Facts About PACs Podcast
The Facts About PACs Podcast is the #1 PAC podcast in America. The show is produced especially for the members of the National Association of Business Political Action Committees (NABPAC). Each weekly episode includes a recap of the association's latest activities, actionable intelligence for the employee-funded and business trade association PAC community, and an interview with a featured guest. Show host Micaela Isler is the President and CEO of NAPBAC.
Facts About PACs Podcast
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When the news cycle won't quit, staying focused on your issues is key. A candid conversation for employee-funded and business trade association PAC directors.
Because when the pack gives the money, there is an issue message attached to that support.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Facts About PACs. I'm Michaela Isler, NABPAC's president and CEO, and I'm joined today by David Schild and Alan Belbar. Well, guys, we had snow yesterday, and it's hard to believe after 80-degree weather just the day before.
SPEAKER_01Michaela, it is always good to be with you guys. I see that the NABAC investments in weather control are failing once again. Uh spend more and spend it in better places, I guess.
SPEAKER_00But it was so apropos, though. I mean, it's whiplash. It was 80 degrees the day before. It was literally snowing and everything was covered in snow. And by the time I got back to the window around 4:30 or 5 o'clock yesterday, it was all gone.
SPEAKER_02Well, hopefully that was just an anomaly, and we're going to be warming up here over the next couple of weeks. I am ready for spring. And you know what else I'm ready for, guys? I am ready for St. Patrick's Day because we have the great NAPEC's very own Mark Renade from Wiley joining us at our March luncheon on St. Patrick's Day. And he's going to be covering, you know, all the legal and practical aspects of how corporations and associations can engage during this important election year, really to supplement their PAC giving. So he's going to be talking about partisan communications, candidate fundraisers, GOTV, and more, all things that all of our members are already doing. But hopefully we'll get a good overview from Mark at that event. So I'm excited about next week. But as we look beyond, we have a really busy April. We're bringing in a couple of candidates for meet and greets. Um we've got our roundtables, so lots of great important uh events coming up here at NATPAC.
SPEAKER_01Adam, uh I thought it was gonna be warm weather in the same way that Dan Crenshaw thought he was gonna come back to Congress. And boy, weren't we both surprised. Let's talk about these primary elections. The primary picture is sharpening up, and you know, this is the time when you actually start picking winners and losers, people start moving forward towards the general election, or they decide that they're gonna go be president of a university somewhere. You know, primary season really means something to pack professionals, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00You bet. Nothing ever seems so obvious and so clear as the results in the rear view mirror, whether you've been looking at your incumbent as invincible, or you just know in your heart that you've always got to be building new champions, finding fresh voices. These pictures that come into clear relief when you see people being knocked off the stage, you know, and who's next up?
SPEAKER_01Well, and Michaela, you know, this is a thing where sometimes in, you know, political involvement, we have a hard time pointing to wins and losses, right? There's this old phrase in Washington that when a piece of legislation moves forward, everybody takes credit for it. And when it goes down, nobody wants to take the blame. And in many cases, elections are similar, but I think it is important for PAC professionals to be able to point to wins and losses. We talked a lot on this show about scorecards. Usually that's in reference to the general election and what comes out, you know, a week later in November. But as you go through primary season, especially where you have actually gotten into primary elections with your pack dollars, I don't think it's a bad idea to point to wins and losses, right? This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the money is actionable. And if you're more modest or if you want to be careful to not say that, you know, hey, we're puppet masters here pulling the strings, you can pull back a little bit in your rhetoric. But it's important, I think, to lean forward and say elections have consequences. Political involvement has consequences for who wins and loses on election day. And we're a part of that because you're a part of the pack, you're a part of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and the primary is such an important role in the ultimate, you know, who's obviously going to end up in Congress. And this is really where our members can make a real difference in identifying those pro-business candidates and helping ensure that they get across the finish line by November. And so I know a large number of our packs don't engage too much in primaries, but there's some real opportunities here that I think for the business community to identify those champions, to engage their employees, to get them involved beyond just the PAC dollars.
SPEAKER_00When you say engage employees, I think it's so underestimated how much employees can be engaged by the news cycle, right? I mean, things are fresh and they're popping and people are talking about it, and all of a sudden it does seem relevant. And those questions that you are trying to foment are actually naturally being asked. What does this mean for us? What are we doing here? Get the PAC director on the phone, David.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Adam, this is one of those things where you can have this sort of um, let's call it, down ballot benefit for your PAC when you're the expert on a Supreme Court decision, when you're the expert on a piece of legislation moving forward, when you're the expert about what's happened in North Carolina's fifth district, there's this, there's this ancillary effect, right? Which is your members and your prospective members say, hey, the person in that seat seems to really understand what's going on in politics. And let's never forget, right, you're selling yourself as the good steward of those dollars. When you demonstrate real competency in understanding elections and election law, I think people are more inclined to hand over their dollars and entrust them to you.
SPEAKER_02Well, Adam, you brought up a good point about sort of this chaotic news cycle. And I I know that our members and and pack professionals, you know, sitting at their desk, this is a tough time to be asking for money and to engage their employees in the process. There's a lot of questions, but I think the one thing we've said over and over on this show is it's not a time to retreat. It's not a time to panic, it's a time to really lean in and be the arbiter of information that's important to your employees, to your organization, and to be sure that that's being communicated. The employees want this information. We know that over 30 years of data and and evidence that they want to come to a place that they trust and that they can get the right information. And our members are doing that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you you can't panic and you can't retreat when the temperature goes up. We're really looking here in the United States and among our electorate and our elected officials in schools, in conference rooms, conversations, debate about resources and priorities for our nation. And these, in the context of national security threats and what is happening in the Middle East, they're not very easy questions to answer. They are painful, there are real lives in the balance, but it does sort of beg this idea that a lot of the other policy questions that we are trying to get involved in that also don't get much attention are never going to pop and raise the temperature quite like we have right now. But if the questions are around a certain thing like a war, it is an opportunity, David, I think, for us to sort of broaden the lens and say we're engaging with lawmakers on a host of issues. This one, it may be of concern to you and to us because it impacts economy and all these other things. But this is why we're in this space. We have to keep our voices loud.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I think that what unites your contributors and potential contributors are the business and organizational concerns that you have together, and what's always going to divide them is probably the thing that is right below the masthead in the New York Times. And so pack professionals have historically gotten into trouble when they try to say, here's where we are on war, guns, abortion. Probably that's not what your organization is all about. And there's this, you know, there's this little bit of an incongruity where you say, well, that's what's dominating the news cycle, but we make widgets. And it's like, yeah, but your expectation, the job you've been given in Washington, is to go handle widget policy and widget issues. And it might seem inconsequential right now, but it's the uniting force behind why people give you those dollars. Now, there is a time to be silent, sometimes when the news cycle is particularly loud or intense, but I think you gotta stay on that message and not sort of, you know, follow the prevailing winds.
SPEAKER_00You have made that point before, and it has really stuck with me in some of our shows over the last couple of years, where you've pointed out that one way to translate that advice that you've just given is to narrow the focus from Congress as a giant animal and get specific.
SPEAKER_01I think most of the people listening to this show would be considered beltway insiders. They're government relations professionals, they're political involvement practitioners, and you have to re put yourself in the shoes of someone working in a manufacturing facility, someone out in a field office, someone who doesn't wake up every morning and think about what beltway traffic is going to do to their commute. And by that I mean the Congress that people see on television is very often not the Congress we work with. And if you don't remember that there's a handful of very loud talking heads who are, in people's minds, the Congress, and pivot the conversation to, you know, the chairman of the appropriations committee or the ranking member on S T is really the person that we care about right now. Let me introduce you to them. Let me talk about why this community of jurisdiction matters, or why this legislative vehicle is important, or why this rulemaking is going to move our bottom line. You're not really getting to the Congress that affects your contributors and potential contributors. And I think that's just a really important point, is what's being yelled about on the Sunday morning talk shows is probably not what's really happening tactically for your government relations team.
SPEAKER_02That's such an excellent point. They're not thinking about it the way we do inside the beltway. And one thing we've talked a lot about too is at the same time, you know, your competitors and adversaries, they're also not stopping their engagement because Washington feels messy. And so, you know, walking away just really seeds ground to them. And if you needed any reason to continue fighting, is to not let your competitors and adversaries win over you.
SPEAKER_00One of the things that I think our listeners appreciate is they watch the ebb and flow of the policy news stories, that sort of newsletter currency that we all read day in and day out. Take a look at housing. You know, I don't want to call too many people out, but you know, home builders are part of NABPAC and so many other people who are involved in private property and investments and housing are here. And that is a very nuanced and very politicized topic on Capitol Hill. And at one moment it's ascendant, and the next moment no one wants to talk about it, but it's critically important for American people constantly. And that work does not stop. And that's true in those committees, even though it's off the headlines to David's point. The Congress that you're seeing on TV is not the Congress that we're working with. And the deep, deep belief in what the right way forward is, it does exist. And there is a lot of bipartisan support for solutions. And so I think that as political professionals, we have to appreciate we're raising money, yes. We're looking for champions, we're trying to push the ball forward, yes. But more than anything, business is looking to be a consensus maker and a way forward. That is what we all have in common, and that that's a uniquely American thing that we do, and it's very important to me that we keep highlighting that because I'm proud of what we do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I used to say when I would go out to people and solicit for pack dollars, um, if you're particularly fired up about an issue that's in the news cycle and it's driving you to vote a certain way, then I want you to vote your conscience. I want you to go out and make that choice. My job is to represent this particular set of issues through one of the tools that we've been given by Congress and by the courts to be a participant in this democracy, and that's what brings us together. And if we want to get a raging debate going in this room, right, I was doing pizza and politics sessions, uh, uh pancakes and politics if it's breakfast time. But I would walk in and say, you know, if we want to be divided, let's start going through the headline issues. If we want to be united, let's start going about what we do at this factory. And you don't have to agree with your coworkers about some of these hot button issues. And you, when you're in the privacy of the voting booth, can pull the lever that you think is appropriate for you. But this is what we have in common. This is the common cause. Oh, and by the way, this only works if we get together. Your individual contributions really don't move the needle, but when we aggregate them, we start to talk about the level of funds that can influence outcomes on election day and can move the needle for for individual candidates. And so I think that's part of the message as well is you know, people would ask me, why don't I just go home and write a check? And I would always say, Because when the PAC gives the money, there is an issue message attached to that support. I used to do campaign fundraising and we sent form thank you notes to the people who wrote personal checks. And we understood what it was that PACs cared about and what their issues were when we got PAC checks. There's just a fundamental difference with the interactions of those dollars and campaigns that receive them.
