The House Commerce Committee and its Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection Subcommittee offer a prime example. But the competition that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was supposed to trigger has been slow in coming. Both sides have sought help from the House Commerce Committee, which oversees the telephone industry. Like the corporate, union, and issue-oriented PACs, lobbying interests also use double giving to maximize their influence. Most members with leadership PACs give at least a portion of what they take in to other candidates, but many also use their PACs to pay for travel, direct mail, consulting fees, and other expenses associated with their own political activities.
Direct mail is a costly way to raise money, because it generates many small contributions.
But it's useful for building a nationwide list of potential donors and supporters for a presidential run. Ashcroft's PAC is not alone in collecting many contributions while doling little of the money out to other federal candidates. Although it's likely that many leadership PACs will open the purse strings as Election Day nears and the contested races become more sharply defined, some leadership PACs are clearly in business primarily to finance their sponsors' political activities or advance their ambitions. That may seem disingenuous, but it's hardly illegal. Now you have the newer members, even the freshmen, setting them up.