$1 Million Pfizer Donation to Republican Party of Kentucky to Be Used For “Mitch McConnell Building”

Pharma giant Pfizer donated $1 million to the Kentucky Republican Party last month.

The generous gift from the COVID-19 jab manufacturer is believed to be the highest donation to a political party in state history.

Pfizer’s donation will be used to expand the Frankfort Mitch McConnell Building in the state capital.

“A sign identifies the party headquarters as the Mitch McConnell Building, in honor of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky,” the Kentucky Lantern reports.

The Republican Party of Kentucky received a $1 million donation from Pfizer to expand its headquarters – The "Mitch McConnell Building"

— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) January 9, 2023

Cont. from the Kentucky Lantern:

A report filed by Republican Party of Kentucky Building Fund last week with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance listed the $1 million from Pfizer along with five other big corporation contributions in the final quarter of 2022 totalling $1.65 million.

That is an extraordinarily large haul for the fund which had raised only $6,000 during the first three quarters of 2022.

The other large corporate donors to the fund in late 2022 were:

• Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., New York, $300,000;
• Altria Client Services LLC, of Richmond, VA., $100,000;
• Comcast Corp., of Philadelphia; $100,000;
• AT&T, of St. Louis; $100,000;
• Delta Air Lines, of Atlanta, $50,000.

State and federal campaign finance laws set limits on how much a person or political action committee can give to the executive committee of either political party. (A person can give no more than $15,000 per year.) And corporation contributions to a party’s executive committee are prohibited.

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But part of a campaign finance bill passed by the General Assembly in 2017 allowed each party to establish a building fund that can accept contributions of unlimited amounts. It also allowed the building funds to accept contributions from corporations.

The Kentucky Democratic Party’s building fund has not yet filed a report on its contributions and expenses for the last quarter of 2022.

The election registry website says that money in a party building fund “may be used for expenditures related to the purchase, construction, maintenance, renovation, and repair of the state executive committee’s main headquarters facility.”

Sean Southard, spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky, said in a statement that “the Republican Party purchased the lot next door to our Frankfort headquarters and is planning an expansion project. Our current headquarters was acquired in 1974. With the growth of the Republican Party in Kentucky, we have a need for additional space.”

“As we raise funds into the building fund account, we are following both federal and state law. The funds raised into this account can only be used for certain expenditures related to the building and are not eligible to be spent on candidate or issue advocacy,” Southard replied to questions about the enormous size of the corporate donations.

Read the full report at the Kentucky Lantern.