After Taylor Swift Debacle, Will Live Nation’s PAC Speak Now?

Today we look at Live Nation’s PAC now that everything has changed, investigate Ron DeSantis’ personal finances and look at House Republicans’ plans.

After this week’s glitch handling the ticket sale for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, lawmakers are wondering if they should’ve said no to Ticketmaster’s 2010 merger with Live Nation. If Swift were explaining the situation, she might say that Live Nation may know all too well what to do if it wants to get out of the woods and avoid congress’s vigilante s—t: it launched a PAC in October 2021. So it goes…

Live Nation PAC has received $86,000 in contributions, all from the company’s senior leaders, including CEO Michael Rapino and CFO Joe Berchtold. But the PAC’s expenditures are a blank space, as it hasn’t doled out any money, according to its most-recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, which covers through Oct. 19.

As individuals, Live Nation employees contributed at least $137,000 to other political committees in the 2021-2022 election cycle, with almost all of the change going to Democrats. Despite not being up for re-election, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) was the lucky one, receiving more than anyone. His campaign and PAC pulled in $45,000. Sen. Alex Padilla’s (D-Calif.) campaign took in $34,000, making the man the second biggest benefactor of Live Nation’s staffers.

The 1 corporate contribution Live Nation made itself was $8,700 to the 2016 host committee for the Democratic National Convention.

Spokespeople for Live Nation did not respond to a request to tell me why.

Full disclosure: Ticketmaster put your correspondent on the pre-sale waitlist.

Welcome To The Latest Issue Of Checks & Imbalances

This is the web edition of the Checks & Imbalances newsletter, usually sent to inboxes Tuesdays and Fridays. It’s free. To make sure you don’t miss an issue, subscribe.

Please support this work, if you can, by subscribing to Forbes. Any tips or suggestions? Email me at zeverson@forbes.com or call/SMS/Signal 202.804.2744. Follow me on Mastodon at @z_everson@journa.host. Thanks!

In Case You Missed It

Here’s How Much Ron DeSantis Is Worth

“Ron DeSantis, the person best positioned to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has more in common with Barack Obama than his Republican rival—at least when it comes to personal finances,” reports Dan Alexander:

DeSantis, who currently serves as Florida’s governor, has limited private sector business experience and a personal balance sheet to match. At the end of last year, he was worth about $320,000 and still owed roughly $20,000 in student loans, according to a financial disclosure report he filed in June.

Things should change soon, if they haven’t already. Politico reported in February that DeSantis secured a lucrative book deal with HarperCollins, the publishing giant owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Neither DeSantis nor HarperCollins responded to requests for comment, so it remains unclear exactly how much money might be involved. One anonymous source told Politico that DeSantis had backed out of a “handshake deal” with another publisher that was worth nearly $2 million.

Did Ted Cruz Use Campaign Money To Make His Latest Book A Best Seller?

Campaign-finance reports covering the week Sen. Ted Cruz’s book debuted at No. 9 on the New York Times best-seller list before dropping down two spots have not been filed yet, but there is reason to believe Cruz might have used campaign funds to boost his sales. Your correspondent joins Brittany Lewis in Forbes Newsroom to explain—and also to break down Trump’s 2024 announcement.

House Republicans Target Joe Biden In Probe Of His Son—As GOP Promises Onslaught Of Investigations In New Congress

“House Republicans vowed Thursday to make their investigation of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings a ‘top priority’ next year, focusing their efforts squarely on linking President Joe Biden to the alleged misconduct, setting up a battle with the White House the day after Republicans won the House majority—but the White House strenuously denied the GOP’s claims,” reports Sara Dorn.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is slated to chair the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee next year, said Republicans have uncovered evidence that shows the president “misused his public positions to further his family’s financial interests.”

Comer said in no uncertain terms that the president is the target of the probe: “To be clear, Joe Biden is the big guy,” he said at a news conference flanked by other Republican lawmakers, repeating a term Republicans claim was used to refer to the president in emails about Hunter Biden’s business dealings uncovered on the younger Biden’s laptop.

Tracking Trump

“Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel Friday who will decide whether former President Donald Trump should be indicted for crimes over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents, just days after Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign,” reports Nicholas Reimann.

*****

“Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman will not support former President Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, Schwarzman told Axios, making him at least the second Republican megadonor and one-time Trump ally to defect from the former president as he launches his 2024 campaign amid a weakened standing within the GOP,” reports Sara Dorn.

• “Trump Organization’s Lawyers Try to Pin Blame on Former Finance Chief” (The New York Times)

• “GOP megadonor Mercer family has no plans to boost Trump’s 2024 campaign as former president loses more allies” (CNBC)
• “A spokesman for Ronald Lauder, longtime friend of Trump and donor to Trump, says the billionaire businessman has no plans to support Trump this time around.” (Twitter/Maggie Haberman of the New York Times)
• “Trump’s paymaster” (Popular Information)

Editor’s Picks

• “A Rare Win In The Fight Against Dark Money” (The New Yorker)
• “Two anonymous $425 million donations give dark money conservative group a massive haul” (Politico)
• “National Republican Senatorial Committee et al v. FEC et al (22-639) challenges limits on coordinated party expenditures” (Federal Election Commission)
• “FEC to pay Josh Hawley campaign $23K to settle lawsuit over denial of public records” (The Missouri Independent)
• “Watchdogs Want Judicial Spouse ‘Disclosure Loophole’ Closed” (Bloomberg)
• “Senators float audit of Rick Scott’s NRSC” (Politico)
• “The simple reason Republican senators voted against same-sex marriage” (The Washington Post)
• “2020 election objectors overwhelmingly won reelection, but largely raised less money than the average incumbent Republican” (OpenSecrets)
• “Seven politicians are returning FTX’s tainted money — others are keeping quiet” (Popular Information)
• “FTX’s last lobbyists head for the exits” (Politico)
• “Republicans Lost the Races Where They Spent the Most” (The Daily Beast)
• “OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at a party Democratic consultant Mandy Grunwald hosted in her Georgetown home to celebrate Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-R.I.) new book, ‘The Scheme’ ($27.99) on Tuesday night: Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), David Brock, Judy Woodruff and Al Hunt, Margaret Carlson, Matt Miller, E.J. Dionne, Norm Ornstein, Ian Millhiser, Ruth Marcus, Josh Gerstein, Jane Mayer and Bill Hamilton and Kenneth Vogel.” (Politico)

In Closing

“Storm coming

Good husband

Bad omen

Dragged my feet right down the aisle

At the house lonely

Good money I’d pay if you’d just know me

Seemed like the right thing at the time”

— Taylor Swift, “High Infidelity”