In his 2018 TV ad (above) "ex"-Republican candidate-- and multimillion dollar lottery winner-- now-Congressman Gil Cisneros said specifically "I won't take corporate PAC money... because leading by example is how we fix Washington." This invitation comes from his DC fundraiser Amy Strathdee, but please notice on the bottom who's paying for it. Also notice that the hosts are sleaze bag lobbyists. Mercado works for the American Petroleum Institute and Duran and Pino work for Walmart and Comcast. I wonder how Democrats in CA-39 will feel about this whole sleazy mess:And it wasn't just the TV ad. His also did made a big deal about the issue of PACs in the video he made in August, 2017 (below) when first introducing himself to CA-39 voters. "I will not be accepting any campaign PAC contributions into my campaign... As your congressman, I vow, I pledge that I will work to keep corporate money out of politics... I also pledge today that I will not accept any PAC money into our campaign system."This was a big talking point during both the primary and the general electionfor him. He doesn’t need the corporate money, but we're hearing from reliable sources that his wife won’t let him continue to spend their lottery winnings.Cisneros sent $12,030,393-- $9,252,762 of which was self-funded-- against Republican Young Kim. (She spent $2,885,746.) After some fishy recounts in the L.A. slice of the district, he managed to win with 51.6% of the vote, the narrowest win of any of the Orange County Dems who flipped seats, even though he was running in the district where Hillary had done best. Although, technically, the money didn't flow through the company PACs, among his top contributors last year were Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital, Lone Pine Capital, Wicklow Capital, Berkshire Partners and Microsoft. His top industry-- by far-- was Wall Street (Securities and Investment).So far, Cisneros has refused to sign on as a co-sponsor for either Pramila Jayapal's Medicare-For-All bill or for Alexandria Ocasio's Green New Deal. He's going to have a hard time holding onto progressive activists in his district if he continues to resist living up to what voters thought they were supporting last year. And there is no doubt that the NRCC plans to prioritize his district in 2020. We'll see if he also attracts a primary opponent.
Source