Independent Dan Osborn of Nebraska is one of the first Senate candidates to collect a paycheck from his campaign since the Federal Election Commission made it easier for candidates to self-fund donations.
Osborne plans to take a leave of absence from his job as a steamfitter and draw $7,100 a month from his campaign. The amount was chosen to replace approximately $48,000 in lost wages, plus health insurance for him and his family.
Osborne said he works 40, 50 and even 90 hours a week while campaigning. “I have learned that it is nearly impossible to run for the Senate as a regular person who needs to pay a living and put food on the table,” he said in a statement. “That's why the Senate has become a redneck club full of billionaires, and why less than 2 percent of politicians are from the working class.”
Osborne is a labor activist who helped lead a strike at the Kellogg cereal factory in Omaha in 2021. He is working with a long-term goal of unseating Republican Sen. Deb Fischer's seat in the ruby-hued state of Nebraska.
He is not the only candidate to withdraw campaign funds since new FEC rules took effect in March.
Republican Alicia Andrews, a Marine Corps veteran and one of 16 candidates seeking to replace retired Democratic U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Northern Virginia, announced her appointment on March 19, according to an FEC filing. He raised $9,000 from his campaign that day.
The two candidates running for the open seat in Michigan's 8th Congressional District, Democrat Dan Moilanen and Republican Anthony Hudson, each reported raising campaign funds.
When the FEC approved the new rules on a bipartisan 5-1 vote last year, Democratic Commissioner Shana M. Broussard said the changes would require more than a year of full-time campaigning in the House and Senate. He said it more accurately reflects the demand for candidates to run for office. For the election.
Previously, candidates for Congress had the right to pay themselves a salary of up to $174,000 a year, the salary level for the position they wanted. However, they were unable to raise more income than they had earned in the year before running for office, and unemployed people and home care workers were not entitled to campaign funds.
Additionally, candidates with an early start were not eligible because they were not allowed to begin collecting payroll until the state filing deadline.
Under the new rules, non-incumbent politicians running for public office can use campaign funds to pay themselves up to 50% of a representative's or senator's salary, or the candidate's average annual salary over the past five years. External income received by the candidate will be deducted from the salary. That's because campaign funds are intended to replace, not replace, lost income.
“This change…will help ordinary working-class Americans run for Congress on behalf of their communities,” Broussard, who led the push for the new rules, said at the time.
Osborne, who recently disclosed to the FEC that he had raised $812,000 by April 24, is taking time off and collecting a salary from his campaign as a working-class candidate joins politics. He said it was the only way it could be done.
“Politics shouldn't be just for the rich,” he says.