The Poynter Institute Menu Donate State Editions * California * Florida * Iowa * Michigan * New Hampshire * New York * North Carolina * Pennsylvania * Texas * West Virginia * Wisconsin Issues * All Issues * Online hoaxes * Coronavirus * Health Care * Immigration * Extremism * Taxes * Marijuana * Environment * Crime * Guns * Foreign Policy * LGBTQ+ People * Joe Biden * Kamala Harris * Donald Trump * Mitch McConnell * Hakeem Jeffries * Ron DeSantis Media * PunditFact * Tucker Carlson * Sean Hannity * Rachel Maddow * Bloggers * PolitiFact Videos Campaigns * 2024 Elections Truth-o-Meter * True * Mostly True * Half True * Mostly False * False * Pants on Fire Promises * Biden Promise Tracker * Trump-O-Meter * Obameter * Latest Promises About Us * Our Process * Our Staff * En Español * Who pays for PolitiFact? * Advertise with Us * Suggest a Fact-check * Corrections and Updates * Newsletters Donate #### Follow us The Facts Newsletter Sign up English Español ### Stand up for the facts! Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help. More Info ### I would like to contribute One Time Monthly Yearly Join Now ![](\\" ![](\\" Beto O\'Rourke stated on March 31, 2017 in a U.S. Senate campaign kickoff event in Dallas: \"I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money.\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" half-true/6479cbc723379f0ee49c269b0b9790b7.jpg.\\") ![\\"half- true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") * Campaign Finance * Congress * Ethics * History * Texas * Beto O\'Rourke ![\\"Democrat](\\" Democrat Beto O\'Rourke, the El Paso U.S. House member seeking to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate, made a claim about not taking corporate or PAC contributions at a campaign event in Dallas March 31, 2017 (Screenshot of O\'Rourke campaign video). By Fauzeya Rahman July 27, 2017 # Beto O\'Rourke claims near-uniqueness in not taking corporate or PAC contributions U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the punk rocker turned Democratic politician from El Paso, vowed to go against \"politics as usual\" in Washington while spreading the word about his quest to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the 2018 elections. O’Rourke, addressing Dallas supporters at a March 2017 campaign kickoff event, provided some detail as to what that means to him. Toward the end of his remarks, he asked for personal campaign donations, adding to cheers and applause: \"I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money. I don’t want you worried that when I’m taking a vote, making a decision, writing a bill, looking at an amendment, that I’m listening to anyone but you, the people that I want to serve and that I want to represent.\" Nobody seeking federal office can legally accept direct corporate or union donations, the Federal Election Commission notes. Yet political action committees--open to anyone’s contributions or founded and run by individuals working for corporations or affiliated with labor unions, membership organizations or trade associations--routinely fuel campaigns. In the 2016 elections, PACs gave $472.7 million to congressional candidates, according to the campaign finance tracking website OpenSecrets.org run by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. According to the site, PAC donations accounted for 35 percent of campaign funds for House Democrats, 39 percent for House Republicans, 15 percent for Senate Democrats and 27 percent for Senate Republicans. O’Rourke amends We inquired into the basis of O’Rourke’s claim to near-uniqueness for not taking PAC money. By email, O’Rourke replied that he’d revise what he says going forward. \"What I should have said,\" O’Rourke said, \"is that there are only two members of Congress who do not take PAC money and who also do not have a leadership PAC (which gives PAC contributions to other members), myself and Ro Khanna,\" a California Democrat. In a March 2017 press release, Khanna said he and O’Rourke had introduced legislation barring members of Congress and aspirants from accepting PAC donations. That release grouped Khanna and O’Rourke among six House members who didn’t accept PAC donations in the run-up to the 2016 elections. That count was based, the release said, on a December 2016 breakdown of candidate finance filings posted by Colorado-based CleanSlateNow, which focuses on changing how campaigns are funded. O’Rourke’s reply to us included a different count attributed to information on the OpenSecrets site. O’Rourke wrote: \"There are four members of Congress (based on the Open Secrets website) who did not take PAC money in the last cycle (either to their Congressional campaign or to their leadership PAC if they had one) -- myself, Ro Khanna, John Sarbanes and Francis Rooney. Both Sarbanes and Rooney have PACs themselves that make PAC contributions to other candidates.