On October 23, 2008, Fox News ran a segment on its national network that attacked Campaign Money Watch, a nonpartisan watchdog campaign finance project of Public Campaign Action Fund. The segment included misleading, inaccurate, and incomplete information. Below is a rebuttal to Fox News' attacks on our successful work to hold politicians accountable. During the segment, FoxNews reporter William La Juenese said,

"On TV and the Internet, John McCain's under attack, by the tax exempt Public Campaign Action Fund. A 501(c)4 dedicated it says to campaign finance reform and publicly financed elections. So, why attack a candidate who openly supports both? Well, turns out the supposedly nonpartisan fund is a shell for a left-wing hit squad, known as Campaign Money Watch, funded predominantly by labor unions and billionaire Democratic fundraisers. In fact, according to government filings, of the $2.5 million raised by the group since 2004, not a dime was used against a Democrat."

Fox News Attack: Public Campaign Action Fund "says [it is dedicated] to campaign finance reform and publicly financed elections. So, why attack a candidate who openly supports both?"

The Facts: Public Campaign Action Fund (PCAF) has worked to advance comprehensive public financing of state and federal elections and hold politicians accountable since our founding in 1997. Our primary accountability criterion is this, and will always be this, as long as we do this work: Where do politicians stand on enacting a comprehensive public financing law so that people can have their voices heard in the political process? The criterion is applied regardless of party affiliation.

Fox News is wrong about John McCain's positions. John McCain does not "openly support" public financing of all federal elections as a policy matter. He has held multiple positions over the years on public financing of elections. Recently, as he prepared to run for president, he refused to sponsor a bill to fix the presidential public financing system - a bill he once co-authored in 2003. More importantly, John McCain reversed his past support for using the state public financing law in Arizona, called the Clean Elections system, as a national model for federal elections. He told reporters that he opposed public financing for congressional races.

Fox News Attack: "Well, turns out the supposedly nonpartisan fund is a shell for a left-wing hit squad, known as Campaign Money Watch, funded predominantly by labor unions and billionaire Democratic fundraisers."

The Facts: Campaign Money Watch's mission is to hold politicians accountable for opposing comprehensive public financing of all federal elections and for demonstrating a pattern of favoritism toward big money donors and lobbyists. As a project of a 501(c)4, the most transparent way to go about this work is to set up a separate fund as a project of our 501(c)4. That project is organized under section 527 of the tax code and regularly discloses its donors as required by federal law. In fact, the only way this reporter could identify who supports Campaign Money Watch is because we established a 527 committee. If we were to run this project with funding from Public Campaign Action Fund, we would not be required to disclose our donors.

The common thread that holds our donors together is that they support our mission. Fox News specifically criticized Campaign Money Watch for taking contributions from labor unions. What they failed to report, even after we underscored the point in several phone interviews before the segment aired, is that the labor unions that have donated to Campaign Money Watch have also all endorsed the bipartisan public financing legislation that we support - the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 1285) introduced by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA). We are proud of their support for this bill and proud of their support for our mission.

There is nothing nefarious about raising questions regarding where politicians get their money and what they do for it in exchange. With Congress unwilling at this point to pass comprehensive reform, our efforts will help further the political saliency of being on the right side of comprehensive public financing of elections. In fact, who will do this work if not us?

Fox News Attack: "In fact, according to government filings, of the $2.5 million raised by the group since 2004, not a dime was used against a Democrat."

The Facts: Fox News is damaging its fragile, remaining credibility to suggest an organization that has spent $2.5 million over three election cycles is somehow representative of the problem of 527s, 501(c)4s and other political actors. What they fail to say is how we spent that money. We are proud to have led efforts to educate voters about Tom DeLay's pay-to-play politics, which no objective observer would call partisan, and about Ralph Reed's Jack Abramoff connections. The latter campaign was conducted during a Republican primary with no benefit to any Democrat.

Democratic elected officials are typically more supportive of public financing than their Republican counterparts. But in public opinion polling we find wide majorities of Democratic, Republican, and independent voters alike supporting public financing. We have never criticized Republicans who support public financing of all federal elections and we have called out Democrats who oppose it. We will continue to hold politicians accountable, regardless of party, for their position on public financing.