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
Shifting Ground
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The map is moving — and PAC directors need to be ready. What does the Supreme Court's VRA ruling mean for contribution strategy, incumbent relationships, and budgets built before the lines changed? Plus: with fly-in season arriving and 45 primaries still ahead, a conversation on GOTV and civic engagement — and a preview of Leader of the PAC, a new Facts About PACs series on career paths in the government relations community.
Really gotta be thinking about what your plan is and what your recommendations are gonna be to your wards. Welcome back to the Facts About PECs. I'm Michaela Isler, MapPEX president and CEO, and I'm joined today by my co-host David Shilden, Adam Belmar. Guys, the pace of events just keeps ratcheting up, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01Michaela, the uh news cycle is really fast and furious this week. There's a lot to talk about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm getting kind of an icy pop headache. It's just my brain is freezing and I don't know what to make of it, Michaela. But we're pack directors, we're podcasters, we move along.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, there's a lot for our members to be thinking about and trying to game out, as we say, uh, over the next couple of months as we've got Supreme Court decisions and redistricting and all the things coming at us, which have a direct impact in what we do every single day. So excited to have this roundtable discussion with both of you as we do. But I do want to mention just a few NAP activities. It's been another busy week. We had our policymaker speaker series with Congressman Walkinshaw from Virginia, and we had a great turnout from our members this week. Um, really excited about the conversation and allowing an opportunity for our members to have further discussion with other members of Congress. So really pleased that we were able to put that together. But looking ahead, we've got our favorite prognosticator, Jim Ellis, is joining us next week for our May luncheon on May 5th. And as we do here at NAPAC, we're centered around Cinco de Mayo. So I think we're gonna have a taco or two, uh, Adam, uh, for our guests. And I'm looking forward to a little bit of a celebration, but also hearing from Jim Ellis on really what all the Supreme Court decisions redistricting could do, but also, you know, what are the races he's looking at right now? Um, no shortage of uh intel that we're gonna get from him next week. And then uh we're doing something new here at NAPAC. We're partnering with Wiley really to get with in-house counsel who may not have a background in campaign finance, but are probably, you know, dealing with it every day through their government relations teams and their PACs. And so we thought it would be a really important and timely event to bring in in-house counsel to have a sort of campaign finance 101. And so that'll be actually next week as well over at the Wiley offices. We're really excited. We have something like 140 attendees registered for this. There'll be CLE credits. And then Amy and I are going to do a little bit of a 101 for both the in-house council, but also maybe those that are new to the profession and really just need uh kind of that high-level overview of really how to get a pack up and running and how to really engage your members.
SPEAKER_00This is really special. You mean pack directors now have their own take your in-house counsel to work day. And they have a really cool place to take them, and there's a lot to learn. David, I think as a past president of NAPAC and as a senior scholar in the realm, this is this is good news, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Uh, as I used to say every morning when the NBC logo would flash across my cartoons, the more you know is sort of the key to being a political professional today. And NAPAC just keeps coming with this current and timely educational program. And Michaela, I think we'd be sleeping on what's coming in 195 days. The NAMPAC post-election conference. Never too soon as you walk by those Costco supplies of sunscreen to start thinking about how we're all going to be gathered in warmer climates for that signature event.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're really already in the thick of planning for that. Uh, so obviously our members are excited and should be saving the dates from November 11th through the 13th. It's hard to believe we're coming up on May here, but launching registration probably uh mid-June. So more to come on that. And then I should also just mention we have our now annual hill visits scheduled for June 10th. So that's coming down uh on the horizon in June, but really looking for our members to show up big for that. We have lots of important issues to talk about before Congress.
SPEAKER_00Picture Day. It's always great to have a picture when you're going up to the hill. It's a point of pride for the team that we got up there and we did that work, and I love it. And I see a lot of pictures. David is a bit of a shorpa taking people in and around the halls of Congress, as so many of our listeners are. And I'll tell you, if you're watching the news and you're seeing these headlines that Michaela mentioned flying at a furious pace, you know that the electoral maps are moving and they're gonna keep moving. The courts are involved, and there's a lot going on all of a sudden about this, Michaela and David. It's gonna get questions coming at PAC directors everywhere.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's really incredible to watch what's going on now with redistricting all over the country. And of course, the Supreme Court comes in and basically challenges the current congressional districts in the state of Louisiana. I think it's just at the time that we're taping today that the Louisiana governor steps up and says, I'm gonna probably not hold the May 16th of Louisiana primaries. And of course, you know, when you're a PAC professional and you're mapping out that budget, right, and what's gonna be your primary and what's gonna be your general election spending, those dates on the calendar are really pretty critical. So, Adam, you and I were talking about this off the air. You know, there's a couple of things, right? You've got to go revisit your budget and your strategic plan and say, okay, what is this going to do to our planned expenditures? And then I think the other part of this is this is another moment where you can shine as the political subject matter expert within your organization. And this is something that, you know, it's pretty inside baseball in terms of you know who's reading the SCOTUS blog and who's following the mastinations of these particular rulings. But inside your company, I mean, imagine if you've got a major facility or if your organization has operations in City of Louisiana, this is kind of a big deal. The congressional maps are getting redrawn, you know, with the midterm, again, you know, five, six months away. So I think understanding that, understanding how it impacts your PAC, what you're doing about it in response, and maybe you're not doing anything except monitoring the situation. But I think going to your people first with some sort of expertise about what this means, I mean, it's just a great opportunity, again, to demonstrate that the PAC is the center of political intelligence at your organization.