\" Reviewing web posts and records Information on the OpenSecrets site indicates that into May 2017, Cruz had raised more than $1.9 million from PACs with the contributions accounting for 2 percent of more than $117 million he’d raised starting from his 2012 election to the Senate. The comparable entry for O’Rourke doesn’t show a zero for his PAC donations. It indicates instead $297,969 in PAC contributions to O’Rourke campaigns, amounting to 5 percent of O’Rourke’s $6.3 million in contributions since 2011, the year before his initial election to the House. We asked O’Rourke’s campaign about the tallied PAC contributions. A senior adviser, David Wysong, said by phone that O’Rourke accepted such donations through his first couple of House elections but stopped doing so before seeking his third term in 2016. By email, Wysong provided a document he described as a February 2015 form letter from O’Rourke to possible PAC contributors after which, Wysong said, O’Rourke accepted no PAC donations. From O’Rourke’s letter: \"Starting with this election cycle, I plan to no longer accept PAC contributions. I\'ve made this decision in an effort to focus more of my campaign efforts on bringing new, smaller and local donors into the campaign.\" Wysong also emailed an example of O\'Rourke turning back such such aid--an October 2016 letter from O’Rourke’s campaign manager, Brianna Carmen, returning a donation from the Treasury Employees PAC. Wysong noted too that according to an FEC summary page about O’Rourke’s Senate finance report filed in July 2017, the candidate raised more than $2 million from April through June 2017, none of that from PACs. Banana peels With help from the center’s research director, Sarah Bryner, we confirmed from the OpenSecrets site and FEC filings that O’Rourke did not bank any PAC contributions as he sought re-election in 2016 or in the first months of his Senate bid. But this proved a slog to confirm because PAC names repeatedly appear in O’Rourke’s contribution reports. His July 2017 filing with the FEC separately shows $14,580 in contributions from other candidate committees. How unique? Our first focus was on gauging the accuracy of O’Rourke’s claim to being one of two members not accepting PAC aid. After identifying each current senator and House member on the U.S. Congress website, we checked the OpenSecrets site for PAC contributions to each member; the site provides a summary page for each member showing her or his contributions by cycle and over the years. Candidate contributions are further broken down by categories including individual contributions, PAC contributions and self-financing. Here’s the site’s entry for O’Rourke covering the 2016 election cycle: ![\\"Screen](\\" odruLK4BpUpxYxDY6kE7hK_sQegm7Gtu1KRtVJ49mGKem-L3yTzT-KgMeKxCMAjJ7HaIvmWuy- BygbZQtnuAqU9gW\\"/)**SOURCE** : Summary for Beto O’Rourke, OpenSecrets.org (accessed May 10, 2017) From OpenSecrets posts, we identified five House members who did not get PAC contributions before the 2016 elections: O’Rourke; Khanna; Sarbanes, D-Md.; Jared Polis, D-Colo; Rooney, R-Fla--with Polis, Khanna and Rooney also fielding no PAC aid in their House careers. A conflict we didn\'t settle: CleanSlateNow previously identified Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., as not getting PAC help in his 2016 re-election bid. In contrast, Roe’s OpenSecrets summary page for Roe indicates he got $6,000 in PAC donations before that election. Next, we eyeballed FEC-posted information, focusing on campaign filings by House members’ principal campaign committees for 2015-16. These records confirmed Khanna did not get PAC contributions that cycle. Otherwise, the records showed, Rooney received a $10,296 PAC contribution from Rooney Victory on Dec. 30, 2016; Sarbanes received donations from the VoteSANE PAC; and Polis logged contributions attributed to JStreetPAC, AmeriPAC and ActBlue. Similarly, our FEC search suggested that O’Rourke’s campaign in 2015-16 received $110,721 attributed to PACs (including ActBlue, JStreetPAC and the New Democrat Coalition PAC). Of this total, $74,400 in contributions were designated for the 2018 Democratic primary. #### Featured Fact-check ![](\\" ![](\\" Kari Lake stated on September 13, 2024 in a post on X Rep. Ruben Gallego’s “first act in Congress was to propose legislation to BAN the use of the term ‘illegal alien.’” ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") By Mia Osmonbekov • September 19, 2024 So, candidates including O\'Rourke took PAC aid? Not so, we found, in that the donations were almost uniformly made by individuals whose personal contribution were routed through supportive \"conduit\" PACs--a phrase we hadn’t heard before. It looked to us like the donation to Rooney came from a committee devoted to his candidacy. On the FEC site, the respective 2016 donations marked as \"PAC\" to Sarbanes, O’Rourke and Polis were each accompanied by a column describing the donations as a \"conduit total,\" with a note stating the donation was \"earmarked through this organization.\" We sought more information about ActBlue, the largest aggregator of individual contributions among the PACs linked to O’Rourke. The group says on its web site that it offers tools to help Democratic candidates but it’s not a traditional PAC that rounds up donations and obscures specific donors. ActBlue says it \"acts as a conduit federally and in most states, which means we provide the infrastructure for campaigns and organizations to fundraise online, but we don’t fundraise on behalf of anyone. Unlike groups that spend large sums of cash from undisclosed sources, ActBlue offers grassroots donors a way to give fully disclosed donations to the candidates and causes they choose,\" the group says. CONDUIT PAC DONATIONS TO BETO O’ROURKE CAMPAIGN, 2016 CONDUIT PAC NAME INDIVIDUAL DONATIONS AGGREGATE TOTAL ActBlue 121 $77,294 ActBlue Technical Services 74 $14,070 JStreet PAC 21 $16,140 New Democrat Coalition 9 $4,501 **SOURCE** : Spreadsheet listing contributions to O’Rourke campaign, based on search of Federal Election Commission website, June 2016, PolitiFact Texas In July 2017, when we looked afresh at the OpenSecrets summary page for O’Rourke in 2017-18, it showed $29,160 in PAC contributions to O’Rourke’s Senate campaign. A few days later, the chart indicated $43,740 in PAC donations. Red flags? Negative, Bryner told us, saying the charts summarizing O’Rourke’s Senate contributions were erroneous and would be rectified. Significantly, Bryner also showed us how to query an FEC site that provides detailed files about all candidates, parties and other political committees. From the site, we fetched a July 23, 2017 commission list itemizing more than 45,000 PAC contributions to congressional candidates in the 2017-18 election cycle. That list showed no PAC contributions to O’Rourke. Experts concur We asked campaign finance experts to guide us to documentation distinguishing donations through conduit PACs from traditional PAC contributions. Judith Ingram, press officer at the FEC, showed us that in quarterly filings, ActBlue donations present an individual name as a line item below each listing of ActBlue as a donor, along with a text field that explains the individual donation is part of a conduit total. Ingram further confirmed that the JStreet PAC contributions reported by O’Rourke were made by individual donors employing the PAC as a conduit. Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy at the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, echoed Ingram’s comments--that groups such as ActBlue act as intermediaries by processing payments that \"can be attributed to an actual donor, a human being.\" If a donation was a traditional PAC contribution, Spaulding explained, the listed contributor would be the PAC alone, and there wouldn’t be a specific individual’s name linked to it. Our ruling O’Rourke said: \"I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money.\" Unsaid: no candidate can take corporate cash; that’s illegal. Otherwise, we found, O’Rourke was one of at least five (not two) House incumbents to keep no PAC contributions in the run-up to the 2016 elections. He also hasn’t accepted PAC aid into 2017 though he drew on about $297,000 in PAC donations in his House bids of 2012 and 2014--actions not recapped in his Dallas call for contributions. We rate this claim Half True. **HALF TRUE** – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. Share the Facts 2017-07-27 19:13:02 UTC PolitiFact ![\\"PolitiFact\\"](\\" logo-big.jpg\\"/) 4 1 7 ![\\"PolitiFact](\\" halftrue.jpg\\") PolitiFact Rating: Half True \"I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money.\" Beto O\'Rourke U.S. House member ![](\\" Dallas Friday, March 31, 2017 2017-03-31 Read More info #### Read About Our Process The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter ### Our Sources Campaign Facebook video, Beto O’Rourke in Dallas, March 31, 2017 Web pages, Federal Election Commission, \"Contributions,\" February 2004 and updated February 2017; \"Details Files About Candidates, Parties and Other Committees,\" undated (accessed June 23 and July 25, 2017) Press release, \"RELEASE: Reps. Khanna and O’Rourke Introduce Legislation Prohibiting PAC Donations,\" U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, March 27, 2017 Email, Beto O’Rourke, April 25, 2017 Phone interview and emails, David Wysong, senior adviser, Beto O’Rourke U.S. Senate campaign, July 