U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell speaks during the Graves County Republican Party Breakfast, part of the Fancy Farm Picnic political festivities, on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024, . (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

FRANKFORT — While Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s new political action committee, In This Together, has yet to report donating to a Democratic legislative candidate, U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s old PAC has reported giving $200,000 to help Republicans running this fall for the Kentucky legislature and local offices.

In a report filed with the Federal Election Commission, McConnell’s Bluegrass Committee PAC reported giving $2,100 (the maximum allowed by state law) on Aug. 20 to each of 95 Republicans running in Kentucky. McConnell’s PAC gave to 90 Republican candidates for seats in the General Assembly, three candidates for Louisville Metro Council and two mayoral candidates. The PAC also reported giving $1,000 to the Kentucky Federation of Republican Women.

Follow the money

An occasional series of campaign finance notebooks

By Tom Loftus

?It was a lot of money, but a routine disgorgement from Bluegrass Committee, which for 35 years has been McConnell’s so-called leadership PAC — a major but under-the-radar force in helping fund Republicans running for office at all levels in Kentucky. It has also been a consistent donor to candidates supported by McConnell outside Kentucky.?

Although called a leadership PAC, there’s no leadership requirement to start one. Almost? all members of the U.S. Senate and House have one to collect and disperse political money.

Granted, being a leader in a legislative body, as McConnell has been for decades, helps raise money.?

A constant flow of dollars from the PACs of big corporations and associations has funded McConnell’s Bluegrass Committee. These PACs are limited to giving no more than $5,000 per year to a leadership PAC. And scores of them give $5,000 to Bluegrass Committee year after year.

In August, donors of $5,000 to Bluegrass Committee included PACs of Boeing, AT&T, McKesson, Union Pacific, National Beer Wholesalers and the National Automobile Dealers.

Since Jan. 1, 2023, FEC records show 91% of the $838,000 in contributions taken in by Bluegrass Committee during this political cycle has come from these PACs. Only 9% has been donated by individuals.

The donations not only allow McConnell to make big political contributions, they also help pay for folks who run his perpetual political operations.

For instance, in August the largest expense of Bluegrass Committee was $10,000 paid to Haney Consulting, the company owned by McConnell’s longtime fundraising consultant, Laura Haney. Since Jan. 1, 2023, Bluegrass Committee has paid Haney Consulting $200,000, FEC records show.

Beshear created In This Together in January to raise money he could use to support like-minded candidates in Kentucky and across the country. From January through August Beshear’s super PAC reported raising $897,500. Eric Hyers, a Beshear political strategist, said in July that the PAC would wait until fall to begin significant spending in support of candidates.

Hal Rogers’ leadership PAC

For many years 5th District U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky also maintained a leadership PAC, although it is understandably much smaller than Senate Republican Leader McConnell’s PAC.

Rogers’ PAC, called Help America’s Leaders PAC, or HALPAC, came under the scrutiny of Lexington Herald-Leader reporter John Cheves four years ago.

Cheves’ report revealed that HALPAC made very few political contributions to fellow Republicans, but spent? its money on other things, like a $3,000 a month salary to Rogers’ wife, Cynthia Rogers, for “PAC event planning.”

More recent reports show that HALPAC still gives very little to other Republican candidates — only $8,000 (or 2.3% of the PAC’s total spending since Jan. 1, 2023.)

But one thing has changed since that Herald-Leader story.

HALPAC no longer pays Cynthia Rogers $3,000 a? month for PAC event planning.

It pays her $4,000 a month for PAC event planning.

In fact, since Jan. 1, 2023 through August 2024 it has paid Cynthia Rogers $80,000, FEC records show. That’s 23% of the PAC’s spending during the period and 10 times the amount HALPAC has made in contributions to other Republican candidates.

Kentucky Lantern sent Rogers’ office questions in hopes of getting more details of the PAC’s spending. HALPAC replied with a statement late Thursday that said, “All expenditures are done in accordance with the purpose of the PAC and FEC regulations, including all event and personnel expenditures. There is not a more stalwart team player for the Republican Party than Hal Rogers. Over the years he has generously donated directly to countless candidates and to the National Republican Congressional Committee to help elect a Republican majority.”

RPK Building Fund still getting big more corporation contributions

Special interest corporation dollars are continuing to flow into the Republican Party of Kentucky’s Building Fund as groundbreaking for the expansion of the party’s headquarters took place late this summer.

According to a report filed by the RPK this week with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, the RPK’s building fund got $385,000 in contributions between July 1 and Sept. 30 with the majority of that coming from a whopping $300,000 donation from Brown-Forman of Louisville.

Also during the quarter, the Boeing Co. PAC gave another $75,000. (It had previously given $100,000 to the building fund.) And Toyota Motor North America Inc. gave $10,000.

That brings the total raised so far for the project to $3.6 million; nearly all of that was donated by big corporations that lobby both Congress and the Kentucky General Assembly. The largest donation of $1 million was made early in the fundraising drive by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., of New York. The second largest donor was a small Ohio gas distribution utility called NWO Resources. (The president and director of N.W.O Resources is James Neal Blue who is also chief executive and chairman of General Atomics Corp., a defense contractor that the Forbes website says is best known as the manufacturer of the Predator drone.)

The party headquarters is located in a house about four blocks down Capitol Avenue from the Kentucky Capitol. A sign out front identifies it as the “Mitch McConnell Building.” And the senator himself was on hand early last month when ground was broken for the expansion which will add 6,800 square feet of space for more offices, conference rooms and an auditorium.

The project was made possible by a 2017 law that — among other things — allowed state political parties to create building funds which could accept donations from corporations of unlimited amounts.

The building fund reported spending $133,600 during the recent quarter and that as of Sept. 30 it still had more than $3.2 million on hand.

Most of that spending was for an architect and a construction manager, but a lot of it — $20,000 — was paid to Haney Consulting, the business owned by McConnell’s fundraiser. Reports filed by the building fund with the election registry show that since Jan. 1, 2023 the building fund has paid Haney Consulting $120,000 to raise the corporation contributions for expanding the RPK headquarters.?