Toxic donations: Candidates rush to dump funds from Swalwell and Gonzales

                                                                                                                                                                                

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APRIL 16, 2026

Leading the news this week: With Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Tony Gonzales heading for the exit, candidates who received support from the two disgraced lawmakers are racing to give away their money. Also in this newsletter:  FedEx and UPS, shipping giants poised to benefit from the Postal Service's financial problems, spent a combined $20 billion lobbying the federal government last year. Voters in at least three states will get to determine the outcome of proposals to change campaign finance laws. The Chart of the Week examines the billion-dollar battle over the environment.

Toxic money: Swalwell and Gonzales sent now-unwanted thousands to other campaigns Before they stepped down this week under mounting pressure, Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) had distributed thousands of dollars to other candidates through their leadership political action committees. Amid the public outcry against those departing lawmakers, though, some recipients are now rejecting those contributions, Joedy McCreary reports. Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress on April 13, one day after ending his gubernatorial bid in California following allegations of sexual assault that he has denied. Hours later, Gonzales said he would retire amid bipartisan calls for his expulsion after admitting to an affair with a staff member who later died by suicide. Neither lawmaker has said when he will formally leave office. OpenSecrets contacted officials from both campaigns and their leadership PACs with questions about their plans for those political action committees, but did not immediately receive responses. Leadership PACs allow federal officeholders to raise and distribute money to other candidates, often to strengthen vulnerable incumbents or competitive challengers. They can also serve as political leverage for lawmakers seeking influence within their party or considering higher office. Through February, their two PACs looked very different on paper. Remedy PAC (Swalwell) Swalwell’s Remedy PAC had nearly exhausted its resources, reporting just $32,436 cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission data. It donated $30,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – more than it gave to all individual House and Senate candidates combined. The PAC made $26,826 in contributions to federal candidates: 14 sitting House members, nine House or Senate challengers and a one-time Senate candidate – former Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) – who has since ended that campaign to seek local office.  Its most recent contribution was $1,000 to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) on Dec. 29, 2025. The PAC’s largest beneficiary was Wisconsin Democrat Rebecca Cooke, who received $3,000 in three installments. Cooke, who is challenging Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R), said in an April 12 X post that she is donating the contribution to five charities in the state. Honor Courage Commitment PAC (Gonzales) Gonzales’ committee, Honor Courage Commitment PAC, retained $208,445 – buoyed by repeated five-figure transfers from his joint fundraising committee, the Tony Gonzales Victory Fund. It donated $144,500 to 28 congressional candidates, either current or former: 14 House incumbents seeking re-election, 11 House challengers, two sitting House members not seeking re-election and one candidate for Senate. Seven House candidates, all out-of-state GOP incumbents, received the maximum $10,000 – $5,000 each for the primary and general elections. Four were from New York, a key battleground for House control, and others included incumbents in Iowa, Arizona and California. The PAC also sent $10,000 to Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), who has since abandoned his House re-election bid to run for governor.  OpenSecrets contacted the campaigns for each of the eight top recipients, but did not immediately receive any responses. Read More

As USPS faces a cash crisis, rivals FedEx, UPS spend big on lobbying FedEx and UPS – two private carriers positioned to capitalize on a weakened U.S. Postal Service – poured nearly $20 million into federal lobbying in 2025, Joedy McCreary reports in his analysis of disclosure filings. A series of events left USPS bracing for an uncertain future. First, its leader warned the agency could run out of cash by 2027, leaving it unable to pay employees or vendors. Amazon then announced it would sharply reduce the number of packages it ships through the Postal Service. Amazon moved more than 1 billion packages through USPS last year, roughly 15% of the agency’s total volume. A two-thirds reduction could strip USPS of billions in revenue amid those concerns of insolvency. USPS cited that “severe financial crisis” in announcing plans to raise stamp prices by four cents, to 82 cents, in July, saying it is “using all available tools” in attempting to keep meeting its universal delivery obligations. Amidst all this news, FedEx spent $12.7 million on lobbying last year, with UPS reporting $6.3 million in lobbying expenditures, with both disclosing their efforts to influence postal policy.  Read More