SPEAKER_00Michaela, through that lens, as you try and talk to so many people in and around Washington, from corporate leaders to people who are practitioners in our space, you're often confronted with the differences between super PACs and employee funded and business trade association packs. David just made the best case for the mission of the Employee Fund and Business Trade Association Pact. Is that salient in in your rhetoric when you talk to people?
SPEAKER_02Just nodding my head because, well, and David knows, and it's probably become a little bit more acute now, but um in our class at GW, you know, our students have to create a PAC. And I've followed in the great steps of David in teaching this class, and you know, every single one of them want to create a super PAC, and every one of them want to talk about super PACs. And I've spent the last three weeks, you know, talking with media, talking with students. Um, I got to guest lecture at Georgetown last week. This came up, and there is so much confusion between super PACs and traditional PACs, and talking through just exactly what David said is that, you know, the millions of employees who come together on issues of importance to their organizations, their industries, that original small dollar donation where, to David's point, pooling our resources to come together to make a greater impact. And also just, you know, one thing we're looking at at NATPAC is it's a lot of money, hundreds of millions of dollars that are being dumped into a particular campaign. You know, the question really remains is it moving the needle? And yes, it's a lot of money. But I think what we have that they don't have is we have those millions of employees who are engaged. I say to people, we have an obligation to our employees and our donors to be the most trusted source of that political information, to present this information in a bipartisan issue-focused way. And, you know, we have to sit next to each other in an office or in a facility. And so I can't be hyperbolic and clickbait in my messaging and my communications as a traditional PAC. And that really is a unique differentiator that I think our members need to always remember and to really need to lean into and then also think beyond the PAC and how can we get those employees more involved beyond just giving?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, don't fall into the trap that money is the engine of democracy. Votes, human beings, and shared interest drive this country forward in the same way that our PACs and our businesses do. And getting the engine fuel wrong would be greatly overestimating the impact that you can have in any real way on a competitive electoral landscape.
SPEAKER_02You brought up the Crenshaw race in Texas, and it's kind of a prime example of why, you know, money is certainly important, but he had four to one the amount of money as his opponent and still lost. And there's another 60 or 70 candidates that ran, you know, in the last election cycle that had more money and lost. You know, we always say all politics is local. A lot just depends on the candidate, the district, the makeup, the voting strength, all of those things come into play. And our members need to remember that and really need to be focused in on these races beyond just the money.
SPEAKER_01I'm not rooting for anyone to lose a primary race. I'm not rooting for a jungle primary where two incumbents get pitted against each other. I'm not rooting for a last-minute retirement where five minutes before the registration deadline, somebody says they're not gonna run. All of those things have happened in the last two weeks in electoral politics in America. And I would just say this: it reminds us that it's interesting, it reminds us that it's unpredictable, that we need to pay attention to it, right? There's a sort of narrative quality to hey, every two years we've got to do this in the House, we've got to do this with a third of the Senate. And by the way, if you're wondering what the world is going to look like in 24 months, 36 months, 48 months, consider that the people who are winning and losing elections right now are the people who are gonna build that world. It's very easy to look at what Congress is or is not doing right now and say, I can't believe these guys. I can't believe what they are or are not doing on my behalf or on my adversary's behalf or why can't they get their act together? We'll remember where that started. It started at the ballot box, it started on election day, it started with you choosing to be involved or not involved, right? If you're unhappy, get off the sidelines, get to work, get involved in the political process.
SPEAKER_02And it's just getting started. We've got so many primaries to come, and we have Jim Ellis back in person in May to really um kick off much of those primary results. So uh hopefully we'll see you all there. But guys, thanks for a great show. This is a really fun discussion, and thanks to everyone downloading and sharing this podcast. Subscribe and meet us right back here next week.
