Like other such buildings dedicated to ex-presidents, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., contains a replica of the Oval Office, complete with photos, mementos and flags placed carefully to depict what it looked like when the actor-turned-politician was the most powerful man in the world.
Five miles away, California Lutheran University had a replica office, too. But this replica was designed — “within an eighth of an inch” — to depict the Capitol Hill haunt of former Rep. Elton Gallegly.
If Gallegly’s name isn’t familiar, that’s understandable. The California Republican left Congress more than a decade ago, having decided against seeking re-election instead of running in what would’ve been a highly competitive race for a newly redistricted congressional seat.
But the ex-congressman’s campaign account, Gallegly for Congress, lived on for nine more years, still flush with surplus cash. Gallegly directed $110,215 of it to California Lutheran — to help fund the Elton and Janice Gallegly Center, according to the university.
Gallegly is hardly alone. During the past decade, federal-level politicians have given more than $14 million in surplus campaign funds to non-profit institutions of higher education, a Raw Story investigation of Federal Election Commission records shows.
The practice is generally legal. But campaign finance experts say such arrangements become ethically murky when the donations, directly or indirectly, create what amount to monuments to the lawmakers’ political legacies.
Donors may be surprised, even shocked to learn that money they gave to advance a political candidate or cause ended up funding nameplates or upholstered chairs on some college campus.
After all, the Federal Election Campaign Act says campaign funds can’t be “converted by any person to any personal use.”
But ex-lawmakers frequently keep their old campaigns open and active, even for years after they’ve left elected office. These “zombie committees” are allowed to direct leftover campaign money to 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organizations, the designation of most colleges and universities.
Yet there’s little prohibiting politicians from suggesting or directing a college to use some of the money to promote the politicians’ image. And even donations for what most would agree is a worthy cause — perhaps a scholarship for first-generation college students — can leave the impression that the funds came from a politician’s own money, out of pure generosity, not from surplus campaign funds from unwitting donors.
“It’s bipartisan and bicameral self-entitlement for everyone in Congress,” said Washington, D.C., attorney Brett Kappel, an election law attorney and expert on campaign finance laws and government ethics. “Most of this is legal, but nobody knows about it.”
Congress/college industrial complex
Creation of the Gallegly Center created an uproar on campus when it reached the school’s Board of Regents in 2017.
Sam Thomas, a professor in the Department of Religion, wrote in a letter to the student newspaper that the Gallegly Center “will in fact be legible primarily in terms of what it represents: the legacy of a particular, partisan politician with a record of immigration policy deeply at odds with the values of the University and the (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America).”
The Gallegly Center promoting itself as non-partisan made no difference, Thomas added.
Meanwhile, students at the school started a petition stating that Gallegly’s career “contradicts what Cal Lutheran stands for.”
“This Center serves as a monument to Mr. Gallegly’s service,” it said, “one in which he targeted the identities shared by many of our students — people of color, particularly Hispanics, the LGBTQ community, and immigrants to this country.”
Matters soon became messy. After a new university president removed the replica office in 2021, saying the school needed space for the former congressman’s papers, Gallegly sued.
The case continues in Ventura County Superior Court, where Gallegly contends that he and his wife spent years raising more than $1 million for the center. Cal Lutheran, he argues, failed to fulfill its contract for the donation, including a speaker series and digitization of papers.
Gallegly also spent another $56,807 of leftover campaign cash for legal bills related to Cal Lutheran, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. He did not respond to a question about the specific legal work.
Earlier, Gallegly told Raw Story, “The replica office was not my brainstorm at all. The novelty of it, to my knowledge and to the university when they proposed it, was that there was no other such (replica office) that was as accurate.”
The media tour of the Elton and Janice Gallegly Center for Public Service and Civic Engagement inside the Pearson Library on the California Lutheran University's Thousand Oaks campus. © Juan Carlo / The Star / USA Today Network
A recent op-ed by R. Stephen Wheatly, Cal Lutheran’s former vice president for university advancement, said Gallegly “did not solicit, offer, or propose any aspect of the Gallegly Center.” The replica office, Wheatly wrote, “was intended to serve as an attraction for visitors and students and as a backdrop for film and television majors.”
A statement from Cal Lutheran to Raw Story said Gallegly’s papers and other archival material has been treated properly and made available to scholars. It said digitization is merely an option “based on historical import if funds are available.” The speaker series, which started with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2018, “wasn’t part of our gift agreement with Rep. Gallegly, and as a result requires additional funds to maintain.”
The statement said Gallegly was involved with negotiating the gift agreement and that a replica office “was and is a matter of university discretion.”
'Walking into my office'
There are generally five places that surplus political campaign money can go:
- Back to donors
- Toward the politician's future campaigns
- To the campaigns of other political candidates
- Into the U.S. Treasury’s general fund
- To non-profit charitable organizations, including institutions of higher education.
In Kentucky, there’s another replica congressional office dedicated to a former Capitol Hill lawmaker.
Friends of Joe Pitts, the campaign fund for the former Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA), gave $45,000 to his alma mater, Asbury University.
It’s unclear if the university would have a Joe Pitts Center for Public Policy were it not for the gift. But it does now, and the center includes the congressman’s papers and the replica office.
“If you walk in here, it’s almost as if you were walking into my office when I was a member,” Pitts said of the replica office in a video.
Asbury University did not respond to interview requests and Pitts could not be reached for comment.
People who gave money to Friends of Cliff Stearns, the fundraising committee of former Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), probably didn’t know they were also going to become friends of Lake-Sumter State College and St. Johns River State College, too.
Stearns left office in 2013 and became a lobbyist. Both schools received a quarter-million from the campaign in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and named libraries for Stearns.
Stearns has his name displayed prominently on both buildings. A photo on the Lake-Sumter State College website shows a plaque saying the building was dedicated “in recognition of his distinguished service to the citizens of Florida.” A news release from St. Johns River State College praised the ex-congressman’s “passion for growth, thought, and purpose.”
The Lake-Sumter State College president, in recommending that the Board of Trustees vote to approve the naming of the Clifford B. Stearns Library & Learning Success Center, said the donation was “at the minimum level/amount to name a building.” Stearns’ gifts to both schools included scholarships.
Reached by email, Stearns said his campaign’s donation did not have strings attached. He said an attorney who specializes in federal election matters drafted the contract “and he specifically specified in the contract that the donations were given freely for them to use for whatever they determined best for the college.”
Stearns directed follow-up questions to the lawyer, Charles Spies, who said “no sort of naming was a requirement of the donation.” Asked about the large balance in the campaign account years after leaving office — he still had a $39,335 balance on March 31 — Spies said, “The Congressman still has money in his campaign account so he can support like-minded Republican candidates and officeholders.”
Stearns has had past campaign money issues. In 2019, after the FEC found Stearns had used campaign donations for personal use, including $4,118 for membership fees and club expenses at the National Republican Club of Capitol Hill. Stearns agreed to a fine of $6,900 and reimbursed his campaign committee $8,120.
The K. Michael Conaway Archive and Exhibit, located in a museum at Angelo State University, opened last year after Conaway for Congress, campaign committee for the former Republican congressman from Texas, gave $250,000 to the school.
Photos of the exhibit on social media show, in the center of the space, a large round photo of Conaway behind a desk. The U.S. Capitol stands in the background with words in all capital letters on top: “The journey of the public servant: Congressman Conaway.”
A page on the university website said the purpose of the exhibit is “to preserve the legacy of Congressman Mike Conaway and impart his guiding principles to the next generations of young Texans.” The money included an endowment for the study of agriculture and national security.
Angelo State University officials did not respond to Raw Story's interview requests, and Conaway could not be reached for comment.
Gifts from U.S. House leaders
The most prolific giver to higher education in the time period that Raw Story examined, 2013 to 2023, is the fundraising committee of a lawmaker who’s still in office — and a very powerful one, at that.
Friends of James Clyburn, the fundraising committee of House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-SC), made 55 donations across 10 South Carolina schools, according to federal records. Total value: more than $100,000 in campaign donor dollars.
Schools receiving Clyburn money include South Carolina State University, Allen University, Benedict College and Claflin University.
Sam Watson, South Carolina State’s Director of University Relations, said the money went to scholarships, athletics and the inauguration of a new president. He said it did not go to naming a program or facility, although the Clyburn Foundation and the Clyburn family have been major contributors to the university. The Honors College and an honors scholarship are named for the congressman’s late wife, Dr. Emily England Clyburn, and the James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center works for “recruitment and training of minorities and women for tomorrow’s transportation workforce.”
