My top recommendation for political donations is Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley's Leadership PAC. Since 2010, I've given $5000 each year. I'll tell you the big story about what Leadership PACs are and why this one is so great.
Leadership PAC money is to pass on to other people's campaigns. Jeff can't be use it for his own re-election. He puts most of it into Senate races ($180,000 in the 2018 cycle), though he donates to House candidates ($45,796 in the 2018 cycle) and state-level races sometimes. The great thing about Leadership PACs is that I'm basically buying influence for Jeff. Senators have taken his money and owe him favors.
If you have broadly progressive political views, you'll want to build Jeff's favor bank. He's great on every big issue from health care to climate change to immigration. (Medicare for All, Green New Deal, he broke the refugee kids in cages story by personally showing up at a detention center and demanding as a Senator to be let in). With my money, he basically becomes my lobbyist on a broad portfolio of issues. I can't get that if I donate directly to Jon Ossoff or whoever. By donating through Jeff, I give my causes influence with him. As an out-of-state donor, I can't really ask her to vote the right way on a key issue, and I might not know which procedural vote is the important one for making a big difference. Jeff has his eyes on the process and can easily talk to her face-to-face.
Focusing on the Senate is good. A competitive Senate race costs about 3x as much as a House race and has well over 13x the impact. Senate terms are 3x longer and the Senate is 4.35x as concentrated, which multiplies to ~13. The Senate also considers all those nominations to Cabinets and Courts and the Fed. Also treaties, which are important for global coordination and preventing war. Historically it's the tightest bottleneck in part because of the filibuster, so it's the place where we need help. Senate power is definitely the thing to buy. With this I can help Democratic Senators win and build Jeff's power within the Senate all at once.
Jeff is my dream Senate Majority Leader. He manages legislative blocs with a gentle soft-spoken style that gets people to see reason and avoids making enemies. The things he did on a 31-29 majority as Speaker in Oregon back in 07-08 are legend -- they passed the whole Democratic agenda they'd campaigned on (better educational funding, civil unions for gay people) plus cool things like a new form of collective landownership that made life easier for people in trailer parks. He got the 31 Democrats to vote as a bloc, voting even for a few things they didn't want, because otherwise a few defections would sink almost everything. So they passed everything.
Leadership PAC money is to pass on to other people's campaigns. Jeff can't be use it for his own re-election. He puts most of it into Senate races ($180,000 in the 2018 cycle), though he donates to House candidates ($45,796 in the 2018 cycle) and state-level races sometimes. The great thing about Leadership PACs is that I'm basically buying influence for Jeff. Senators have taken his money and owe him favors.
If you have broadly progressive political views, you'll want to build Jeff's favor bank. He's great on every big issue from health care to climate change to immigration. (Medicare for All, Green New Deal, he broke the refugee kids in cages story by personally showing up at a detention center and demanding as a Senator to be let in). With my money, he basically becomes my lobbyist on a broad portfolio of issues. I can't get that if I donate directly to Jon Ossoff or whoever. By donating through Jeff, I give my causes influence with him. As an out-of-state donor, I can't really ask her to vote the right way on a key issue, and I might not know which procedural vote is the important one for making a big difference. Jeff has his eyes on the process and can easily talk to her face-to-face.
Focusing on the Senate is good. A competitive Senate race costs about 3x as much as a House race and has well over 13x the impact. Senate terms are 3x longer and the Senate is 4.35x as concentrated, which multiplies to ~13. The Senate also considers all those nominations to Cabinets and Courts and the Fed. Also treaties, which are important for global coordination and preventing war. Historically it's the tightest bottleneck in part because of the filibuster, so it's the place where we need help. Senate power is definitely the thing to buy. With this I can help Democratic Senators win and build Jeff's power within the Senate all at once.
Jeff is my dream Senate Majority Leader. He manages legislative blocs with a gentle soft-spoken style that gets people to see reason and avoids making enemies. The things he did on a 31-29 majority as Speaker in Oregon back in 07-08 are legend -- they passed the whole Democratic agenda they'd campaigned on (better educational funding, civil unions for gay people) plus cool things like a new form of collective landownership that made life easier for people in trailer parks. He got the 31 Democrats to vote as a bloc, voting even for a few things they didn't want, because otherwise a few defections would sink almost everything. So they passed everything.
Usually I'd also be able to tell you about the day-and-a-half long fundraisers in Portland and the Oregon wine country, but that's all canceled due to the pandemic this year. The picture above is me and Jeff some years ago in the vault of a winery. (He is quite tall.) I hope we can do it again soon -- it's a great place to learn what goes on inside politics. The picture below is Jeff's Chief of Staff, Mike Zamore, earlier in the Trump era. He's one of my favorite people to talk to at these things.
Here's a donation link. It's called the Blue Wave Project. The only thing I'm seeing of comparable value this year is in state legislative races and I have to do more work to figure that out. But if you think you might be giving money to Senate campaigns this year, this is my best idea about how to do it.
