Welcome to the latest installment of my series about efforts by Leonard Boswell's campaign to make the third district primary about Ed Fallon's faults.

Boswell's staffers and supporters have criticized Fallon for the following four alleged ethical problems:

1. his work and fundraising for the Independence Movement for Iowa (I'M for Iowa)

2. the salary Fallon drew from unspent campaign funds following the 2006 gubernatorial primary

3. allegations that Fallon pondered running for governor as an independent after losing that primary

4. Fallon's stand against taking contributions from political action committees (PACs) while allowing PACs to encourage their individual members to donate to his campaign.

For my take on the I'M for Iowa allegations, see this diary and this follow-up piece.

I addressed the controversy over Fallon's salary from his gubernatorial campaign in this post.

This post looks at the evidence on whether Fallon considered running for governor as an independent.

Follow me after the jump for more on Fallon, Boswell and PACs.

Since his first campaign for the Iowa legislature during the 1990s, Fallon has refused to accept contributions from lobbyists or PACs.

However, two PACs have endorsed Fallon so far in the Democratic primary to represent the third Congressional district: Democracy for America in February and the Stop the Arms Race PAC (STAR-PAC) in March.

Fallon has not discouraged those organizations from helping him raise money for his campaign. Democracy for America has e-mailed its large list of members on Fallon's behalf, which helped raised tens of thousands of dollars for Fallon's campaign through this page at ActBlue. STAR-PAC has also encouraged individual members to donate; it is not known how much those contributors have given to the campaign.

Some of Fallon's detractors say it is hypocritical for him to let PACs help him raise money from individuals.

Boswell's campaign has demanded that Fallon return the donations PACs have helped generate:

Boswell's campaign sent a letter to the opposing campaign last month [February] that admonished Fallon for the support he's getting from Democracy for America, and called on him to return any funding he'd gotten as a result.

“In light of your outspoken position on PACs, continuing to enlist their support in your efforts would be dishonest and hypocritical,” said the letter, signed by Boswell spokeswoman JoDee Winterhof.
[…]

Fallon said he has no problem with non-corporate PACs such as Democracy for America, the Sierra Club and labor unions who encourage their members to become involved or donate to his campaign.

“I just don't take their money,” he said.

Daniel Medress, a spokesman for Democracy for America, said that while the group has endorsed the former Iowa legislator, “We have not donated a penny to Ed Fallon.”

“Ed Fallon wouldn't take our money, he doesn't take money from PACs,” Medress said.

After Fallon accepted STAR-PAC's endorsement, Boswell's spokeswoman Winterhof

accused Fallon of wanting it both ways.

“Ed Fallon is telling voters PACs are bad, unless they are helping me,” she said. “… This is not about the role of his supporters aiding his campaign, it's about Ed Fallon walking his talk.”

Is this a legitimate complaint? Sending out an e-mail directing recipients to an ActBlue page is obviously assistance to Fallon's campaign. But the leadership of those PACs do not control how much the campaign receives, because individuals are free to act on or ignore any pro-Fallon messages coming from Democracy for America and STAR-PAC.

In other words, members of Democracy for America don't pay into a large pool, which the PAC's leadership then divvies up among politicians.

Fallon has responded to these complaints by changing the subject to Boswell's campaign financing. This page on the Fallon for Congress website shows how much Boswell has raised from individuals and how much he has raised from PACs in each of the last seven election cycles.

Every cycle, he has raised significantly more from PACs. In 2007, about 74 percent of the funds raised by Boswell for Congress came from PACs. Fallon frequently mentions that statistic in interviews and campaign appearances.

But wait a minute–Boswell's campaign says labor PACs provide the “vast majority” of PAC money the incumbent receives. Unfortunately, a reporter from the Grinnell College newspaper checked the Open Secrets website and found that in this election cycle

48.8 percent of Boswell's PAC money came from business groups and 27.4 percent from unions. In 2005-6, he raised 38.5 percent from business PACs, and 24.2 percent from unions.

Fallon's campaign website shows similar statistics for Boswell's PAC money over the past seven election cycles. Most years the incumbent has raised much more from business PACs than from labor PACs.

Speaking for myself, a politician's voting record is far more important than the source of his or her fundraising. I understand why some politicians prefer not to accept any donations from lobbyists or PACs, but I don't mind if politicians take money from lobbyists or PACs representing progressive causes.

Take Congressman Dave Loebsack, who was elected in 2006 to Iowa's second Congressional district. Don McDowell of the Cyclone Conservatives blog has derisively called Loebsack “PAC-man”, because during his first term in Congress the majority of his fundraising has come from PACs. The Open Secrets site shows that this election cycle about 63 percent of Loebsack's campaign financing has come from PAC donations, with only about 36 percent coming from individual donations. About 43 percent of Loebsack's PAC money came from labor PACs, 31 percent from ideological or single-issue PACs, and 26 percent from business PACs.

None of that bothers me a bit. Based on his record so far, I would be very pleased to have someone like Loebsack representing my district, even if the proportion of campaign funding he accepts from PACs is comparable to Boswell's.

Ultimately, I don't think the question of PAC contributions is a strong selling point for either candidate in the third district primary.

I prefer Fallon to Boswell on campaign finance issues because Fallon is a strong proponent of “clean elections” reform. His I'M for Iowa movement has strongly advocated a voluntary public financing system comparable to those operating in Maine and Arizona for state elections.

At the same time, if Boswell had a different voting record, I wouldn't care at all that he raises a lot of money from PACs. That's not to excuse Boswell staffers who erroneously claim that most of his money comes from labor PACs–it's just to say that PAC money wouldn't rank among my top arguments for electing a new member of Congress.