Tacara Carpenter, a spokesperson for Allen Univeresity, said the money went to scholarships for merit and financial need. Benedict College and Claflin University did not respond. Clyburn’s office acknowledged an inquiry from Raw Story but did not respond to questions.
Donors to Kevin McCarthy for Congress, the fundraising arm for the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, probably didn’t know that some of their money would go in part toward the athletic program at Bakersfield College, where the Renegades compete in the California Community College Athletic Association.
From 2019 to 2022, McCarthy’s campaign gave $26,250 to Bakersfield College, the speaker’s alma mater. The college spent the money on “student scholarships and to provide gear and academic tutoring for student athletes,” said Norma Rojas, spokesperson for Bakersfield College.
McCarthy’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Lack of transparency
During the past decade, four gifts from political campaigns to colleges and universities reached into the seven-figure range.
The largest of these came from Shelby for U.S. Senate, the campaign committee for former Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), which gave $4 million to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Shelby, who left the senate in January after 36 years in office, honored his wife, an emerita professor at Georgetown University, with the money. It established the Annette N. Shelby Endowed Chair in Business & Leadership Communication and the Annette N. Shelby Endowed Fund for Leadership Communication.
Georgetown University officials declined to comment other than to provide a link to a story about Annette Shelby on the university’s website.
Annette Shelby was quoted in the student newspaper, The Hoya, as saying of her husband, “He had some money left, and he felt that Georgetown had been such a wonderful place for me and had given me many opportunities. He wanted to show that, and he also wanted to leave some kind of legacy for me as well.”
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Citizens for Harkin gave the legacy of former Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) a home at Drake University, an institution in Des Moines, Iowa, to which Harkin’s campaign gave $2.2 million.
A Drake spokesperson declined to say how the money was used, citing the institution’s status as a private university.
Drake University has a Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement at The Tom and Ruth Harkin Center. Drake is also home to Harkin’s papers. The institute’s web page says the institute is for “non-partisan research, learning, and outreach to promote understanding of the policy issues to which Senator Tom Harkin devoted his career.”
Harkin unsuccessfully ran for president in 1992, winning the states of Minnesota, Iowa and Idaho during the Democratic primary. He served in the U.S. Senate until 2015.
Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate, campaign committee for the former Democratic senator from Florida, gave $1.25 million to the University of Florida after he lost a re-election bid in 2018.
Cynthia Roldan, a spokesperson for the school, wouldn’t say what the university is doing with the money, citing a public records exemption for organizations such as the University of Florida Foundation.
In 2019, Nelson gave 800 boxes of his papers and six terabytes of electronic communications from his 46 years in public office to the University of Florida.
Nelson now serves as the administrator of NASA.
The other seven-figure gift from the time examined was from Poe for Congress, committee for former Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), which gave $1 million to Abilene Christian University.
Abilene Christian created the Judge Ted Poe Endowed Chair of Political Science and Criminal Justice to provide funding for a faculty position and guest lecturers, a school spokesperson said.
Tough to turn down money?
It’s a tough time for higher education. State funding has been slashed. Demographics in parts of the country portend sharp enrollment declines. And some state legislatures have moved aggressively against what professors can even teach.
So it might seem that schools would name a building after anyone if the price is right.
Not necessarily, said Kevin McClure, an associate professor of higher education finance and administration from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.
“They may say, ‘We’re not in a good position to turn this down,’ but others can say, ‘This is not in line with our donor policies,’” McClure said. “I think the likelihood of saying no has increased as higher ed becomes central in the culture wars.”
John Pelissero, a government ethics expert from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said the biggest ethical issue is if politicians are seen as using campaign funds not to win elected office or advance a political agenda, but “to burnish their legacy and reputation.”
He suggests a different way for candidates to dispense surplus campaign cash.
“A good practice would be for a retired politician to have a committee for residual funds and not leave it to the whims of the retiring politician,” he said.
“The donors didn’t intend, when they gave to the campaign, for it to be used for purposes outside the campaign. I don’t think any of these politicians spend much time thinking about whether donors would object to the mission of the recipient.”
Kappel said that during his career he senses that many congressmen forget about the purpose of campaign donations.
“The tendency is to think the money is yours,” he said, “and it’s very easy to get lulled into thinking it’s ‘my’ money.”
