Pennsylvania Representative Summer Lee strongly criticized political action committees (PACs) backed by cryptocurrency for funding advertisements that “demonize” candidates in the 2024 primaries, often for reasons unrelated to digital assets.
During a virtual event hosted by Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform on October 24, Rep. Lee took aim at the “influence and control” that special interest groups like crypto Super PACs have in targeting lawmakers seeking re-election in 2024.
The representative from Pennsylvania claimed that money from the digital asset industry was being used to “silence the few representatives actually fighting to hold them accountable.”
“If you have enough money, you can distort the conversation,” Rep. Lee said. “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.”
Rep. Lee specifically referred to the actions of the Fairshake PAC, which funded media campaigns 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 over $3 million combined into the two races.
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 that 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,” Rep. Lee said, 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.”
President of the Texas Blockchain Council, Lee Bratcher, told Cointelegraph at the Permissionless conference on October 10 that the activity of crypto PACs 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,” Bratcher said. “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.”
With only 12 days until the US election, many crypto Super PACs are still reporting expenditures supporting or opposing candidates in the 2024 election cycle, even as millions of US residents participate in early voting.
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 October 17. The PAC continues to fund media campaigns as Election Day on November 5 approaches. Fairshake has spent over $1.8 million to support California Representative Young Kim and over $800,000 for Texas Representative Monica De La Cruz Hernandez.
Another Fairshake affiliate, Protect Progress, reported media campaigns supporting Virginia Representative Suhas Subramanyam and California Representative Rohit Khanna.
While many media campaigns by crypto PACs have targeted congressional races, the US presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump is not entirely off-limits. In October, the Bitcoin Voter PAC funded advertisements supporting Trump and Senate candidates in Texas and Pennsylvania.