Tag Archives: kochs

A Majority of States Now Have Right-to-Work Laws

Mother Jones

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West Virginia, once a bastion of organized labor, will soon join the ranks of the right-to-work states that have undercut union participation. The Republican-dominated state legislature on Friday overrode Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s veto of a right-to-work bill, becoming the 26th state in the nation to pass such legislation.

Right-to-work laws bar unions from negotiating contracts that require all workers represented by a union to pay dues—in effect guaranteeing workers the union’s protections and representation regardless of whether they contribute. The laws are broadly understood to weaken unions.

The bill faced fierce opposition from unions, who organized protests at the state capitol and launched TV and radio ad campaigns to fight the legislation. But it also had money behind it, courtesy of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by the Koch brothers that has lobbied for right-to-work laws across the nation. One of the West Virginia bill’s key proponents, Republican gubernatorial candidate and state Senate president Bill Cole, touted his efforts to pass the right-to-work bill at a Palm Springs retreat organized by the Kochs earlier this year.

According to the US Census Bureau, West Virginia had a higher poverty rate than all but 10 states between 2011 and 2013. Many communities have been hit hard by the loss of thousands of mining jobs in recent years. Republican lawmakers claimed that loosening labor laws was necessary to attract businesses to the state. Democrats have argued that it will ultimately hurt workers, and that the bill was aimed primarily at diminishing unions’ political clout.

The right-to-work law will go into effect on July 1.

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A Majority of States Now Have Right-to-Work Laws

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Mitt Romney Won’t Run for President in 2016

Mother Jones

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It’s official: Mitt Romney will not seek the presidency for a third time. After some news outlets reported he would announce a run on a call with donors this morning, a statement leaked in which Romney said, “I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the Party the opportunity to become our next nominee.” Here’s a look back at what Mitt 3.0 could have been, as well as some highlights from 2012.

He was going to run as a liberal.

He had plans to be a born-again climate hawk.

He was going to face some resistance from the Kochs.

He had a new private equity conflict-of-interest problem.

We were deprived the chance to revisit the controversy over Romney’s lengthy history of outsourcing.

Also, this little problem:

Thanks for the memories, Mitt:

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Mitt Romney Won’t Run for President in 2016

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The Koch Brothers’ Network Aims to Spend $889 Million on the 2016 Elections

Mother Jones

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$889 million.

That’s how much Charles and David Koch’s political network hopes to spend on the presidential race, House and Senate contests, and other elections and policy fights in 2016. That figure is not far off from how much President Barack Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s presidential efforts each spent in 2012. It is well over what John Kerry and George W. Bush together spent during the 2004 campaign. This fundraising target was announced Monday morning at the Koch brothers’ winter retreat for members of their elite donor network.

And there’s a good chance that much of the money the Kochs and their allies plan to unleash will be spent in the dark—that is, with little disclosure of the true source of those millions. (Key parts of the Koch network are nonprofit advocacy groups that engage in political work without revealing their donors.)

If the Koch network—which included 450 or so attendees at this weekend’s donor confab—meets it $889-million goal for 2016, it would more than double its outlay from the last presidential election season. During the 2012 campaign, the Kochs’ collection of nonprofit groups spent over $400 million, with a sizable chunk of that aimed at defeating President Obama.

The Kochs and their donor-allies are now essentially their own political party. As the New York Times‘ Nick Confessore points out, the Koch network’s $889 million exceeds the spending power of the Republican Party:

Here’s some context from the Washington Post about how that money—it’s unclear how much of it will come from the Koch family itself—could be spent:

The $889 million goal reflects the budget goals of all the allied groups that the network funds. Those resources will go into field operations, new technology and policy work, among other projects.

The group—which is supported by hundreds of wealthy donors on the right, along with the Kochs—is still debating whether it will spend some of that money in the GOP primaries. Such a move could have a major impact in winnowing the field of contenders but could also undercut the network’s standing if it engaged in intraparty politics and was not successful.

Marc Short, the president of Freedom Partners, which hosts the Kochs’ donor enclaves, told the Post that “2014 was nice, but there’s a long way to go.” He said that putting free-market ideals at the center of American life is the goal of the Kochs and their allies, adding, “Politics is a necessary means to that end, but not the only one.”

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The Koch Brothers’ Network Aims to Spend $889 Million on the 2016 Elections

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People Who Know the Koch Brothers Sure Don’t Like Them Much

Mother Jones

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This is apropos of nothing in particular, but Dave Weigel draws my attention today to a new GWU/Battleground poll that gives us approval/disapproval ratings for an eclectic bunch of people that happens to include the Koch brothers. It turns out that they’re more unpopular than anyone on the list. Weigel comments on what this means for the Democrats’ anti-Koch offensive:

I generally agree that the Koch focus (Kochus?) is a poor substitute for a positive Democratic agenda, if such a thing is possible, but I don’t see anything in the poll that contradicts the Democratic strategy. Charles and David Koch never, ever do TV interviews, choosing to exercise their influence behind the scenes of political groups, and they’re known by two out of five Americans?

