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Former Cantor Aide Launches Young Guns PAC

A former top aide to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has officially filed paperwork for a super PAC, dubbed the YG Action Fund, to promote the Young Guns movement that Cantor helped launch.

The political action committee will “play offense on issues,” said former Cantor deputy chief of staff John Murray, the new group’s chief organizer. The PAC and two affiliated organizations will “frame in a positive way the benefits of a center-right agenda as they relate to job creation, tax reform, health care reform,” he added.

The YG Action Fund is one of a growing number of unrestricted PACs ushered into being after last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which curtailed limits on corporate and labor campaign spending. Increasingly, such PACs are focused on promoting a single Member of Congress or group of lawmakers and operate in concert with one or more affiliated nonprofits.

Such nonprofits face virtually no disclosure requirements, a source of concern for watchdog groups.

Murray’s operation is no exception; it will consist of a PAC, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charity and a 501(c)(4) social welfare group. The PAC will engage directly in campaign activities, while the nonprofits will focus more on legislative issues, he said.

The YG Action Fund’s activities will complement those of another super PAC focusing on House Republicans, known as the Congressional Leadership Fund, according to Murray.

Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), Cantor, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) and several other House Republicans will attend the Congressional Leadership Fund’s inaugural event Nov. 2 at the Capitol Hill Club.

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