2026 ballot measures: 4 reforms targeting campaign finance and dark money While federal courts are considering cases that could alter national campaign finance practices, voters in a handful of states will have a direct say on changes to laws governing election funding when they cast ballots in November. Of the 93 measures currently set to appear on ballots across 35 states, four in Alaska, California and Missouri focus specifically on campaign finance. These measures address policies such as repealing dark money disclosure requirements, establishing new contribution limits, authorizing public campaign financing and banning foreign contributions to ballot measure campaigns. Jackie Mitchell breaks down each of the proposal and the maneuvering in each state. Read More Chart of the week Earth Day 2026: The billion-dollar battle over the environment Reducing or eliminating the use of fossil fuels is the most significant way countries can combat carbon emissions, but the oil and gas industry has greatly expanded its lobbying influence in the past two decades to counter federal efforts to reduce emissions. As Hien An Ngo reports, the industry – which argues that environmental regulations increase consumers’ costs and hurt economic growth – spent $2.6 billion from 2006 to 2025, six times more than what environmental interest groups spent over the same period.  Environmental interest groups tend to spend more on campaign contributions than lobbying, but they are still overshadowed by the scale of campaign contributions that flow from fossil fuel interests. Of the $79 million the oil and gas industry sent to candidates during the 2024 cycle, 88 percent of contributions went toward Republicans. Environmental interest groups spent $16.5 million on direct contributions, 8 percent of which went to Republicans. Breakthroughs in renewable energy technologies and pushes for cleaner energy have brought the alternative energy sector to the main stage of the climate debate. Industry spending on federal lobbying nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, marked the largest investment in greenhouse gas reduction to date and provided significant tax incentives and subsidies for the alternative energy industry.

What else we're reading ‘Dark Money’ Kingpin Leonard Leo Revamps Operation Ahead of Midterms (NOTUS) California’s governor’s race has no frontrunner — but plenty of cash. See who has the most (San Francisco Chronicle) Louisiana political donors would have addresses redacted from public reports under bill (Louisiana Illuminator) Garrity hits Mar-a-Lago as she struggles to compete with Shapiro on fundraising (Spotlight PA)

OpenSecrets in the News See our media citations from outlets around the nation this week: The American Experiment Has Been Infected by Oligarchs (Mother Jones) No person anywhere, in any era, has spent as much to sway election outcomes as Musk, the richest person in history who, according to OpenSecrets, shelled out almost $292 million in 2024 helping get Trump and other Republican candidates elected. And that doesn’t count the value of harnessing his X platform to support a twice-impeached, felonious former president who openly promised to make the rich richer—and delivered. ‘Dark money’ is fueling both sides of Virginia’s redistricting campaign (Cardinal News) The Virginians for Fair Maps referendum committee and Virginians for Fair Maps 501(c)(4) are likely two separate legal entities with the same name, with one passing money to the other, said Brendan Glavin, director of insights with OpenSecrets, a Washington-based research group that tracks money in U.S. politics. “If that is the case, they probably would have formed it very recently,” Glavin said of the Virginians for Fair Maps 501(c)(4). “There can be a lot of lag on the IRS site to actually see a new filing.”  Want to win a seat in Congress? Be prepared to spend big. (The Boston Globe) Nationally, congressional campaign spending has more than tripled over the last 25 years, climbing from a combined $3 billion in 2000 to an $11 billion peak in 2020, according to data from OpenSecrets. The total cost of congressional races in 2024 hit $9.5 billion, and in Massachusetts — where incumbents rarely lose and open seats offer a dinner bell for ambitious Democrats — spending that year reached $47 million, including the $28.7 million dropped by Senator Elizabeth Warren amid her successful reelection campaign.  Someone Has to Be Happy. Why Not Lauren Sánchez Bezos? (The New York Times) When she was married to the Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell, Mrs. Sánchez Bezos attended President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, and she gave money to Democratic candidates, including Ms. Harris in 2019 and Senator Cory Booker in 2018, according to OpenSecrets, a group that tracks political spending.  Despite bipartisan concern, efforts to establish social media guardrails for children stall in Congress (Spectrum News) Big tech is a multitrillion-dollar industry that spent more than $100 million on federal lobbying last year, according to the group OpenSecrets. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, shelled out more than $26 million. Amazon spent nearly $19 million and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, spent $16.5 million.  See More

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