Kelly and Slotkin’s Campaign Finance Practices Under Scrutiny
Senators Mark Kelly from Arizona and Elissa Slotkin from Michigan have advocated for a ban on corporate political action committees (PACs). Interestingly, campaign finance records reveal that they both benefitted from such PACs, which channel numerous individual donations from corporate employees into political campaigns, ultimately helping them secure their elections.
Records from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) indicate that the PAC known as Democracy Engine Inc. contributed over $1.1 million to Kelly’s Senate campaign and around $294,400 to Slotkin’s House campaign since 2020. Although Slotkin’s campaign returned $1,500 in donations, Kelly’s campaign returned $6,951, which his own PAC, the Mark Kelly Victory Fund, had initially received.
Democracy Engine, led by entrepreneur Jonathan Zucker, facilitates a means for corporate donors to bypass contribution limits imposed by federal law. While this PAC ostensibly allows individual contributions from corporate employees through specifically designed PACs, critics point out that it essentially functions like a corporate PAC with additional steps, according to Parker Sayer, an investigator focused on campaign finance issues.
Slotkin reaffirmed her stance against corporate PACs when she and Kelly reintroduced legislation to ban them, despite their ties to Democracy Engine. Notably, both senators have received significant backing from family members of major Democratic donor George Soros.
I am one of six senators who have never had a corporate PAC check. Our campaign finance system is broken. If you want to regain the trust of the left, right and center Americans, it’s simple.
Slotkin’s office asserts that Democracy Engine is not a corporate PAC, describing it as a conduit for individual donations rather than direct corporate contributions. In a July post, Slotkin claimed she never allows corporate donations to dictate her voting decisions.
Attempts to reach comment from Kelly’s 2028 campaign or Democracy Engine were unsuccessful. Slotkin, while running for the Senate, did not accept PAC funds from Democracy Engine, though she previously made a commitment to not take corporate PAC money in her 2018 campaign. Meanwhile, Kelly had similarly renounced corporate PAC contributions but later accepted funds from Democracy Engine for his Senate run.
Notably, Jonathan Soros and his wife have contributed over $4,500 to both Kelly and Slotkin’s recent campaigns. Despite these associations, both senators continue to push for restricting corporate influence in elections, asserting that elections should be conducted for the people, not corporations.
Do you think businesses should have a say in our elections, as people do? Well, I don’t. Neither does @senatorslotkin. That’s why we’re fighting to ban corporate PACs.
While the Soros family has made significant personal donations to both candidates without using Democracy Engine, their financial impact continues to raise questions about the consistency of the senators’ positions on corporate political contributions.
