Last November, when Peachtree City residents were deciding who should be on City Council, a political committee run by Rep. Brian Jack sent $500 to one of the candidates. A month later, Jack’s campaign sent a far bigger check to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Those two checks point to a part of campaign finance most voters never see.
We already know congressional campaigns are expensive. We know corporations and wealthy people give a lot of money, and we know some of them seek greater access to elected officials. None of that is news. What I wanted to understand was something else: When someone writes a check to our congressman, where does that money actually go?
A big share of the money raised in Jack’s name never goes toward his own re-election. Meanwhile, his Democratic challenger, Maura Keller, runs a much smaller campaign, and almost all of her money stays in her race.
None of this is improper. It is how the system is built to work for a member in Jack’s position. But it means a donation to Brian Jack can also be a donation to something much bigger, and that says a lot about where money in politics stands today.
I sent both campaigns questions by email, and both answered in writing. Jack’s campaign responded through a spokesperson and included a statement from the congressman. Keller’s campaign manager, Alex Waterson, answered for her. Their answers appear throughout this story.
Following The Big Check
Let’s start with the bigger of the two checks, the one Jack’s campaign sent to the national party a month after 2025’s Election Day. It was for $250,000, and the campaign followed it with another $50,000 in February.
If you are not familiar with the NRCC, it is the Republican Party’s national organization for winning seats in the U.S. House. It recruits candidates, helps pay for their campaigns, and spends heavily in the close races that decide which party controls the chamber. By the end of March, it had already raised $164.4 million this cycle.
Those two checks were only the beginning of what Jack has sent. To understand where the money went, it helps to know how Jack raises it. Many candidates, like his opponent Keller, run their campaign through a single committee. Jack runs his operation through three:
- Brian Jack for Congress is his campaign.
- Peach State PAC is his leadership PAC and lets a member of Congress give money to other candidates and causes.
- Team Brian Jack is a joint fundraising committee and lets a candidate and a party collect one large check and split it. Jack shares his with the NRCC.
That third committee is arguably the most important. The law caps what one person can give Jack’s campaign at $3,500 per election. The cap for giving to the NRCC is far higher, at $44,300 a year. So a donor who wants to give more than Jack’s campaign can accept needs another way to do it.
That is where Team Brian Jack comes in. It lets a donor support Jack and the party with one much larger check. Its filings list three partners: Jack’s campaign, his leadership PAC, and the NRCC. When a check comes in, the committee divides it among the three using a formula set in advance, and no partner can receive more than its own limit allows. Because the NRCC’s limit is so much higher, the joint committee can accept checks far bigger than anything Jack’s campaign could take on its own. Several donors have written checks of $100,000 or more. Jack’s campaign told me the committee’s disbursements “adhere to the FEC’s disbursement limits, as prescribed by federal law.”
So where has that money gone? Since the start of 2025, Team Brian Jack has raised about $1.1 million and handed out just over $1 million. The biggest share, $426,595, went to the NRCC. Jack’s own campaign received $375,143, and his leadership PAC got $204,562. Add the $300,000 his campaign sent directly, and Jack’s committees have given the NRCC $726,595, a total his campaign confirmed to me.
Jack’s campaign has also sent about $116,000 to other Republican candidates, and his leadership PAC has added $16,500 for federal candidates and the state party. A few examples:
- On a single day in March, the campaign sent $2,000 apiece to 15 House Republicans, including Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Lawler of New York, Tom Kean of New Jersey, Jen Kiggans of Virginia, Zach Nunn of Iowa, and David Valadao of California. It voided 13 of those checks in June and reissued many of them later, which Jack’s campaign told me was “due to a clerical error.”
- Over the summer, it gave $95,500 to nearly 50 candidates, from Randy Fine in Florida to Nick Begich in Alaska, a total that includes the reissued checks.
- The leadership PAC gave $5,000 to Mike Collins’s U.S. Senate campaign and $2,000 to Michael Whatley’s in North Carolina.
Add it all up, and the picture comes into focus. Not counting money moved between his own three committees, Jack’s operation has raised about $3.2 million this cycle. By my count, nearly $900,000 of that has gone to someone other than Jack. That is more than $1 of every $4 raised in Jack’s name. His campaign said its own count is even higher, above $950,000.
And there is more where that came from. At the end of September, Jack’s campaign still had $1.21 million in the bank, and a report filed Oct. 22 showed $1.11 million by mid-October. Federal rules let a campaign move unlimited amounts to its party. When I asked his campaign whether more of that money would go to the party or to other candidates, the answer was one word: “Yes.”
Following The Small Check
Now back to the smaller check, the $500 that landed in a Peachtree City race on Election Day last November. It came from Jack’s leadership PAC, Peach State PAC, and went to Clint Holland when he was running for re-election to City Council.
Peachtree City’s council races are nonpartisan. When I asked how the PAC decides which local races to support, a Jack campaign spokesperson said the congressman has built friendships with local officials across the district and is “delighted to consider any request for support from candidates who seek to also represent his constituents.”
Holland is far from the only local recipient. Peach State PAC has given about $28,000 to state and local candidates and groups:
- Local Republican parties got $6,000 in Fayette County, $2,000 each in Carroll, Heard, and Lamar counties, and $1,500 in Haralson County. The North Spalding Republican Women’s Club got $2,000.
- State House candidates Daniel Cook, Jutt Howard, Tim Bearden, and Carmen Rice each got $1,000, and Rice got another $1,000 from Jack’s campaign.
- James Dutton got $1,000 for his race for Spalding County commissioner.
- The rest included $2,000 to the Fayette Shrine Club, $1,000 to Georgia Good Government, and $3,300 to a candidate in Texas.
The PAC also spends a fair amount on itself. Its operating costs total about $95,000, including $52,500 to a law firm called Elections LLC and about $30,000 to compliance consultants who handle the detailed reporting federal law requires. By my count, it has given away about $44,800. Jack’s campaign puts the figure at $73,800. Either way, the PAC has spent more running itself than it has given away, and it had $185,699 in the bank at the end of September.
Why Raise Money For Everyone Else?
Part of the answer is our district. Georgia’s 3rd stretches from Fayette and Coweta counties south to the northern suburbs of Columbus, and Jack won it by 33 points in 2024. Every major forecaster rates it safely Republican this year. In a seat like that, a congressman does not need millions of dollars to keep his job. That frees him up to use his fundraising for other things.
The rest of the answer is the job itself. House members face fundraising targets for the party, known as party dues, on top of what they raise for themselves. No law requires members to pay, but in practice those dues are not voluntary. Former Rep. David Jolly, a Florida Republican, said he was handed an invoice for