Pennsylvania Representative Summer Lee staunchly criticized cryptocurrency-backed political action committees (PACs) for funding ads “demonizing” candidates in 2024 primaries — often for reasons unrelated to digital assets.
Speaking at an Oct. 24 virtual event hosted by Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform, Rep. Lee took aim at the “influence and control” special interest groups like crypto Super PACs used to target lawmakers running for reelection in 2024.
The Pennsylvania Representative claimed that money from the digital asset industry was being used to “silence the few representatives actually fighting to hold them accountable.”
“[Y]ou can distort the conversation if you have enough money,” said Rep. Lee. “Look at what they did to my colleagues and friends Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. We’re talking about a nurse and a principal […] in those races, the crypto PACs spent more than $3 million to unseat them […] we lost some of the most important voices in Congress.”
She added:
“It’s about keeping regular people out and letting the big players take over, and crypto knows this. They know regular people can’t go up, against, over $134 million in spending in one cycle. They’re exploiting the system, and they’re obscuring what their actual interests are in these races.”
Rep. Lee referred to actions by the Fairshake PAC, which funded media buys opposing Bowman, the Representative for New York’s 16th Congressional District, and Bush, the Representative for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District. Both Democratic candidates lost their respective primaries in June and August after the crypto PAC poured more than $3 million combined into the two races.
Fairshake PAC’s reported expenditures from January 2023 to September 2024. Source: FEC
Related: Crypto firms contributed 48% of all corporate political donations in 2024: Report
Cointelegraph reached out to a Fairshake spokesperson for comment but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
In August — after Rep. Bush lost her primary — Fairshake’s Josh Vlasto claimed the Missouri representative was an “anti-crypto, Elizabeth Warren-endorsed lawmaker,” suggesting that the crypto industry would support candidates favorable to its interests.
“What we’re arguing is not that folks, industries, interests shouldn’t have a say in our democracy,” said Rep. Lee, referring to crypto and other interest groups. “What we’re saying is that they shouldn’t have the loudest say. They shouldn’t have an outsized say.”
Texas Blockchain Council President Lee Bratcher told Cointelegraph at the Permissionless conference on Oct. 10 that the crypto PACs’ activity and industry leaders funding campaigns was a “function of how democracy works.”
“People are realizing that using funds to get face time and get bandwidth to educate elected officials… it’s almost like a function of the market,” said Bratcher. “If you want to educate someone, you have to have time to do that. To get time to do that, you have to be a big part of their campaign.”
12 days until the US election — money is still flowing
Many crypto Super PACs continue to report expenditures supporting or against candidates in the 2024 election cycle, even as millions of US residents go to the ballot boxes for early voting.
With control of the House of Representatives and the Senate up for grabs depending on the results of crucial congressional elections, Fairshake and its affiliate Defend American Jobs reported spending $1.3 million to support candidates across five US states to the Federal Election Commission on Oct. 17.
The PAC continues to fund media buys as Election Day on Nov. 5 looms. Fairshake spent more than $1.8 million to support California Representative Young Kim and more than $800,000 for Texas Representative Monica De La Cruz Hernandez.
Protect Progress, another Fairshake affiliate, reported media buys supporting Virginia Representative Suhas Subramanyam and California Representative Rohit Khanna.
Though many of crypto PACs’ media buys targeted congressional races, the US presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump isn’t entirely off-limits. In October, the Bitcoin Voter PAC funded ad spots supporting Trump and Senate candidates in Texas and Pennsylvania.
Magazine: Crypto voters are already disrupting the 2024 election — and it’s set to continue
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