What happens to the campaign funds when a representative switches sides. Does s/he have to pay back the DNC? What’s the straight dope?
Thanks
Sandwriter
p.s. Happy Thanksgiving
I haven’t heard of this becoming an issue in past party switches. Politicians tend to switch parties after they’ve established themselves in office securely enough to run on their personal name recognition, and thus tend not to have needed national party support during their previous campaign. In some cases where senators switched parties (for example, Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Richard Shelby), more than two years had elapsed since their previous election campaign, and this also tends to minimize the money issue.
Rep. Virgil Goode (VA) offered individual contributors to his campaign refunds after he left the Democratic Party in 2000, but, again, he hadn’t needed DNC support.
Even if a nationally subsidized candidate does switch, I wouldn’t expect to hear too much noise about it. It would be kind of unseemly to shout, “We poured $X million of soft money into your district, and then you switched parties on us!” But one hesitates to predict how politicians will act in any given circumstance.