A federally registered political action committee based in Eagle can endorse candidates and share an influential voter guide without spending enough money to require reporting to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office, according to its founder.
Eagle resident Winston Sanders created “Conservatives Of” in 2019, shortly after moving from California. It has since expanded across Idaho and sparked chapters across the country. The super PAC has spent $39,290 since 2023, according to the Federal Election Commission.
“Here’s the beauty of our voter guide,” Sanders told EdNews by phone on Friday. “We literally can push it out with literally zero expenditures, and that’s literally not even an exaggeration.”
Sanders, who has a background in marketing, said the PAC is a grassroots effort that does not rely on a lot of money. That grassroots network helps spread the voter guide organically, without any expenditures.
The PAC has national, state and local groups aligned on the same mission: to promote constitutional conservative values and political candidates.
The name allows chapters to add their locality, such as ConservativesOf: America, ConservativesOf: Idaho or ConservativesOf: Meridian. Sanders said the PAC has people all over the country, but Idaho is the most built out.
Money draws scrutiny, he said, and can lead people to question if the group has out-of-state or in-state funding. By avoiding donations and spreading the voter guide for free on its website and social media, he said the group eliminates that problem.
“We’re really kind of milking everything free for all it’s worth,” Sanders said.
Idaho law requires anyone who spends at least $100 per candidate in independent expenditures to report those expenses to the Secretary of State’s Office. That includes federal super PACs. But, according to Sanders, Conservatives Of does not meet that threshold.
Joe Parris, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, told EdNews the PAC is “probably fine” as long as it hasn’t spent money. If the group is just putting a list of names on a website, it’s likely not an expense, so there’s nothing to report.
“If they have a large audience that is on their own going to this guide, or going to these pages, if they didn’t have to pay to promote it — I guess that’s just good business for them,” Parris said.
He said this gets into a tricky area of campaign finance.
“If there’s no finance, what are the rules around it?” Parris said. “Well, that’s just First Amendment.”
Constitutional and Judeo-Christian values
Sanders said Conservatives Of is not party-centric and sometimes endorses third-party candidates, but the Republican Party’s platform aligns “almost entirely with our values.”
It’s a constitutional conservative organization with an emphasis on Judeo-Christian principles. Sanders said group members are not Christian nationalists, but they do believe the founding fathers were Christian.
“They believed that the Judeo-Christian value system, or biblical value system, was essential for liberty and for freedom,” Sanders said. “That includes the liberty and freedom of other people to practice their religions as well as they see fit.”
To make decisions on who to endorse, Sanders said the PAC has two main criteria: a candidate’s voting record and personal relationships with members.
He said candidates can say whatever they want on a survey, but the benefit of having a vast grassroots network is they often have a member who knows a candidate personally and can attest to their conservative bona fides.
Endorsements
Conservatives Of has endorsed Mark Fitzpatrick for governor and more than 250 other candidates running for the Legislature, county offices and precinct committeemen.
The group has endorsed Sen. Dan Foreman, Sen. Christy Zito, Rep. Jordan Redman, Rep. Clint Hostetler, and candidates David Worley, Colton Bennett and James Lamborn.
click here to view the full list of endorsements.
