Sen. Jeff Flake: "Most Beautiful" On Capitol Hill Sheds His "Porkbuster" Label; Plotting New Fundraising Activities (FOLLOWING MONEY IN ARIZONA'S POLITICS)

(Editor's Note: This story that I was just finishing researching just re-wrote itself.)

Opinions vs. facts:  U.S. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) may be the "Most Beautiful" person on Capitol Hill, as determined by TheHill.com - and it may hide an "ugly reality", as determined by a key opinion columnist at The Arizona Republic - but when he moved from the House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate this year, the fact is that Flake himself quietly shed the "Porkbuster" label.

In 2007, then-Rep. Jeff Flake started his leadership PAC, and decided to call it the Porkbuster Political Action Committee.  This past December, his accountant filed Porkbuster's 2012 post-general finance report.

Then, just before moving over to the Senate, without any fanfare, Flake changed the name of his leadership PAC.  The amended statement of organization - filed on January 2, 2013 - simply drops the long-standing porkbuster moniker in favor of an eponymous acronym.

The leadership PAC shall henceforth be known as the Fiscal Leadership And Knowing Economics PAC - FLAKE PAC, for short.*  Not as unique or descriptive, but certainly more befitting the more dignified, rarefied air of the Senate.

How did Arizona's Politics even notice this?  Because the freshly-remonikered FLAKE PAC is joining forces with the Senator's 2018 re-election committee to jointly raise funds.  His Treasurer filed last week to form the "Flake Victory Committee."  (This is a permissible** way to give contributors a one-stop way to donate larger amounts of money to an elected official's committees.  Leadership PAC's CAN contribute to an official's "victory" by permitting the official to contribute money to colleagues' campaigns.)

P.S.  While an economics degree is not required to be someone "knowing economics", it should be noted that Flake's degrees from BYU are in International Relations (B.A.) and Political Science (M.A.)

*Pursuant to federal election laws, members of Congress are not allowed to use their name in the name of his or her leadership PAC; eponymous acronyms are apparently OK, and seem to have become almost de rigeur.

**An FEC spokesperson confirmed to Arizona's Politics that it is okay for leadership PAC's to raise money for its affiliated committees.





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