DEFEND THE DREAM

A leadership PAC, not a campaign committee

The FEC registers this committee as a leadership PAC: a committee established or controlled by a candidate or officeholder to support other candidates. It is not that person's authorized campaign committee. Money it raises is not money their campaign raised, and money it gives is not money their campaign gave. Nothing on this page is combined with any campaign total.

The FEC's committee record names Alex Padilla as the sponsoring candidate or officeholder. This is not their campaign committee.

Registration

A multicandidate political action committee. It may contribute to candidates within federal limits.

Who runs this committee, and what it advances

What this committee raised and spent on itself

These are the committee's own figures, from the summary the FEC publishes of the reports it has filed, covering the period ending Jul 31, 2026. The FEC rebuilds that summary as new reports arrive, so these figures move; these are the figures the file the FEC built on Sep 1, 2026 reported.

Nothing here is added to the candidate-by-candidate amounts elsewhere on this page. Those are money this committee moved to or against specific campaigns; these are its own accounts.

What it raised

What it spent

What it holds, owes, and gave back

Its own totals for candidate activity

These will not match the per-candidate rows on this page, and are not meant to. These are the committee's own totals across every federal candidate. They will not match the per-candidate rows on this page, which are read from the contribution and independent-expenditure filings and cover only the candidates MyRepTracker tracks. The two are never added together.

As the committee reported it

Left blank on this committee's reports, so unavailable rather than zero: From the candidate, Loans from the candidate, Other loans, Operating expenditures, Loan repayments to the candidate, Total loan repayments. Many are columns only one kind of committee files.

This committee's record at the FEC ↗

What this committee did in the 2026 cycle

Each row below is a different kind of money and they are never added together. A contribution is money a campaign received. An independent expenditure was never the campaign's money at all. Adding them would state a relationship the filings do not support. These figures cover candidate filings through Aug 26, 2026.

Every recipient

Every candidate this committee gave to or spent on in the 2026 cycle, sorted by amount with ties broken by FEC candidate ID so the order is the same on every request. Each row links to that candidate's own page, where the same money appears from their side. Itemized rows as published by the FEC on Aug 16, 2026.

MyRepTracker reads these amounts from what the giving and spending committees filed. A candidate's own summary of what they received often differs, which is normal and is explained on the candidate's page; it is not a reason to doubt this committee's own filing, and nothing here is adjusted to make the two agree.

1 of these candidates have no party recorded and are left out of any party filter.

Contributions to candidates

Money this committee gave to candidates' authorized campaign committees out of its own funds. This is a contribution the campaign received and reported; it is not outside spending.

How the 2026 cycle's activity was distributed

Each kind of activity is distributed on its own. Contributions and independent expenditures are never combined into one distribution, because the two are not the same kind of money. Every bar below repeats its amount, share, and candidate count as text in the same row.

Contributions to candidates

$225,000 across 32 candidates in the 2026 cycle, covering filings through Aug 26, 2026. Every share below is a share of that amount, and no other kind of activity is included in it.

By the recipient's party

By office and chamber

By the candidate's state

Top 12 of 18 shown. The complete list is in the recipient table above, which can be filtered by the same values.

A distribution covering candidates from more than one party is a fact about where the money went. It is not evidence of a motive, a strategy, or an agreement, and this page does not suggest one.

Activity over time

Each kind of activity by the month the FEC records date it to, across the 2026 cycle, covering filings through Aug 26, 2026. Bars are drawn from a zero baseline against one shared scale of $42,500, so the series are directly comparable, and every value is repeated in its own row. Each series adds up to the same total as its section above.

Contributions to candidates

$225,000 placed by month.

Money moved to and from affiliated committees

A transfer moves money that has already been raised, between committees the FEC treats as affiliated. It is not a contribution and it is not new money, so none of it is counted anywhere else on this page. Both committees file their own record of the same transfer; the rows below are only this committee's own filings, and the counterparty's version is on its page rather than added here.

Transfers in from affiliated committees

$250,216 across 5 transfers this committee reported receiving, largest first.

Filings behind these figures

What these numbers mean

A contribution is not an independent expenditure

A contribution is money a committee gave to a candidate's own campaign committee, which the campaign received and reported. An independent expenditure is money spent about a candidate without coordinating with them; the campaign never received or controlled it. The Federal Election Commission treats these as different activities, and so does this page.

Money forwarded through a conduit was given by individuals

Some committees exist to transmit contributions that individual donors earmarked for a campaign. The FEC records name the conduit as the filer, but the donors are people, and the conduit did not give the money.

This page reads the giving side

Every amount here comes from what the giving or spending committee filed. A candidate's own summary of what they received is a separate record, made at a different time, and the two routinely differ. Neither is a correction of the other, and MyRepTracker does not adjust either one.

Coverage is the candidates MyRepTracker follows

These pages are built from the FEC records of the federal candidates in MyRepTracker's coverage. A committee may have given to candidates outside that coverage, so the recipients here are the complete list within it, not necessarily everything the committee did.

A committee ID is the identity

Committees are renamed and their registrations change between cycles. This page is keyed to the FEC committee ID, so an old name reaches the same page, and the registration shown is the one filed for the cycle you are viewing.

A transfer is not a contribution

Money moved between affiliated committees was raised once and is being moved. It is never counted as money raised or as money given to a candidate, and the sending and receiving committees each file their own record of it, so a total that added both sides would report the same money twice.

A superseded filing is kept, and counted toward nothing

An amendment replaces a report rather than adjusting it, so exactly one filing is in force for each committee and coverage period. The filing ledger lists the replaced versions too, because the correction history is worth being able to read, and none of them contributes to any amount, ranking, or comparison here.

A request for additional information is not a finding

The FEC routinely asks committees to clarify or correct something in a report. A request is correspondence, not a violation, an enforcement action, or a judgement about the committee, and nothing on this page is ranked, scored, or adjusted because one was sent.

A leadership PAC is not a campaign committee

A leadership PAC is established or controlled by a candidate or officeholder to support other candidates, and is separate from their own campaign. Its receipts are not their campaign's receipts and its contributions are not their campaign's contributions. Where a sponsor is named here, the FEC published that sponsor's own candidate ID on the committee's record; no sponsor is ever matched by name.

Source: Federal Election Commission ↗. MyRepTracker ingests FEC records directly and does not add its own influence, risk, or corruption score.