John Kennedy hasn’t formally announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat David Vitter is vacating next year, but the state treasurer appears to be inching ever closer to making it official.
Last week, a super PAC created in July by Kennedy’s longtime aide, Jason Redmond, began circulating the results of a poll it had commissioned showing Kennedy with a commanding lead in the race over his potential Republican opponents.
Earlier this week, the John Kennedy Campaign Committee also began touting the poll results in an email that appeared to be sent from the Louisiana Treasury. The email uses the same picture of Kennedy that appears on the state treasury web page and includes an image that appears to be the official state seal but, actually, is not.
The email concludes with instructions on how interested donors can contribute to the campaign.
Absent from either piece of digital promotion are the results of an independent poll conducted by Gulf Breeze, Florida-based Market Research Insight and commissioned by a group of private business leaders. Those results, obtained by Daily Report on Dec. 11, do not show Kennedy ahead of other GOP candidates, but puts him in second or third place, depending on the theoretical matchup with announced or possible candidates.
Poll numbers aren’t the issue for Kennedy at the moment, however. The more interesting question about his candidacy is funding, specifically whether he can legally transfer some $2.8 million from his state campaign fund to the federal super PAC.
Redmond won’t say how much the political action committee has raised since its creation five months ago, but he suggests the numbers may change substantially, recently telling Daily Report, “There is a possibility his state campaign can make a contribution to the federal super PAC.”
Redmond declines to elaborate and says he has not been in communication with Kennedy about any such contribution. Federal election law prohibits coordination and communication between a candidate and an independent super PAC.
Though federal and state campaign finance laws contain plenty of gray area with respect to candidates and third-party super PACs, local experts in the field are fairly confident Kennedy will be able to legally donate from his state campaign fund to Make Louisiana Proud, though he will technically be prohibited from having any oversight into how the PAC spends the money.
Attorney Gray Sexton, who formerly headed the Louisiana Ethics Board, says state law does not preclude such contributions. Neither does federal law, according to attorney and CPA William Potter, senior tax director at Postlethwaite & Netterville.
“He can put the money in there, but if he does he’ll have to kiss it goodbye,” Potter says. “He won’t have any say in how it is spent.”
If and when Kennedy may transfer the money remains unclear. Redmond says he has no information on what the treasurer’s campaign plans to do and refers all questions to Kennedy.
A Kennedy spokeswoman at the treasurer’s office, however, says she cannot answer questions about his campaign and declines to make him available for an interview on the subject. Campaign finance reports must be filed by the end of the year and will be released publicly in January.
—Stephanie Riegel
