising emails from January through March, pledging she would “personally” match contributions up to a certain multiple.
• That’s according to an Axios analysis of a political email archive maintained by researchers at Princeton University.
• “This is so critical, I’m personally 4x-matching all gifts for these final 24 hours,” declared a typical email, sent in Pelosi’s voice in January.
• Yet reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show Pelosi did not donate any personal funds to her campaign during the first quarter, nor has she ever done so.
Between the lines: Both parties use donation-matching offers to woo small-dollar contributors. Few actually say who is matching the donations, and some of the pledges could require matchers to exceed federal contribution limits themselves.
• Federal law, though, allows candidates to provide unlimited sums to their own campaigns. Pelosi, whose net worth is estimated to be in the nine figures, could theoretically put up the matching funds offered in her campaign’s solicitations.
• Her campaign raised just over $4 million in the first quarter of 2021. It’s not clear how much its matching-offer solicitations generated, but more than half of the Q1 haul came from donations of under $200 — the sorts of small-dollar contributions those types of fundraising emails generally target.
• A spokesperson for Pelosi’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests from Axios for comment about the matching offers or whether she planned to provide the promised funds.
According to a separate database of political emails maintained by the Defending Democracy Together Institute, Pelosi’s personal matching offers continued through at least last week.
• The last one came Wednesday — the same day Axios first asked her campaign for comment.
The big picture: Donation-matching is one of a number of popular fundraising gimmicks, yet critics say that in most cases, it’s doubtful any actual matching occurs.
• The Justice Department recently signaled it considers such offers to be legally questionable if donations aren’t actually matched as promised.
• Other tactics, such as underhanded efforts to lock donors into recurring contributions, have also drawn scrutiny from federal regulators of late.
Pelosi Calls Barrett 'an illegitimate Supreme Court justice'
During an Election Day press call, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi labeled Amy Coney Barrett an “illegitimate Supreme Court justice”. Just as they did not accept the results and have still not accepted the results of the presidential 2016 election, it’s not surprising the way they are treating ACB and her appointment to the Supreme Court.
Pelosi had this to say on Tuesday, “The president is installing an illegitimate Supreme Court justice just one week before the election, after 60 million Americans have voted, who will dismantle the ACA and won’t say, by the way, when asked by Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein, do you think Medicare is constitutional? She said she really couldn’t say.”
Barrett’s appointment to the high court means there are now six justices who were confirmed under Republican presidents, and three justices appointed under Democratic presidents – a balance that Democrats fear does not properly represent the values of American voters.
Democrats flatly rejected the GOP’s push to confirm Barrett just one week before the general election after millions of Americans had already cast their votes.
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats boycotted the initial vote that would push through Barrett’s confirmation process late last month, prompting the committee’s Republicans to unanimously consent to advance her appointment.
The move pushed forward by Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., broke the committee’s rules, which requires at least two members of the minority party to be present in order for there to be a quorum to “transact” business.
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Graham disregarded the rules and held the 12-0 vote, without a single Democrat present.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., responded angrily and said, “To call this process illegitimate is being too kind.”
He added: “Senator Graham has broken the rules of the committee to move forward with a vote on Judge Barrett to rip away health care from millions.”
To call this process illegitimate is being too kind.
Senator Graham has broken the rules of the committee to move forward with a vote on Judge Barrett to rip away health care from millions.
The American people oppose this.
Democrats will not stop fighting this nomination. pic.twitter.com/vUl1usTMGf
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 22, 2020
The Democrat’s have fought against everything the Trump administration has tried to do even before he was president. Pelosi calling anyone illegitimate is laughable at best.
FLASHBACK: Nancy Pelosi supported an objection to George W. Bush winning Ohio in 2004
The Speaker has spoken! In the 2004 election, George W. Bush won Ohio by a 2.10 percent margin, despite election simulations giving strong hope for John Kerry.
In the end, the Buckeye state became the deciding factor of the entire election. Sounds familiar!
Ironically enough, Nancy Pelosi supported an objection to Bush winning the state.
“People must have confidence that every vote legally cast will be legally counted and accurately counted,” she said. “But constantly shifting vote tallies in Ohio and malfunctioning electronic machines, which may not have paper receipts, have led to additional loss of confidence by the public.”
“As elected officials, we have a solemn responsibility to improve our election system and its administration. We cannot be here again four years from now discussing the failings of the 2008 election.”
So, what’s different about the 2020 election?
Why don’t elected officials have the same responsibility now that they did back then?
