Ryan Costello and the Republican Leadership PAC

         As a freshman House member, Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania's 6th District, has fewer bill sponsorships and committee memberships to his name than other Congressmen who have served multiple terms. He only sits on two committees, and a few subcommittees on each. The first committee he sits on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, where he is a member of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity and the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs. The second committee he sits on is the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, where he sits on the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, the Subcommittee on Aviation, and the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management. He has only sponsored three bills thus far, all of which stem from his work on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

            In the 2016 Election cycle, 70% of Representative Costello’s fundraising has come from PACs, 27% has come from substantial individual donations, and a mere 1% has come from small individual donations. In the span of his entire career (which began in 2009, despite the fact that he was not elected to the House until 2014), 54% of his donations came from PACs and 45% came from individual donations. Representative Costello’s top 5 donors in 2016 have been: the Bluegrass Committee, Citizens for Prosperity in America Today, Comcast, the Freedom Project, and the Majority Committee PAC. In the span of his career, his top donors have been: Dow Chemical, the Freedom Project, the Majority Committee PAC, Penske Corporation, and Duane Morris LLP.

        Representative Costello has almost always voted with the majority of Republicans on major bill proposals and the budget. This voting strategy becomes much more meaningful when you take a closer look at his major donors. Two of Representative Costello’s biggest donors in the 2016 election cycle are the Bluegrass Committee and the Freedom Project, both of which are Republican Leadership PACs, the first chaired by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the second chaired by former Speaker of the House John Boehner. Other major donors include Citizens for Prosperity in America Today, which is a Republican Leadership PAC chaired by Pennsylvania’s own Senator Pat Toomey, and the Majority Committee PAC, which is a Republican Leadership PAC chaired by Representative Kevin McCarthy.  Many of Representative Costello’s main corporate donors, including Comcast and Dow Chemical, are also major donors to these Republican Leadership PACs.

         It is clear that, in order to appease his Republican Leadership PAC donors and the corporations that support them, Representative Costello is working to establish himself as a reliable Republican voter who the party's PACs should continue to support. Over time, as he builds his career and becomes a more notable House member, his list of conservative donors will grow, and things will get more complex.

         Since Representative Ryan Costello is relatively new to Washington, his profile may seem a lot less interesting than that of a more experienced Congressman, but it is still fascinating to see how the continual support of Republican Leadership PACs has affected his voting habits.

Sources:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/ryan_costello/412651

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2016&cid=N00031064&type=I

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000036594

http://ballotpedia.org/Ryan_Costello

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2016&strID=C00235655

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2016&strID=C00305805

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2016&strID=C00491654

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave.php?cycle=2016&cmte=C00428052