Given their low profile, you’d hardly expect the Kochs to be a household name. And yet, nearly half of all American have heard of them, and among those who are in the know they’re very unpopular. So maybe the Democratic strategy of personalizing the robber-baron right by demonizing the Kochs is paying off. Give it another few months and maybe the Kochs will be a household name.

On the other hand, keep in mind how unreliable these polls are. It’s possible that half the people who claim to have heard of the Koch brothers think they’re the rap duo who performed at the Grammys a few weeks ago. Maybe if Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were less annoying, the Kochs would have done better in this poll.

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People Who Know the Koch Brothers Sure Don’t Like Them Much

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New Koch-Linked Political Firm Aims to Handpick “Electable” Candidates

Mother Jones

A new political consulting firm with deep ties to the Koch brothers has quietly set up shop in Arlington, Virginia. Its mission: to prevent future Todd Akins and Richard Mourdocks from tanking the Republican Party’s electoral prospects. The firm, named Aegis Strategic, is run by a former top executive at Charles and David Koch’s flagship advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity, and it was founded with the blessing of the brothers’ political advisors, three Republican operatives tell Mother Jones.

The consulting firm plans to handpick local, state, and federal candidates who share the Kochs’ free-market, limited government agenda, and groom them to win elections. “We seek out electable advocates of the freedom and opportunity agenda who will be forceful at both the policy and political levels,” the company notes on its website. Aegis says it can manage every aspect of a campaign, including advertising, direct mail, social media, and fundraising.

Aegis’ president is Jeff Crank, a two-time failed Republican congressional candidate who ran the Colorado chapter of Americans for Prosperity and served as the chief operating officer of the national organization. The firm’s six-person staff boasts two others with connections to the Kochs. The group’s lead strategist is Karl Crow, a former project coordinator for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, where he focused “on how political advocates for economic freedom are identified, trained, and promoted,” according to his bio on Aegis’ website. Crow, who was scheduled to speak at an invite-only Koch donor summit in 2010 on the subject of voter mobilization, subsequently worked for Themis, the Koch brothers’ voter microtargeting operation. Brad Stevens, the former state director for Americans for Prosperity-Nebraska, is Aegis’ director of candidate identification.

Crank has touted his firm’s connection to the Kochs in meetings with potential business partners, according to three people who’ve spoken with him about this new venture. They say he has promoted Aegis as having the approval of the Koch brothers’ political operatives. (A spokesman for Koch Industries did not respond to a request for comment about the Kochs’ ties to Aegis.)

In an interview, Crank downplayed his company’s Koch connections but did not dispute the accounts of those who say he mentioned Aegis’ Koch affiliation. “I think there’s some kind of an assumption that there is a Koch connection,” Crank said. “It’s not a large leap for anybody to make.” Crank said he launched Aegis after seeing Akin, Mourdock, and other Republican candidates bumble their way through the 2012 campaign and cost the GOP seats in Congress.

Aegis Strategic’s first client is Marilinda Garcia, a 31-year-old Republican serving her fourth term in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. Last November, she launched a bid for Congress, hoping to oust freshman Democrat Rep. Ann Kuster. Garcia, who has been loudly praised by her state’s Americans for Prosperity chapter, declined to comment. Crank told Mother Jones that Aegis will announce new clients in the coming months.

People who’ve spoken with Crank about Aegis say he told them that the firm has access to the Kochs’ formidable donor network, and Aegis’ website appears to allude to this. Noting the “services” it provides, the consultancy says that its fundraising team “takes on a limited number of candidates each election cycle and markets them to Aegis’ exclusive fundraising network.”

When asked about this statement, Crank questioned whether that language in fact appeared on Aegis’ website. When informed that it did, he called it “standard marketing stuff.”

As the Washington Post recently reported, the Kochs’ political network raised more than $400 million in 2011 and 2012 to defeat President Barack Obama, influence House and Senate races, and shape policy debates at the state and federal levels. The constellation of nonprofit groups used by the Kochs and their allies is mind-bendingly complex, seemingly designed to keep donors’ identities shielded from public scrutiny.

Aegis Strategic comes across as an effort by the Koch brothers’ allies to bring in-house the business of campaigns. On its website, Aegis bills itself as a one-stop shop for candidates who are “committed to freedom and economic opportunity,” offering candidates such services as opposition research, fundraising, direct mail, TV/radio/cable advertisements, phone banking, data management, and social media. The company’s office is located just blocks from Americans for Prosperity’s national headquarters, the offices of various Koch-funded foundations, and Freedom Partners, the primary vehicle for anonymous money raised by the Koch donor network.