SPEAKER_02Well, and also having a plan and some recommendations to your PAC board, to your senior management. You know, you may be, as we look at even Florida just passing uh, you know, their redistricting plan yesterday, obviously that'll be challenged as well. But, you know, now you're looking at some of these districts where you could have two and three incumbents running against each other, and maybe those are people you all have all supported in the past. So there's just a lot to think through. Is sitting on the sidelines the right thing? It may be, but really got to be thinking about what your plan is and what your recommendations are gonna be to your boards.
SPEAKER_00And NATPAC is always great at helping our members see around corners. And paying attention to this will point up very quickly states that you might be active in or that are of great import to your industry or company, like Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi. These are states that, according to the smart political press, are likely to move quickly. So impacts that might not be foreseen as to their specificity can be anticipated, that the political animals in each state will have to do a rerun of their calculus, Michaela. And that keeps us all honest, David. That's what you have to do because this isn't going away. I think if anything, we might just hear from the prognosticators that we're guaranteed more of this through the end of the decade until you get another census done.
SPEAKER_01I mean, this is one of the reasons that PACs sort of have to game out potential scenarios. I don't know many PACs that have a uh JPP, right? A jungle primary policy. But that's kind of what you're what you're looking at, right? You're looking at potentially two candidates that you support and a court or a legislature forces them into a race. And then you've got to make some pretty strategic decisions about are we gonna have a policy in getting involved? Can we truly rack and stack and rank these candidates? You know, but I can tell you, I remember sitting there awkwardly at some you know pack board meetings saying, we like both of these folks, only one of them can be the winner. Do we get in? Do we stay out? Do we go big? Do we go home? These are all things that you could game out in advance, but certainly if you're confronted with that situation today, probably uh probably good to get the right people around the table and have a discussion.
SPEAKER_00Another issue that is certainly come to the fore that many people outside of what we all do might not recognize as being very important clock is, and we've been talking about it all year, Michaela, super PACs, how are they developing? What is the impact around AI and crypto? They're very active in the space. And we're seeing so much more in the news all of a sudden about what's going on there, the corporations in some cases that are getting involved, right? So we might not know all of it until the FEC numbers are in. But if you're standing in the storm, I can tell you it's raining, David. And it's important for everybody to keep an eye on this because our constituents, our members, our member companies are all gonna have questions. What does it mean? How is this impacting us? And we can't be caught unaware.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, one of the things, Adam, that's kind of a truism is in Washington is that once an economic sector is particularly robust or thriving, it's not gonna be very long before you see them opening government relations shops and then getting involved in elections, right? So what's interesting is you can sort of read the Financial Times and see who's booming and whose market cap is expanding and where all these billions of dollars are being expended, let's say it's on data center construction, and then flip the politico. Guess who's starting an IE-only pack? Guess who's opening a big government relations office? You know, these two things are connected. Ultimately, any big industry is going to end up in Washington and in our elections in a big way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's not just AI and crypto. I mean, you know, if you just open up political influence every day, there's an, you know, a handful of new super PACs. These are definitely not going away. And we are challenged as traditional PACs because uh, you know, obviously we can't compete with that kind of numbers uh from a pure dollar perspective. You know, we're still stuck at the 5,000 we can raise and the 5,000 that we can give per election. But the one thing that we've been talking about at NAPPAC, I think we have to kind of keep our head down and focus on, you know, sort of what we do bring to the table besides just that initial investment. But we do have the millions of employees. We do have that ongoing relationship with our donors. Uh, you know, David, you and I have been in this business a long time. You know, many of our members have been talking a lot about just good government, civic engagement, why be involved, talking about the issues of importance. And there's that long-term relationship with our donors that I don't know that super PACs necessarily have, at least not yet. And I think that's a real differentiator for us. And we've got to stay focused on being able to talk to our employees and our members directly about the issues and then also just general get out the vote, good government issues.
SPEAKER_00We have done a good job this year in mentioning when we see things pop up as to Michaela's point and political influence and other reportage that's keeping us all focused on people declaring and what they're doing. And Anthropic, which is in the news a lot, has got itself an employee-funded PAC. And when I saw that, it really made me think a little bit about the idea of necessary and sufficient. It is absolutely necessary to have an employee-funded political action committee. But it is not sufficient. You there are other things you're going to have to do, and it's going to have to be as a powerful element to your government affairs shop, to David's point. But they are vital, and you need to have them, and you have to be able to put them together. And so even as those super PACs are getting headlines, there are people also who are quite publicly saying, yeah, we think an employee-funded PAC helps all of our work in Washington.
