Priorities USA Action

• Priorities USA, also formed in 2011, is the Priorities USA Action super PAC's affiliated 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, which can raise unlimited amounts of money without disclosing its donors.
• Priorities USA Action also has a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Priorities USA Foundation.

Good, additional detail:

• FactCheck.org

• Ballotpedia  [The Lucy Burns Institute -- an American nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization founded in 2006 -- publishes Ballotpedia, an online wiki-style encyclopedia about the U.S. political and judicial systems.]

Priorities USA Action is a progressive political action committee and is the largest Democratic Party Super PAC. Founded in 2011, Priorities USA Action supported Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. Priorities USA Action was the primary super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Priorities USA Action focused mainly on high-dollar donors. As of September 2016, it had amassed $132 million in support of Clinton. The top six donors to the super PAC have given $43.5 million, which is a third of the money collected by Priorities USA Action in the 2016 election cycle. The super PAC raised $21.7 million in August 2016, marking its largest monthly fundraising haul.

History

The super PAC was founded in 2011 by former Obama campaign officials Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney to raise funds from wealthy donors, including corporations and unions, and support the re-election of President Barack Obama. As per FEC rules established in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the group is legally prohibited from coordinating with the candidate or his or her campaign. The group is led by Guy Cecil, who was the political director for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid. The Board of Directors includes Cecil, Jim Messina, Charles A. Baker III, Allida Black, David Brock, Maria Echaveste, Justin Gray, William P. Hite, Stephanie Schriock, Marva Smalls, Joe Solomonese, Greg Speed, and Randi Weingarten.

Its key backers in 2012 included Paul Begala, Teddy Johnston, Geoff Garin, Ellen Malcolm, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Bill Maher, Mary Beth Cahill, and Irwin M. Jacobs.

In 2014, the organization began to focus efforts on raising funds to help Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign. Jim Messina and Jennifer Granholm (former Governor of Michigan) were drafted to serve as co-chairs of the organization. Granholm resigned in August 2015 to join Correct the Record, another pro-Clinton super PAC.

The group was headed by David Brock from 2014 until his resignation in February 2015.

In 2020, after remaining neutral in the highly contested 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Priorities USA Action endorsed Joe Biden after his apparent delegate lead from the Super Tuesday primaries.

Criticism

On August 7, 2012 Priorities USA Action put out an ad titled "Understands," which "offers one man's story to suggest the investment practices of Romney and Bain Capital led to the early death of his wife." The man, Joe Soptic, explains that after the GST Steel plant was shut down, he lost his job and health insurance for him and his family which led to his wife's death from cancer. Politifact rated the claim made in the ad false, noting that the ad "uses innuendo for a serious allegation, but there's no proof directly linking the death to Bain." Factcheck.org found the ad to be "misleading on several accounts," including that Soptic's wife died "five years after the plant closed." Factcheck.org also points out that, when the plant closed, she had her own employer-sponsored coverage which she lost two years later and, furthermore, that Romney was running the 2002 Winter Olympics when the plant closed.

Additional Reading

[2020-09-22]  Top presidential super PACs boosted by "dark money" donations

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Priorities Action USA: $72,718,932
Preserve America PAC: $51,753,665
America First Action: $50,730,744
American Bridge 21st Century: $34,169,254
Unite the Country: $25,891,207

[2020-05-28]:  Election spending boosted by secret money tops $100M as IRS ends donor reporting rules

Dark money accounts for just 6 percent of total outside spending reported to the FEC this cycle, a low figure compared to nearly 9 percent at this point in the 2016 cycle and 14 percent in the 2018 midterms. However, spending by groups that only partially disclose their donors makes up nearly 40 percent of 2020 outside spending, a record high.

That's because dark money groups are increasingly funneling their cash to super PACs, which can then spend that money freely. Each of the top congressional super PACs affiliated with party leaders in the House and Senate are partially funded by dark money. The top outside spender this cycle is Democratic group Priorities USA Action, which receives millions from its nondisclosing nonprofit arms. The hybrid PAC has spent nearly $22 million this cycle and hopes to shell out $200 million before the Democratic convention.

[2020-05-22]  'Dark money' networks hide political agendas behind fake news sites

Supermajority also has a super PAC, with most of its money, $2 million, from Democracy PAC, a super PAC created by George Soros in 2019 to influence the presidential election. FEC records show Democracy PAC shelled out $1.75 million to PACRONYM as well as $5 million to Priorities USA Action and $2 million to Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century.

[2020-05-19]  "Dark money" overshadows 2020 election political ad spending

Democratic challengers have an advantage with an estimated 61 percent of TV ad spending used to support the Senate bids of Democratic candidates over their Republican opponents. Democrats received $34 million in air support compared to $20 million for Republican Senate candidates from Jan. 1 through May 10 2020.

Democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action outspent all other groups on ads in the past month and sponsored the second-most ads overall during the 2020 election cycle despite not kicking off its spending until February 2020.

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