Personal PAC and Campaign Finance reports

There seems to be some confusion, judging by some comments I've received, over this situation and how it works.

Personal PAC is an independent political action committee whose purpose is to defend a woman's right to choose. They, like any outside group, can decide to do a calling campaign such as the one they did against Rumler, or some other campaign activity, and do so at any time.

If and when they do something whose purpose is to benefit a specific candidate however, they must then report it to the Illinois Board of Elections as an in-kind donation to that candidate's campaign, which in this case was the Jacobs campaign.

As I understand it, the campaign which benefits from these efforts on it's behalf is not responsible for reporting this expense to the Illinois Board of Elections, rather the outside group making the in-kind donation is. Personal PAC reported its phone calls promoting Jacobs while misrepresenting Rumler's views as $27,000 worth of in-kind donations benefiting the Jacobs campaign. Peronal PAC reported this to the Illinois Board of Elections, not the Jacobs campaign.

The campaign activity and the reporting of the in-kind donation is not necessarily coordinated with the campaign it is designed to help. As a matter of fact, if it were, it would be a criminal offense. Coordination of the activities of an outside group with the campaign of the candidate it is designed to help is a huge no-no and someone might end up in jail.

While the outside group or PAC is forbidden from coordinating their activities with the campaign they're trying to assist, there is no rule against letting the campaign know about their plans ahead of time and getting the campaign's tacit blessing to run such a phone campaign, do a mailing, or whatever the activity may be.

The outside group and the campaign can't strategize or otherwise work together on the project and there is supposed to be a so-called firewall between the campaign and the group doing the outside campaigning.

Karl Allemeier quotes the head of Personal PAC in the Dispatch, "The candidate doesn't oversee it," Mr. Cosgrave said. "It is all done by me through contracted companies."

The key word here is "oversee". The candidate who benefits from such efforts can't have any part in planning, running, or "overseeing" the operation, though they may be, and likely are, fully aware of it.

Theoretically, it's possible for the campaign which these outside efforts are designed to help to have no knowledge of the group's activities on it's behalf. And it's possible that a campaign might actually feel that a group's "help" does more harm than good and might try to discourage them. But in the real world, campaigns are generally aware of and informed about what such groups are planning to do.

Any group who gives more than $500.00 to a campaign within 30 days of an election must file an A-1 form. As soon as that form was filed by Peronal PAC on Tuesday March 6th and showed up on the Jacobs campaign finance report, the Jacobs campaign surely knew what was going on, if not much sooner.

Personal PAC reported their in-kind donation in the amount of $27,043.93 to the Jacobs campaign to the Illinois Board of Elections on Monday March 6th.

Any statements that Jacobs has made about the matter must be judged against the information above.