Pledging to identify and train budding conservative and libertarian candidates, Aegis potentially fills a gap that the Kochs have previously identified in their political operation. Donors and activists who are active in the Koch network say there was widespread frustration following the 2012 elections, during which the GOP had fielded so many lackluster candidates. “You can spend all the money on a candidate you want, but if they’re talking about self-deportation, or betting $10,000, or 47 percent, you’re gonna lose,” says Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota-based radio and TV magnate who attends the Koch seminars. “You have a bad candidate, you’re gonna lose.”

At the Kochs’ April 2013 donor summit, the first since the 2012 elections, one major topic of conversation was “candidate recruitment and training,” according to an email previewing the summit that was first reported by Mother Jones. That preview, written by the Kochs’ top fundraiser Kevin Gentry, said that at the conference “a plan will be shared to help recruit more principled and effective advocates of free enterprise to run for office.”

A little over a month later, corporate records show, Aegis Strategic was officially incorporated in Delaware.

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New Koch-Linked Political Firm Aims to Handpick “Electable” Candidates

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Shadowy Wisconsin Group That Helped Scott Walker Win His Recall Was Backed by the Koch Network

Mother Jones

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Days before Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s June 2012 recall election, two TV ads ran on stations statewide. Paid for by a group called the Coalition for American Values (CAV), the ads attacked the very notion of holding a recall election (even though it’s in the state constitution) and featured supposed Wisconsin citizens speaking out against the recall. “I didn’t vote for Scott Walker, but I’m definitely against the recall,” one man says. In another ad, the narrator says, “Recall isn’t the Wisconsin way…End the recall madness. Vote for Scott Walker June 5th.”

CAV put $400,000 behind those ads, which stoked a sense of unease about the recall among Wisconsin voters. Walker coasted to a seven-point victory. Exit polls strongly suggested that CAV’s ads played a part in the governor’s win. Yet the mystery surrounding the Coalition for American Values persisted. The group never disclosed how much it spent, how much it raised, or who funded it.

Until now. As first reported by the left-leaning Center for Media and Democracy, new tax filings reveal that the main source of CAV’s funding was the Center to Protect Patient Rights, an Arizona nonprofit that gave CAV $510,000 in 2012. CPPR is a linchpin in a network of nonprofit groups Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists, use to shuffle money around the country while keeping donors anonymous. California’s Fair Political Practices Commission identified the group as “the key nonprofit in the Koch Brothers’ dark money network of nonprofit corporations,” and hit the group and a related nonprofit with a $1 million fine for failing to disclose donations made during the 2012 election season. All told, CPPR doled out $156 million in dark money in 2011 and 2012, a sizable chunk of the $407 million moved by the Kochs’ network of nonprofit groups.

Run by a onetime Koch operative named Sean Noble, CPPR is expected to play less of a role in the Koch network going forward. The California investigation—which revealed the identities of hundreds of previously secret donors and private marketing material used by Republican operatives—brought unwanted scrutiny to the Kochs and their conservative and libertarian allies. An October 2012 Huffington Post story reported that Noble, the former “the wizard behind the screen” for the Kochs, had fallen out of favor. “Noble has had his wings clipped,” one Republican operative told HuffPost.

The Center for Media and Democracy says it has filed a formal complaint with Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board alleging that the Coalition for American Values violated state campaign finance laws by not disclosing its CPPR funding. A message left at the phone number listed on CAV’s website was not returned.

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Shadowy Wisconsin Group That Helped Scott Walker Win His Recall Was Backed by the Koch Network

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Koch brothers hire lobbyists to fight carbon tax, save poor and old people

Koch brothers hire lobbyists to fight carbon tax, save poor and old people

Charles and David Koch really, really don’t want a carbon tax.

Carbon-tax proposals are going nowhere in Congress, but the Koch brothers aren’t taking any chances.

A few non-office-holding Republicans and a few actual-office-holding Democrats are calling for a carbon tax, but the current Congress would never pass one, and even the Obama administration has said it doesn’t want one.

Still, a grandstanding Republican representative, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, is pushing a House resolution declaring that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy” and “to American families and businesses,” and that it would “fall hardest on the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes.” (Never mind that many carbon-tax proposals are designed specifically to ease burdens on low-income Americans. Facts are not of interest here.)

The billionaire oil-mogul Koch brothers — who’ve convinced many politicians to sign a “No Climate Tax Pledge” — have now hired a gang of lobbyists to push Scalise’s pointless resolution, The Hill reports.

Just how would a tax on carbon pollution hurt American families and businesses? Well, it might take a bite out of the Koch family’s coffers and the Kochs’ businesses.

Still, the Kochs really are concerned about the poor. In fact, Charles Koch is pushing his own plan for lifting people out of poverty; one key component is eliminating the minimum wage.

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Koch brothers hire lobbyists to fight carbon tax, save poor and old people

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