Political Action Committees

In the last year, Josue Larose has mystified state and federal officials by forming 160 political action committees -- groups with names like the Florida Billionaires Political Committee and United States Former Vice Presidents Federal PAC. The Deerfield Beach, Fla., man is a political unknown. But he seems to have set a record for organizational zeal. He has started so many political action committees that he's chairman of about a quarter of the state's 362 PACs, the Florida Division of Elections said.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg donated $350,000 to the Los Angeles school board campaign this week, records show. Bloomberg's contribution, which was filed Tuesday, will enlarge the already sizable war chest of the Coalition for School Reform, a political action committee led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The goal of the coalition is to back candidates who will support the policies of L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy and pledge to keep him on the job. Before the March primary, Bloomberg contributed $1 million for the three board races - the largest contribution ever made in an L.A. school board campaign.

Ethics reforms proposed by the mayor's special commission recently would force Los Angeles politicians to give up unofficial fringe benefits that money often cannot buy, such as choice season tickets to Lakers basketball games.

Los Angeles County prosecutors say they are probing possible campaign money laundering that may be connected to a local water board member who is part of a powerful political family in the City of Commerce. The inquiry into the financial dealings of Art Chacon, a board member at the Central Basin Municipal Water District, comes in response to a Times story that reported on his fundraising for a political action committee in 2008. The committee was advised by Chacon's brother, Hector, who is a school board member in Montebello and veteran campaign consultant in southeast L.A. County.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) ranked third among House members in collecting campaign funds from the entertainment industry and savings and loans, while Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) was second in receiving health-care industry contributions in 1989-90, a new national study says. The survey also found that both Waxman and Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) raised more than half of their funds from political action committees and Rep. Anthony C.

Prospecting for campaign contributions in his run for Assembly, Redondo Beach Mayor Brad Parton has decided that this year he should forget about striking the mother lode. "People who in the past were able to give $250 or $500 now give $50 or $75," said Parton, a Republican. "They say, 'Brad, it's just really tight right now. This is the best we can do.' " South Bay Assembly and state Senate candidates report slow going on the fund-raising circuit.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) has asked the Federal Election Commission for permission to use funds from his political action committee to pay legal costs incurred by his son during an investigation of the so-called Keating Five scandal. In a letter to the FEC dated March 2, Bruce H. Turnbull, a lawyer representing Cranston, said the senator wants to reimburse lawyers for his son, Kim, with funds from the Committee for a Democratic Consensus, a PAC operated by the California Democrat.

An effort by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Brown to woo African American voters has touched off a controversy within the state's largest teachers union that threatens to dislodge one of its highest-ranking black officials. Leaders of the California Teachers Assn. are investigating whether Alice Huffman, the union's political director, violated the CTA's internal conflict-of-interest code.

John Francis Foran, at 5-foot-5, vividly recalls his encounter with the Hells Angels 28 years ago. He was a state lawmaker from San Francisco, leading the uphill fight for a bill requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets. And there he was, toe to toe with Sonny Barger and a dozen burly, tattooed gang members. "You know how big I am?" asked Foran, recalling the meeting at the state Capitol.

One current and three former Agriculture Department employees pleaded guilty Friday to conspiring to pressure subordinates and colleagues to contribute to a political committee that supported Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential bid in return for favorable job consideration after the election.

Seeking to increase its influence in Washington, Facebook Inc. is starting a political action committee to funnel employee contributions to federal candidates. The move to create what will be called FB PAC is another indication of the company's political evolution as its dramatic growth creates a need to protect itself from government policies, such as potentially tough online privacy regulations. Three top House Republicans were scheduled to appear Monday at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto to take questions from employees and guests.

Satirical talk show host Stephen Colbert took his act to the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, shining his lights — literally — on the normally obscure bureaucracy. Colbert had petitioned the three Republicans and three Democrats on the commission to give their blessing to a political fundraising organization the comedian decided to form last spring. Packing cameras and spotlights, the team from Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" showed up to hear the commission debate whether Colbert should be allowed to form a corporate-backed political action committee — Colbert Super PAC — and use the resources of parent company Viacom to produce and air election-related ads. Colbert's proposal, jocular though it may be, raised the potentially serious prospect that other television personalities might seek to create similar fundraising groups, with questions centering on how much they would be required to disclose about their employers' involvement.

Reporting from Washington -- Los Angeles City Councilwoman and Democratic congressional candidate Janice Hahn has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over a widely criticized hip-hop-themed video that links her to gang members. The ad, which uses stereotypical hip-hop video imagery and features Hahn's face superimposed onto a stripper, was produced by a new third-party political action committee called Turn Right USA. Hahn's complaint alleges that Turn Right is working with the campaign of Republican Craig Huey, her opponent in the race to succeed Jane Harman in California's 36th district.

Despite mounting calls for greater transparency, only a few of the country's 75 leading energy, healthcare and financial services corporations fully disclose political spending, according to a review of company records and state and federal campaign finance reports . While complying with legal requirements to report direct donations to candidates, the vast majority of these companies — many of which are seeking legislative favors from the...

Can you launch a campaign without a candidate? A political action committee is stepping up efforts to lay the groundwork for a White House run by Jon Huntsman, a Republican who recently announced plans to resign as the U.S. ambassador to China. Horizon PAC launched a website Tuesday with a whimsical flair, featuring a prominent red H and the notion "Maybe Someday. " "Maybe someday we'll find a new generation of conservative leaders. Well-grounded leaders of vision. Who will bring back America.

While the presidential campaign hasn't officially started, Mitt Romney leads the pack in pre-campaign fundraising by a handful of potential Republican presidential contenders, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission. The former governor of Massachusetts and millionaire founder of Bain Capital raised more than $5.5 million in 2010 through Free and Strong America, his federal political action committee. The PAC closed out the year with nearly $800,000 in cash on hand.

Former Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.), complaining that presidential campaigns are too long and costly, called for elimination of contributions to candidates by political action committees. "All the flurry about PACs misses the fundamental point--that only people vote for President," said Baker, speaking in Washington. "And I think really that only people should contribute," he added. "That would mean the elimination of political action committees.

Republican South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint's political action committee, which is trying to elect like-minded conservatives to the Senate, made a fundraising push Friday as it neared its $5-million goal. The committee already has invested $4.9 million in 11 Senate campaigns, including those of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Rand Paul in Kentucky and others. On Friday, DeMint highlighted Joe Miller in Alaska, who beat Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the primary but now faces a write-in challenge from the incumbent, as well as the campaigns of Ken Buck in Colorado, Dino Rossi in Washington and Sharron Angle in Nevada.

For the second time in a month, a California Chamber of Commerce political action committee funded in part by major insurance companies is bankrolling TV ads to help Republican Mike Villines in his race against Democrat Dave Jones for state insurance commissioner. In campaign finance disclosure documents, the deep-pocketed chamber reported that it was spending $280,234 to fund "media production" for television advertisements that oppose Jones. The same report showed that the chamber's political action committee, called JobsPAC, received six contributions from insurance company interests totaling $387,000.