Politico described the Priorities-Senate Majority PAC collaboration in Highway 31 as a “ joint effort” between the two.
that appears to be financially intertwined with Senate Majority PAC. Priorities USA is another self-described “progressive” super PAC based in D.C. Formed by a Birmingham lawyer and named after a well-known north-south highway in Alabama, Highway 31 received 94 percent of its funding from Senate Majority PAC and another PAC called Priorities USA. Highway 31 was a “puppet PAC” formed to create the impression that the well-funded opposition to Moore was locally based. Aware that Alabama voters might recoil from a Washington dark-money outfit jumping in to sway an Alabama election, Senate Majority PAC acted through another super PAC that attempted to present itself as more local.
It spent its remaining $215 million “against Republicans.” In short, 6 percent of its $230 million spent on elections was for a positive message “for Democrats” and the remaining 94 percent was on negative ads and attacks on Republicans.Īs a bona fide member of the Washington swamp, Senate Majority PAC does not appear to have been totally transparent about what it was doing. Senate Majority PAC did not ignore Republicans, however. Open Secrets reports that Senate Majority PAC spent more than $230 million on federal elections, of which less than $15 million was spent on contributions “for Democrats.” Its contributions to Republicans were exactly zero. Its size and clout can be measured by the money it raised in the 2020 election cycle: more than $372 million. Senate Majority PAC was not just a major player in the Alabama elections, but a major player in the dark-money world of Democratic finances. Senate Majority PAC urged the court that Moore could not recover any damages for loss of reputation because the attacks by the media and others had already “ ruined Moore’s reputation beyond repair.” The brutality of the campaign against Moore is illustrated by one of Senate Majority PAC’s defenses to his defamation claims. The federal court described the barrage of what appeared to be well-coordinated attacks on Moore by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Senate Majority PAC, and others, as a “firestorm of sexual assault allegations.”
To say that the election was hotly contested is an understatement. To grasp the message that the jury appears to have been sending, it is necessary to consider the tone of the 2017 special election, the background of some of the key players, and a bit about the defenses raised. In 2017, he was in a special election contest against Democrat Doug Jones to fill the Alabama Senate seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions. Moore, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, had been a controversial figure in Alabama politics, stemming at least from when he became known as the “Ten Commandments Judge” after installing a granite monument in the Alabama courts building that included a depiction of the Ten Commandments.
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