0:04

Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh

0:06

Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry

0:08

over there. So this short stuff from Stuff

0:11

you Should Know Short edition

0:13

about campaign money

0:17

money. I think we've

0:19

done some we've dabbled around this topic before,

0:21

but this is a little

0:23

shorty question answered. Yeah,

0:26

it's a based on a how stuff works article

0:28

we should call out um.

0:30

But like, I've always kind of wondered this

0:32

but didn't realize i'd wondered it, because I think if

0:35

I had actually wondered it, I would have just gone

0:37

and researched it and found out,

0:39

you know, the answer. But it was like in the back

0:41

of my head, like one of those questions I didn't

0:43

know I wanted to know the answer to until I

0:45

saw the question. You know what I mean? Well,

0:48

yeah, and I know that I've donated to

0:50

political campaigns and then never

0:53

said, hey, wait a minute, you lost did

0:55

you spend my money? Right? But didn't

0:58

it didn't cross your mind. I know you never said

1:00

it, but did you ever think, like, did my money get

1:02

spent? I just assumed that it got spent

1:04

five seconds after I hit the click

1:06

button. You know, I think that's frequently

1:09

the case, but it is

1:11

possible every once in a while that

1:13

a candidate becomes so popular

1:16

and raises so much money, but

1:18

then that popularity

1:21

and that that war chest of campaign

1:23

money is disproportionate

1:25

to their actual chance of becoming the nominee

1:28

for the party. Case in point was

1:30

Jeb Bush in two thousands, the two thousand

1:32

and sixteen election. Jeb he

1:35

raced a lot of dough and did

1:37

not. You know, I'm not sure if

1:40

like the if there's an equation

1:42

for money spent and chances of

1:44

winning, which they're supposedly, is he

1:47

bucked that trend? He really did.

1:49

He had UM. I think he raised

1:52

something like a hundred and fifty two million

1:54

dollars, a hundred and fifty two

1:56

million dollars, which was far and away

1:59

the most of all the Republican UM

2:01

nominees that primary season UM

2:04

and did not get it, and that

2:06

is really unusual. But the reason

2:09

we're mentioning this is because he had so much money,

2:12

he um got caught with some left

2:14

over. And that's fine, like that's not the

2:16

end of the world. But it does raise that question

2:18

if you have millions and millions of dollars

2:20

of campaign contributions and

2:23

you didn't make it to the general election.

2:26

What happens to all that money? Yeah,

2:28

I mean, and it kind of depends. And you

2:30

know, when you say being caught, that doesn't mean that

2:32

he did anything wrong aside from

2:34

I guess doing everything wrong to

2:36

not win. But it's not like he

2:39

was caught doing something bad. He was just

2:42

you know, he lost early enough to where there was

2:44

a you know, millions and

2:46

millions and millions of dollars left over, UM,

2:49

And what happens that money, It kind of depends on where

2:51

it comes from. Right, So there

2:54

there now that UM, the Supreme Court

2:56

has completely ruined democracy with the Citizens

2:58

United case UM. There are

3:01

two two main groups that

3:03

can be fundeling money

3:05

towards a particular candidates

3:08

candidacy. There's the candidate him

3:10

or herself in their campaign, and then

3:12

there's also superpacks political

3:14

action committees. And they used to be political

3:16

action committees, but now they're on steroids

3:18

because they can raise unlimited funds

3:21

and spend unlimited funds to help

3:23

a candidate. So long as the superpack

3:26

and the candidate aren't coordinating

3:28

how that money has spent. There just there to support

3:31

the candidate in ideally

3:33

on paper, I should say yeah, and earlier

3:35

when I said, uh, you know, if

3:37

I gave, as in just an independent schmo

3:41

um money to candidate,

3:44

it is probably likely that that money is

3:46

burned through pretty quickly. Um.

3:49

This this these personal contributions.

3:52

I get the idea that they kind of spend

3:55

that stuff because you know, and it points

3:57

out in this article if it's

3:59

like kind of now never, if you're not you're not like you're

4:01

holding onto that stuff for a rainy day. You're

4:03

trying to win an election. Uh. And

4:06

one way to do that is by spending tons

4:08

of dough So that's called like cash

4:10

on hand. Right, that's when like you Chuck wrote

4:12

a check to Jeb Bush and said go Jeb

4:15

and like the memo, and

4:17

Jeb's campaign went and cash that

4:19

money and put it in their account. That's cash

4:22

on hand. Yeah, they burned through that very very

4:24

very frequently. But there's also like a

4:26

constant flow of money coming in over

4:29

time, and their campaign may stop

4:31

as that money still coming in. So the

4:33

question remains, like what does Jeb Bush's

4:36

campaign do with that? And there's actual

4:38

rules for what they can do

4:41

and can't do with it. Really the

4:43

main rule is that after after

4:45

Jeb Bush drops out of the race or doesn't doesn't

4:48

get chosen as the party's

4:50

nominee for the general election, he

4:53

doesn't get to just be like, thanks for the hundred million

4:55

dollars, chumps, I'm gonna go buy a yacht. That's

4:57

basically the only rule that

5:00

the FEC has, well, one of one

5:02

of a few rules, but that's the big one. Yes,

5:04

no yachts, right, no yachts

5:07

cla. Uh yeah, it's basically, you can't spend

5:09

anything on your personal expenses. Um,

5:12

And why don't we take a break and we're gonna come back and talk about

5:15

some other FEC rules right after this. All

5:42

right, So you can't spend that stuff

5:44

on yourself. You can't say, like, geez,

5:47

um brace all this money. I'd love to pay off my mortgage

5:49

while I'm at it. Um.

