Here's how Harris could take over Biden's campaign cash if he drops out and she runs for president

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Here's how Harris could take over Biden's campaign cash if he drops out and she runs for president

2024-07-04 04:52 Last Updated At：05:00

Vice President Kamala Harris has been one of President Joe Biden's staunchest defenders following his shaky performance in last week's debate, but she's also emerged as a potential option to lead the party herself if Biden opted not to continue his campaign.

One big question is what would happen to the current campaign's $91 million cash on hand, according to its most recent filings. (Combined with allied Democratic organizations, the reelection effort has access to $240 million cash on hand, the campaign said this week.)

Yes, although there are some caveats.

Since their campaign account was registered with the Federal Election Commission in the name of both candidates, Harris could use those funds for her own presidential effort if Biden were to drop out, according to Kenneth Gross, senior political law counsel at Akin Gump and former associate general counsel for the Federal Election Commission.

Only if the campaign said yes.

Legal scholars agree that if donors were to ask for their money back after a candidate switch, the campaign would need to agree to that transfer. That means donors don't have an automatic right to get refunded.

“Once a donor makes a contribution, he or she relinquishes the rights to those funds,” Gross said.

Displeased donors thinking about suing likely wouldn’t succeed, according to Bradley A. Smith, professor at Capital University Law School in Ohio.

“When you give money to a campaign committee, it is pretty much theirs to do with what they please, within the boundaries of the law," he said.

According to Gross, their campaign would have to give all the money back — sort of.

Any donations designated for the primary — which Biden won — would stay with the campaign, Gross said, something that technically could apply to any money taken in by Biden-Harris up until the Democratic National Convention in August.

“All contributions made prior to the August convention are deemed to be for the primary unless the donor designates in writing that the contribution is for general election,” Gross said.

According to Smith, if Biden left the race and Harris didn’t replace him as nominee, their former campaign could only transfer $2,000 of the money that had been collected to a new candidate.

Maybe, but it might not be worthwhile.

According to Gross, if both Biden and Harris either drop out of the contest or don't become their party's nominee, they could opt to designate the campaign funds for a super PAC or the party itself.

But if those transfers did happen, Smith said, “the vast bulk of it would have to be in independent expenditures, which tend to be less effective.” Plus, he added, guaranteed broadcast advertising rates are higher for parties than for candidates, “so that has a cost, too.”

If Harris is left in the race, she could also do that with the funds, too — or keep them for her own effort.

And if the account, in general, were converted to a political action committee, that new entity would have limits on what it could send to the new candidate, said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform for the Campaign Legal Center.

“Even if Biden’s campaign committee immediately converted to a political action committee, which is allowed, that PAC could only transfer up to $3,300 per election to the new presidential candidate’s campaign," Ghosh said. “There’s no legal way for Biden to transfer to a new candidate the $90 million that his campaign currently has on hand.”

The presidential race options aside, Smith suggested that the Biden-Harris funds could be transferred to Democratic committees backing House and Senate candidates, or punted even further down the electoral timeline, to “support Democrats in future years.”

Other options, he suggested, could include a group created to promote causes and issues in line with the candidates' views — “or they could give it to charity, including, for example, a really boffo Joe Biden Center at University of Delaware.”

Meg Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina. She can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

Russian strikes leave thousands in northern Ukraine without power and water

2024-07-06 19:15 Last Updated At：19:20

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian strikes overnight left over 100,000 households without power in northern Ukraine and cut off the water supply to a regional capital, Ukrainian authorities reported Saturday, while civilian casualties rose sharply in the country's embattled east.

The northern Sumy region, which borders Russia, was plunged into dark after Russian strikes late Friday damaged energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said. Hours later, the Ukrainian public broadcaster reported that Russian drones hit the provincial capital, also called Sumy, cutting off water by hitting power lines that feed its system of pumps.

Russian state agency RIA cited a local pro-Kremlin “underground” leader as saying that Moscow’s forces overnight hit a plant producing rocket ammunition in the city, which had a pre-war population of over 256,000. The report didn’t specify what weapon was used, and the claim could not be independently verified. Explosions rocked the city during an air raid warning early Saturday, according to Ukrainian media reports.

In the Donetsk region in the east, Russian shelling on Friday and overnight killed 11 civilians and wounded 43, local Gov. Vadym Filashkin reported on Saturday. Five people died in the town of Selydove southeast of Pokrovsk, the eastern city that has emerged as a front-line hotspot. The Ukrainian General Staff on Saturday morning said that Ukrainian and Russian forces clashed 45 times near Pokrovsk over the previous day.

According to Filashkin, three more people died in Chasiv Yar, the strategically located town in Donetsk that has been reduced to rubble under a montshlong Russian assault.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson on Thursday told the AP that Ukrainian forces had retreated from a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar. The town's elevated location gives it strategic importance, and military analysts say its fall would put nearby cities in jeopardy. It could also compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces on Friday and overnight launched six rocket strikes and 55 airstrikes across Ukraine, and used more than 70 “glide bombs” — retrofitted Soviet-era weapons that have wrought devastation in the country in recent weeks.

In Kyiv, Ukrainian service members gathered on Saturday to pay last respects to a British combat medic who set up a charity delivering essential supplies to front-line fighters.

Peter Fouché died “in the battlefield” last Thursday as his unit clashed with Russian troops, according to his colleague at Project Konstantin, the volunteer group that since 2022 has ferried drones, vehicles, uniforms and food to Ukrainian soldiers in the east. According to its website, it has also helped evacuate 219 Ukrainian soldiers from combat zones.

At the funeral ceremony, Ukrainian soldiers carried Fouché's coffin through Kyiv’s landmark Independence Square, the site of mass protests in 2014 that forced out a pro-Russian president. Fouché's comrades held back tears as they lined up to say goodbye. Others read prayers as they held up Ukrainian flags and military insignia. Fouche’s partner, wearing a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt, knelt down to embrace the coffin.

A statement released Monday by Halyna Zhuk, Project Konstantin’s Ukrainian co-founder, called Fouché “a hero” and praised his “relentless commitment to Ukraine and her people.”

Fouché, a native of west London who turned 49 this year, helped build a field hospital in Kyiv before he started Project Konstantin, according to the group’s website, and later enlisted in the Ukrainian army. At least five other Britons have been killed while volunteering in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In Russia, two civilians were wounded after Ukrainian forces overnight shelled a border town in the southern Belgorod region, its Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops overnight shot down a total of eight drones over the Kursk and Belgorod regions in the south.

In Krasnodar province next to Russia-annexed Crimea, local authorities reported on damage caused during the night by falling drone debris. Debris sparked a fire at an oil depot, set fuel tanks ablaze in a separate location and damaged a cellphone tower, the reports said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Full coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine