WHEELING – Some donations to U.S. Representative David McKinley’s previous election campaigns are raising questions, causing a competing campaign to say the Republican is "caving to leftists."
During the 2018 and 2020 campaigns, McKinley’s re-election campaigns received donations of $10,800 and $11,200, respectively, from the Laura & John Arnold Foundation, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Billionaire John Arnold was a trader at Enron who later started his own hedge fund and became “the best trader that ever lived,” according to one competitor. He retired at 38 to focus on philanthropy. He started the Laura & John Arnold Foundation and decided to take on what he calls an abusive pharma industry that “doesn’t price drugs fairly.”
Mooney
Also in 2018, a Super PAC called Patients for Affordable Drugs (P4AD) spent about $500,000 to promote McKinley’s campaign. McKinley, a Republican, easily defeated West Virginia University law professor Kendra Fershee in that election. Arnold is behind 99 percent of the funding for P4AD.
In all, the P4AD super PAC called P4AD Action, spent more than $8 million on seven races in the 2018 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data.
Now, the campaign manager for McKinley’s main GOP primary opponent – fellow incumbent Alex Mooney – is calling out the link between McKinley and Arnold.
“With a history of supporting red flag gun control and other liberal ideals, David McKinley's support from both high dollar liberal donors and leftists PACs such as the National Teachers Unions comes as no surprise,” Teemu Garrity told The West Virginia Record. “Instead of caving to leftists like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Mooney is fighting for our conservative values.
“This distinction is why Congressman Mooney has received the support of real conservatives such as President Trump and the West Virginia Citizens Defense League, and why I know voters will see Congressman Mooney as the only conservative to vote for on May 10."
McKinley’s campaign did not reply to repeated phone calls and email messages seeking comment.
A few years ago, Arnold also pushed the idea of “bail reform” to replace judicial discretion with computer software. The software was used in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Wisconsin, California, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, New Mexico, Alaska and Ohio.
He promised it would reduce New York’s jail population by 40 percent, and he put up more than $44 million to support the plan.
According to Houston Daily, “New Yorkers did come to understand the impact of Arnold’s scheme, which barred judges from setting bail for a group of Arnold-deemed ‘lesser’ crimes, that included felony gun charges, theft, assault and most property crimes. And they hated it.”
Earlier this month, the New York legislature voted to roll back the Arnold reform plan. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who replaced Andrew Cuomo (who had signed the bill), said it was done because of “New Yorkers who are concerned about the rise in crime.”
Earlier, the Linda & John Arnold Foundation had distributed more than $1 billion to fund causes such as abortion, gun reform, single-payer health care and “far left journalism” and to defund conservative public policy organizations, according to InsideSources.Com.
“The Arnolds have a long history of massively funding extremely liberal causes while throwing a few pennies to conservative organizations to work on non-controversial issues,” the Inside Sources commentary written by Justin Danhof states. “They have worked tirelessly to look bipartisan, but it’s simply not true.”
According to InfluenceWatch.org, the Arnold Foundation has drawn criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.
“Many left-wingers criticize the foundation’s support of public pension and choice-based education reforms, while right-leaning critics challenge the foundation’s support of organizations such as Planned Parenthood and other left-wing organizations,” the site says, noting it has given almost $1.5 million to the William J. Brennan Jr. Center for Justice to “fund a fiscal-impact study of court-imposed fines and fees” and nearly $1 million more to “support the launch of a national law enforcement leadership group.”
Mooney and his campaign have been critical of McKinley for being a “Republican In Name Only.” Both GOP incumbents are facing off against each other in the new 2nd Congressional District primary on May 10 to represent the northern part of the state in Congress. They are in the same district now because West Virginia lost one of its congressional seats due to declining population.
Other Republicans seeking the seat are Susan Buchser-Lochocki, Rhonda Hercules and Mike Seckman.