Democrats who flipped four key Pennsylvania Senate seats are calling for Jeffrey Yass, Pennsylvania’s richest billionaire, to be held accountable after he spent over $9 million in a failed effort to help Republicans hold on to the chamber.
Democrats will control the chamber for the first time since 1993 and now have the opportunity to limit Yass’ influence on Pennsylvania politics with a legislative trifecta in Harrisburg.
“ I knew that they were to invest a lot in my opponent because they knew what was at stake, right? They knew that [a Democrat winning Senate District 6] was likely going to flip the entire state Senate,” state Sen.-elect Eileen Hartnett Albillar (D-Bucks) told The Keystone.
Campaign finance reports filed with the commonwealth show that the PA Education Choice Fund, a Yass-affiliated political action committee (PAC), donated more than $4.7 million to Albillar’s opponent, state Sen. Frank Farry (R-Bucks).
That funding accounted for nearly 75% of the money Farry raised for his campaign going into Election Day.
“[Yass’ message] really fell on deaf ears [when] I talked to folks about the fact that Republicans have had a majority of the state Senate here in Pennsylvania for 30 years,” Albillar said.
She added, ”It has been decades and decades, more than a generation, that the Republicans have been in control and have been blocking progress on policies that will lift up working families, and sending a Republican back to the state Senate again, someone who had been in Harrisburg for 18 years, was just asking for more of the same.”
Yass, a right-wing billionaire with a net worth of over $77 billion in part due to his investment in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, has spent over $75 million influencing local and state elections since 2018.
At the beginning of the year, Yass placed $24 million into his Students First PAC, which then donated $12.9 million to the PA Education Choice Fund during the campaign cycle.
That spending is allowed in Pennsylvania due to the lack of campaign finance limits for state offices.
“ I think you should have to be able to back up your statements, and being able to basically say anything about any person without it being verified and being put on air, I think is bullshit, and I think it’s wrong,” state Sen.-elect Brian Wrightson said in an interview.
Wrightson, an Archbald, Lackawanna County resident who operates a small business installing broadband towers in rural areas of northeastern Pennsylvania, defeated state Sen. Rosemary Brown (R-Monroe), who received $2.7 million from the PA Education ChoiceFund, on Election Day.
He added, “ If somebody put some kind of common sense legislation together that said, ‘We’re going to, you know, codify some restrictions on campaign financing,’ I’m on board.”
Incoming Senate President Pro Tempore Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) has been a longtime supporter of implementing campaign finance reforms and spending limits.
Senate Bill 11 sets maximum limits for individual contributions to state representatives, state senators, common pleas judges, and county or municipal candidates at $1,500 per election, with the maximum increasing to $5,000 for statewide candidates.
It would also cap an individual’s combined contributions to candidates and political committees at $25,000 per calendar year.
“ I’m very proud that I did not take any corporate PAC money or money from billionaires, and we built a real, true working-class movement,” State Sen.-elect Chris Thomas (D-Montgomery) said in an interview.
Thomas, will be the youngest member of the chamber at 30. He ousted state Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-Montgomery), who received $1.5 million in support from Yass, and agrees with the calls for accountability.
“ We need campaign finance reforms; we need to make sure that the wealthiest are paying their fair share.”
