Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
A Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina spent the last two years as a top political fundraiser for the real-estate lobby. Now the industry’s trade association is using that money to send her to Washington.
The National Association of Realtors’ political action committee has bought political ads on behalf of just one candidate this year: Leigh Brown, a RE/MAX Realtor and GOP candidate in the special election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. And those expenditures have been substantial: The PAC has reported spending nearly $1.3 million on Brown’s behalf so far.
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As an accomplished Realtor herself, Brown is a natural NAR ally. But she isn’t just in the business; Brown has been heavily involved with NAR itself for years. Most recently, she served as chairwoman of its PAC’s fundraising arm. According to her LinkedIn page, the position entailed “assisting with the messaging that encourages our members and our affiliated organizations to understand why they should invest in the Realtor Party—and to do it.”
A NAR spokesperson said Brown resigned from the position upon declaring her congressional candidacy last month.
But she has continued publicly promoting the PAC and its fundraising efforts. Brown’s photo on her Twitter page, which bills her as a congressional candidate, is overlaid with promotional language for NAR’s political apparatus. Her social-media accounts routinely promote the group’s PAC, and in 2014 she posted a photo on Instagram touting a pledge to contribute $10,000 to NAR’s political arm over the next decade. Federal Election Commission records show she’s donated $9,492.50 since then, including a $540 contribution in January.
The nexus between Brown’s career as a Realtor and her political endeavors is proving to be a bit of a headache for her congressional campaign—and bears some interesting similarities to issues that faced the Trump campaign during the 2016 cycle.
Brown’s real-estate office routinely runs radio ads in her market in North Carolina—the same area where she’s running for Congress. The ads mention her by name, and her campaign was therefore concerned that the FEC might consider them political ads under federal law, given her status as a candidate for office.
The campaign asked the FEC to officially give its blessing to her commercial radio ads, reasoning that they’re not political in nature and hence shouldn’t need to be reported to the FEC. The commission voted 3-1 to approve her request, falling short of the four votes needed to officially approve its advisory opinion.
Brown is now suing the FEC, arguing that its decision—or lack thereof—will deprive her of her livelihood for as long as she’s a candidate for federal office. Her case bears some similarities to an FEC decision in 2016 that ruled a sign declaring “TRUMP: Coming in 2016” outside the Trump Hotel in Washington, then under construction, did not run afoul of political ad rules.
Whether or not the courts side with Brown in this case, she appears to be following a suddenly familiar path in Washington: the real-estate professional who’s seeking public office with a bit of a blurry line between her political and business affairs.
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