SPEAKER_01You know, Adam, as we talk about all the things that are happening in the news cycle, I can't help but think that there's still 45 congressional primaries yet to happen as we lead into the midterms of 2026. And for a second, as a PAC director sitting at your desk, stop thinking about raising and spending dollars and some of the other things that probably fall across your area of responsibility and two that jump out right away are fly-ins. Because boy oh boy, don't so many people in the PAC community either fly in their contributors or are part of the overall G effort to go to Capitol Hill. As the cherry blossoms are being swept up off the title basin, that means it's fly-in season about to begin. And what is your role there and how do you emphasize the value of the pack at that? And then the other thing I would just say is GOTV, right? Get out the vote efforts traditionally, somebody looks around that GR office and says, Who's going to organize our get out the vote effort? Well, there's the pack director, somebody who already does political involvement. And the nice thing about GOTV efforts, right? They can expand obviously outside your restricted class. That's a really great thing in large organizations where you may be limited in your fundraising. But the other part of it is you get to be really nonpartisan and I would say pro-democracy. Right? What's one of the core tenets of our pack messaging? And that is that this is another way under the law that we get involved in elections. But let's not forget about the number one way, which is go out to the polls and vote. And if your organization simply facilitates getting you registered and says, we believe civic participation, not who do you vote for, but just go into the ballot box is important. You know, really it's a great uplifting message you can put out there to your entire organization.
SPEAKER_02And I know a lot of folks, especially with, you know, maybe big companies that are consumer-facing, are always so worried about upsetting employees and looking to be too political. And I don't know about you, David, but I found the feedback that I got from my employees when we did this sort of good government civic education, it was really viewed, I know I've mentioned this many times, as really more of like an HR benefit. And employees consistently shared that they were really proud to work at an organization that prioritized disseminating this information in a nonpartisan way. It was just good government. Where do I get registered to vote? Where's my polling location? But as a PAC director, you could even take it a step further. I know a lot of us do year-end reports and we run down all the list of candidates that the PAC has supported. And one thing Sharon talks a lot about on our team is why don't you share the list of candidates that you're supporting before the elections? And it's not necessarily saying go vote for or go vote against, but if you're a PAC donor and you're involved in the political process, like here's all the candidates we're supporting. I think, you know, those are some proactive ways to really get that engagement and and and connect the dots on why this is so important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, Michaela, I've never been a fan of a government relations approach that treats what happens in Washington as somehow inside a black box or a special kind of magic that the average person couldn't understand. And so you don't need to know what we're doing. I think the more you talk about what happens in Washington, the more involved people will get. And I really think that when you take someone's money, with it comes an obligation and a responsibility to say, this is what we're doing with it, this is how the political process works. We're all better off when people can see very transparently what these processes are, how your team works, that it is an advocacy, a storytelling device for the work that they do. You're in the Washington office. Just remember you're not building airplanes, you're not sewing the fields, you're not necessarily, you know, a part of a PL, bluntly, if for a lot of our organizations. The people who are keeping your lights on, right, they're out in the field. You want them head down, drilling for oil, building automobiles, writing code, whatever it is that they do, you're their advocate in Washington. Show them and tell them what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that transparency extends to the storytelling that makes it possible to bridge that gap and know what's going on and have confidence in doing that. I've enjoyed this episode, and I really want to take a second before we end it, David, to ask you. We have a special news series that we're gonna launch next week on this show. And you dreamt it up, and I'm really excited for everyone to know about it. What are we calling it?
SPEAKER_01Well, Adam, so many people in our listening audience are on a career journey and they look aside to the corner office and they see somebody who has sort of had a successful career and they wonder, how did you get there? What's your biographical information? And that's really the impetus behind our new series, Leader of the PAC. It's an in-depth and intimate conversation with folks who are senior leaders, not just within the PAC community, but within the Washington Government Relations community at large. And we're gonna sit down and we're gonna talk about how they got there and what their advice is for people who see themselves on that journey at whatever stage it might be. I think there's gonna be some really, really great conversations, and it speaks to something that's always there in the background. What journey am I on? Where am I going? And who can I look to ahead of myself as uh as sort of a map?
SPEAKER_02I love this, David. Um, and I you may remember this back in the day uh when you were at Dunn Associates, but I did a whole pack campaign on Leader of the Pack. So, Adam, I'm expecting the music and the episode, I'm expecting some motorcycles. But no, we're really excited to be able to feature uh some of our members who've been around quite a while that are very well respected in the community and um still involved in our organization. So looking forward to that episode next week. And with that, I just want to thank everyone for downloading and sharing this podcast. Subscribe and meet us right back here next week.
