FAQ's: Why a Green Senatorial Campaign Committee?
1. Q. Why did the Green Party decide to form a
Senatorial Campaign Committee?
A. Greens felt that such a committee could assist its candidates for
U.S. Senate raise more money.
2. Q. What is special or different about a Senatorial campaign
committee?
A. These committees have higher limits on contributions from donors.
Donors who want to focus on giving to Green Senate candidates, but do not
want to spend the time analyzing each candidate, can give large donations to
a Senatorial campaign committee, which can then distribute it among Senate
candidates. The current limit is $26,700 and is indexed with inflation.
3. Q. Does that mean that you accept soft money?
A. No. Soft money is donations that the Federal Elections Commission
(FEC) does not track or limit. All contributions to the Senatorial Campaign
Committee are capped, tracked, and reported to the FEC. All money received
by the Senatorial Campaign Committee is hard money.
4. Q. Will these large donations result in rich donors controlling
or influencing you?
A. No. The GSCC has created a set of priority issues that candidates
must support before receiving funds from us. Donors cannot control what we
do.
5. Q. I thought Green candidates didn’t take money from PACs?
A. A Senatorial campaign committee is not a PAC. Political action
committees are formed by non-political groups like corporations, unions, and
lobbying groups. The Green Senatorial Campaign Committee is part of the
Green Party family and is classified as a party committee, not a PAC.
6. Q. So is the Green Senatorial Campaign Committee up and running
now?
A. We need to get approval from the FEC to operate fully as a
Senatorial Campaign Committee, a process we are working on that will likely
take some months. In the meantime, we are supporting Green Senate candidates
at a lower level of contributions.
7. Q. Is it easy to get FEC approval as a Senatorial Committee.
A. We really don’t know. This is the first time the FEC has ever
received such a request. The Democratic and Republican senatorial campaign
committees already existed and were grandfathered in when the FEC was
created and no third party has ever even attempted to create such a
committee. FEC regulations do not describe what it takes to become a
senatorial committee, just what limitations apply when you have it. Our
request is precedent-setting, and will probably result in the creation of
new FEC rules.
8. Q. What if the FEC denies your request? Would you appeal?
A. Any denial would be accompanied by a description of what we need to
do to qualify. We could appeal to the courts if we thought the denial was
blatantly biased against the Green Party. Otherwise we would have to plan
to meet the requirements laid down as part of the denial, continuing to
support Green Senate candidates but without accepting the larger donations
yet.
9. Q. What is the relationship of the Green Senatorial Campaign Committee
to the rest of the Green Party?
A. Legally, the GSCC is an entity which is legally independent of the
Green Party of the United States, and when approved by the FEC, it will
stand in parallel to the GPUS. Nonetheless, the GPUS voted to create the
GSCC, selects its members, and has final approval of the bylaws of the GSCC.
But the day-to-day activities of the GSCC are independent of the national
Green Party.
10. Q. What is your overhead? If I contribute to you, how much of my
money goes to candidates?
A. We have no paid staff, and we are keeping our administrative
expenses such as communications and fees very low. Virtually all
contributions go directly to Senate candidates.
11. Q. Are you in competition with Senate candidates or the Green Party
for fundraising?
A. We aren’t in competition with Senate candidates because essentially
all of our income goes to them. And many donors prefer to give to
candidates rather than parties, so we aren’t in competition with the Green
Party either. We were formed in part because Greens believed we could
increase the fundraising of the overall Green Party family, not because we
could divide the existing pie into smaller pieces. The party would not have
voted to create us if it felt we would be in competition with it for funds.
12. Q. If I give, is my donation tax deductible?
A. Contributions to the Green Senatorial Campaign Committee are not
tax deductible; contributions to electoral campaigns and political
parties never are.