26-27, 2017 Form letter from Beto O’Rourke to possible PAC donors, Feb. 9, 2015 (received by email from David Wysong, July 26, 2017) Letter returning donation from Treasury Employees PAC, Brianna Carmen, campaign manager, Beto O’Rourke campaign, Oct. 17, 2016 (received by email from David Wysong, July 26, 2017) Congressional members list, U.S. Congress website, 2017 (accessed May 8, 2017) Web pages, Center for Responsive Politics, \"Political Action Committees,\" Center for Responsive Politics, undated (accessed June 8, 2017); \"Rep. Beto O’Rourke, 2016 Summary,\" \"Methodology\" (accessed May 8, 2017); \"Methodology \"Source of Funds, Ted Cruz, Career,\" \"Source of Funds, Beto O’Rourke, Career,\" both updated through May 18, 2017 (accessed July 25, 2017) Spreadsheet listing 2015-2016 contributions to Beto O’Rourke campaign, (downloaded from FEC website, May 2017 Web page, \"About,\" ActBlue, 2017 (accessed July 25, 2017) Phone interview, Judith Ingram, press officer and assistant staff director, Public Disclosure and Media Relations Division, Federal Election Commission, June 29, 2017 Phone interview, Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy and external affairs, Common Cause, July 3, 2017 Phone interview and email, Sarah Bryner, research director, Center for Responsive Politics, July 25 and 27, 2017 ## Browse the Truth-O-Meter ### More by Fauzeya Rahman ![](\\" ![](\\" Beto O\'Rourke stated on March 31, 2017 in a U.S. Senate campaign kickoff event in Dallas: \"I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money.\" ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • July 27, 2017 ![](\\" crop/5ca2f489f7c64225a929e5b3a06c0fac.jpg\\") ![](\\" crop/1b364b8aef836826f67fa44e24f56306.jpg\\") The Coalition for Public Schools stated on January 23, 2017 in an emailed press release: \"Texas legislators have filed voucher proposals in every legislative session since 1995, but all of them have failed to become law.\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" By Fauzeya Rahman • March 17, 2017 ![](\\" ![](\\" John Cornyn stated on November 22, 2016 in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson: Says the Department of Homeland Security didn\'t request any hours of aerial surveillance for the U.S.-Mexico border from the Department of Defense for 2017. ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • January 31, 2017 ![](\\" ![](\\" Sid Miller stated on November 27, 2016 in a Facebook post of photo and caption on Miller\'s fan page: Says actor Dwayne \"The Rock\" Johnson wore a T-shirt stating: \"We Stand for the flag, we kneel for the fallen.\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Fauzeya Rahman • December 7, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Virginia \"Jennie Lou\" Leeder stated on October 17, 2016 in an interview with the Austin American-Statesman: Texas spends \"more per day to house an inmate than we do on a student.\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" By Fauzeya Rahman • November 18, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Progress Texas stated on September 20, 2016 in a blog post: \"Donald Trump\'s education plan to dramatically slash funding for public education would fire 49,000 Texas teachers.\" ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • October 20, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Sylvester Turner stated on July 26, 2016 in a tweet announcing new display signage at airports and Houston\'s City Hall: \"Welcome to #Houston, the most #diverse city in #America.\" ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • September 23, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Jeannette Vaught stated on May 4, 2016 in an op-ed published in the Austin American-Statesman: \"Only five Texas counties account for almost 90 percent of the (state’s) cattle industry.\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Fauzeya Rahman • July 29, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Rodney Ellis stated on May 19, 2016 in a press release in response to a lawsuit: Harris County, Texas has \"some of the highest jailing and incarceration rates in the U.S. and the world.\" ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • July 8, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Sylvester Turner stated on March 4, 2016 in a press conference announcing new chairman of transit authority: \"The Katy Freeway, or Interstate 10 west of Houston, is the widest freeway in the world, with up to 26 lanes, including frontage road lanes.\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Fauzeya Rahman • April 13, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Sid Miller stated on March 22, 2016 in a Facebook post: Says Barack Obama was happily photographed holding a T-shirt with revolutionary Ernesto \"Che\" Guevara’s face on it. ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • March 25, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Sheila Jackson Lee stated on December 18, 2015 in remarks inserted into the Congressional Record: \"Between 1990 and 2013, the maternal mortality rate for women in the U.S. has increased by 136%.\" ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • February 1, 2016 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on November 14, 2015 in a rally in Beaumont, Texas: President Barack Obama \"wants to take in 250,000 (people) from Syria.\" ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • December 1, 2015 ![](\\" ![](\\" Greg Abbott stated on October 19, 2015 in op-ed in Austin American-Statesman: \"Road congestion costs rush hour drivers in Austin and Dallas more than $1,000 a year. And in Houston, it’s even more -- almost $1,500 a year.\" ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Fauzeya Rahman • November 24, 2015 ### Beto O\'Rourke claims near-uniqueness in not taking corporate or PAC contributions * ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on September 27, 2024 in a video: Shows video of damage from Hurricane Helene. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu • September 28, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" TikTok posts stated on September 22, 2024 in una publicación enTikTok: En el sur de Filadelfia, la campaña de Kamala Harris “está pagando a la gente $700 por semana para viajar y asistir a todos sus eventos”. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Maria Briceño • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Instagram posts stated on September 25, 2024 in an Instagram post: Hurricane Helene was the product of intentional weather modification. ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Loreben Tuquero • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Instagram posts stated on September 25, 2024 in a post: Video shows footage of Hurricane Helene ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Grace Abels • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Vote No on 3 stated on September 7, 2024 in a TV ad: Florida’s Amendment 3 is “the monopoly amendment.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Samantha Putterman • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Jared Moskowitz stated on September 19, 2024 in una audiencia en la Cámara de Representantes: “El Proyecto 2025 quiere deshacerse de la NOAA” y del Servicio Nacional de Meteorología. ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Maria Briceño • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Social Media stated on September 24, 2024 in social media posts: Vice President Kamala Harris responded, “Next question please,” when asked about the economy during an Aug. 29 CNN interview. ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Sofia Ahmed • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Threads posts stated on September 18, 2024 in a Threads post: Melania Trump “was an escort.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ciara O\'Rourke • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on September 23, 2024 in a Facebook post: “Serena Williams reportedly passes away following tragic car crash in Texas.” ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Ciara O\'Rourke • September 27, 2024 * ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on September 25, 2024 in a Facebook post: “Elon Musk silences Taylor Swift: Shocking ban wipes out 1 million followers and costs her a staggering $72 million!” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Ciara O\'Rourke • September 27, 2024 Load more ### Support independent fact-checking. Become a member! In a world of wild talk and fake news, help us stand up for the facts. Sign me up #### Offices District of Columbia 1800 I Street NW Washington, DC 20006 Florida 801 3rd St. S St. Petersburg, FL 33701 727-821-9494 #### People * Joe Biden * Kamala Harris * Donald Trump * Mitch McConnell * Hakeem Jeffries * Ron DeSantis #### State Editions * California * Florida * Iowa * Michigan * New Hampshire * New York * North Carolina * Pennsylvania * Texas * West Virginia * Wisconsin #### About Us * Our Process * Our Staff * En Español * Who pays for PolitiFact? * Advertise with Us * Corrections and Updates * Newsletters #### RSS Feeds * Recent Articles and Fact-checks * Recent Fact-checks Suggest a Fact-check #### Follow us The Facts Newsletter Sign up Terms & Conditions Privacy Policy Copyright ©All Rights Reserved Poynter Institute 2020, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization ![\\"\\"](\\" * * * ✕
I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash no political action committee money