5:52

That's kind of like the main thing. There are

5:54

things you can do, they're called permissible uses.

5:58

Uh. You can donate that money to party,

6:00

which being especially

6:03

if it's like a nice charity everybody can

6:05

get behind, like the Save Puppies dot Org

6:08

or something like that, you know exactly,

6:10

Um, this is what I don't quite get

6:12

it. Says, because we pull from two

6:14

sources. One says, you can just donate it to

6:17

another candidate, but I think that's

6:19

limited to two thousand dollars

6:21

if it's just a personal donation. But

6:24

you can can you transfer everything

6:26

to like a pack, I

6:29

believe. So. I think the thing that was

6:31

wrong here is that that the person

6:34

didn't say the person from Open Secrets or

6:36

didn't say that they can give it to

6:38

another candidate up to two grand,

6:41

they can give the whole thing to the party,

6:43

or yeah, they can transfer it to to a

6:45

superpack. So the candidate can

6:48

apparently take that money and give

6:50

it to a superpack, but a superpack

6:52

can't give their money to a candidate. But the

6:54

impression that I have is that that superpack

6:57

would have to spend that money on that

6:59

candidate, either in a future election or

7:01

if the candidate also is like, well, I'm just

7:03

gonna run for Senate instead, they would

7:05

they would be that superpack could fund that candidates

7:09

um campaigns, no matter what

7:11

kind of election they were running for. Right.

7:13

And it's also highly likely that there's

7:16

an understanding that if a pack

7:18

or superpack donates a ton of money

7:20

and that candidate loses and is out, especially

7:22

if they're out early on, then there's

7:25

like a hey, you give that back to us

7:27

now, Yeah, especially with a super

7:29

pack, because super packs, from the impression

7:31

I have from researching this, are basically like

7:33

a handful of extraordinarily wealthy

7:36

billionaires who are saying, yeah, this is

7:38

our guy, we want to back this person for their

7:40

their presidential campaign, and then if

7:42

it doesn't, if it doesn't work, they

7:45

get their money back eventually. That

7:47

that was unspent um that

7:49

happened with Rick Perry. Uh he

7:51

got he I think he had like thirteen

7:53

million dollars and unspent funds,

7:56

which um, that was his superpack and

7:58

the reason that they knew that he he didn't even make

8:00

it to the primaries. And the big disparity

8:03

between Rick Perry's UM campaign

8:05

and Superpack was that he he couldn't

8:08

raise more than like a million a million

8:10

and a half dollars. His campaign

8:12

couldn't, which is bad news for your campaign.

8:14

His pack raised a bunch of money because

8:16

there were a couple of billionaires in Dallas who

8:18

were basically funding the pack. So

8:21

when when it came down to the wheels

8:24

hitting the pavement and Rick

8:26

Perry's campaign couldn't raise that kind of money. He

8:28

knew it was time to get out, and his superpack contributors

8:31

got their money back. And then you know how

8:33

I was talking about people spending uh,

8:35

Like a lot of times a candidate

8:37

will actually um

8:40

be in debt, so like not

8:42

only did they spend um. Scott Walker is

8:44

a good example of this, Wisconsin governor.

8:47

He when he dropped out in September two

8:49

thousand fifteen, UM,

8:51

he had a million dollars in debts. So

8:53

he burned through that money. So it's not like there

8:55

was anyone he could there was no money

8:57

to return. Yeah, And that's the thing. And

9:00

so like you can be in debt, your

9:02

campaign can be in debt, and if you're

9:04

wealthy, that's okay.

9:07

Um, there's ways for you to to make

9:09

that money back to retire that debt. You can

9:11

create fundraisers over time, but

9:13

that's really difficult to get people to contribute

9:16

to your campaign that's already lost

9:18

so that you can retire debt. UM.

9:21

But if you're not wealthy, you might have taken

9:23

out like personal loans along the way

9:25

from banks, and that means that you the

9:27

candidate have personal loan

9:29

obligations for the rest of your life from this campaign

9:32

that was unsuccessful. So it can be really

9:34

nerve racking to run for office

9:37

and not win or not become

9:39

the nominee. Because if you are

9:41

in debt, Uh, you can get caught

9:43

with that, um and it gets written off.

9:46

Anything over two hundred fifty dollars

9:48

that you loan to your campaign gets

9:50

written off as a donation. You're it's gone

9:52

forever um after twenty days

9:55

after the election. Yeah. And

9:57

in the case of like a Donald Trump or

10:00

I guess rather anyone in the first term

10:03

of what they hope is going to be a two term

10:06

fair. Uh. If you've just got

10:08

all this money raised and then you didn't

10:10

spend it, your campaign is still

10:12

an entity. It's still an ongoing entity.

10:14

It's not like they dissolved that while you're in

10:17

office and then you have to restart

10:19

at the end of your of your term

10:22

again. Like he just basically like

10:24

anyone would keep that money in the coffers

10:26

for the second terms campaign.

10:29

So that's um, that's what happens

10:31

to the unspent money. Uh,

10:33

it just evaporates if you really want

10:35

to think about it. Uh. And thank

10:37

you for joining us on short stuff We'll

10:39

see you next time. For

10:45

more on this and thousands of other topics because

10:47

it how stuff works. Dot com