DeMint converts leadership PAC to super-PAC

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is severing formal ties with his leadership political action committee, allowing the organization to become a super-PAC and raise unlimited funds in support of Republican Senate candidates.

“If we’re going to save this country, we have to elect more conservatives to the U.S. Senate,” DeMint said in a statement. “Making the Senate Conservatives Fund independent of me will allow it do even more to elect the kind of leaders we need to repeal Obamacare and balance the budget.”

The group will be renamed Senate Conservative Action, and launched a new website — senateaction.com — on Monday to commemorate the shift.

But as a newly independent group, DeMint will no longer be able to formally exert control over or coordinate with the group. That means that while he'll be able to appear at events and fundraisers, the senator won't be able to actually attach his name to fundraising asks.

As a leadership political action committee, DeMint's group raised more than $9 million in 2010, and leads current Senate leadership PACs with $7.5 million in the bank.

That prolific fundraising has made DeMint a major player for Republican candidates jockeying for their party's nomination in Senate races, and DeMint's Tea Party politics have undoubtedly driven some candidates further to the right.

This year, DeMint has already voiced endorsements in some of the Senate's most high-profile races, backing former Rep. Mark Neumann in Wisconsin, Rep. Jeff Flake in Arizona and state treasurers Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Josh Mandel in Ohio.

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