Tag Archives: money in politics

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder Will Shutter His Dark-Money Fund

by 4ko9dra Posted on October 22, 2013

Mother Jones

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For months, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has been under fire for a nonprofit his administration has used to pay the salary of a top lieutenant, as well as housing and travel costs for Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager appointed by Snyder to shore up Detroit’s finances. On Monday, Snyder announced he would soon dissolve the nonprofit, known as the New Energy to Reinvent and Diversify (NERD) Fund.

Snyder told reporters, according to the Detroit Free Press, that the NERD Fund—which has never disclosed its donors—was becoming a distraction. “I think it is appropriate to say, ‘Let’s wind it down and go forward in a fund where all the donors will be disclosed and the information will be online,'” he said.

Allies of the governor incorporated the NERD fund in February 2011, shortly after Snyder took office, to offset the costs of certain employees and initiatives. Its goal, as the fund’s directors put it, to “advance good government in Michigan while easing the burden on taxpayers.” The NERD Fund raised $1.3 million in unlimited donations from anonymous sources in 2011, but just $368,000 in 2012, according to tax filings. The only publicly revealed donor to the NERD Fund is the pharmaceutical chain CVS, which gave $1,000 in March 2012, according to a company disclosure.

Earlier this month, Snyder testified under oath that he didn’t know who the NERD Fund’s donors were. That hasn’t stopped Snyder’s critics, mainly the state’s labor unions, from raising questions about the influence gained by the fund’s donors.

A spokeswoman for Snyder said the NERD Fund will not reveal its previous donors even after dissolving—a decision that raised fresh questions about the fund’s backers. “Closing the NERD Fund without full disclosure of past donors only begs the question: What is Gov. Snyder hiding?” Karla Swift, president of the Michigan state AFL-CIO, told the Detroit News.

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Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder Will Shutter His Dark-Money Fund

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Power Company Comes Clean: We Bankrolled Arizona’s Anti-Solar Blitz

by rogalski_adam@o2.pl Posted on October 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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In recent months, sunny Arizona has been the scene of a shady dark money-fueled battle pitting Arizona’s largest electricity utility against the burgeoning solar power industry. Over the weekend, the fight took an interesting turn: The utility, the Arizona Public Service Company (APS), outed itself as a funder of two secretive nonprofits fueling the anti-solar fight—and revealed that it had funneled its anti-solar money through a political operative associated with the Koch brothers and their donor network.

Follow that? Some backstory might help.

The fight between APS and the solar industry concerns an issue called net metering. The way net metering works, private consumers who use solar panels can transfer extra energy they generate back to the power grid; the credits they receive for that excess energy, proponents argue, make solar an economical and smart choice for energy generation. APS wants changes to the net metering program that would, in effect, add $50 to $100 a month to power bills of solar users. That additional money, solar companies argue, would make solar power look uneconomical and do serious damage to the industry’s business.

Earlier this year, a coalition of solar companies, including SolarCity and Sunrun, launched TUSK (short for “Tell Utilities Solar won’t be Killed”) and hired Barry Goldwater Jr., the son of the onetime presidential candidate, to fight the net metering changes. TUSK accused APS of being anti-solar and trying to kill the burgeoning solar energy industry. In response, a pair of secretly funded nonprofit groups began running ads on TV, radio, and online calling net metering credits “corporate welfare” and comparing SolarCity and Sunrun to Solyndra, the solar panel company that accepted $500 million in government loans and then went bankrupt.

Here’s one of those anti-net-metering ads by the 60 Plus Association:

The 60 Plus Association, a Virginia-based nonprofit, has received money from the Koch brothers’ donor network. The other nonprofit fighting net metering is Prosper, which was started by former Arizona State House Speaker Kirk Adams. Although the ads run by 60 Plus and Prosper championed the cause of APS, the utility denied that it was funding the groups’ anti-solar ads, saying it was a coincidence the groups had joined the net metering fight.

Now, APS has changed its tune. The utility told the Arizona Republic that it had in fact donated to both groups. What’s more, APS told the Republic that it had given that money through Sean Noble, a political consultant described in a recent Huffington Post story as “the wizard behind the screen” for the Koch donor network’s activities in 2012. “We needed to respond to these ridiculous assertions that we do not support solar,” John Hatfield, an APS spokesman, told the Republic. (Noble no longer appears to be in the good graces of Kochworld: The Huffington Post story reported that he had fallen out of favor with Charles and David Koch and their donor network. “Noble has had his wings clipped,” one Republican operative is quoted as saying.)

The Arizona Corporation Commission could vote within weeks on whether to accept or reject the net metering changes backed by APS, or to side with the solar industry. What the commission decides could have major ramifications for the renewable energy industry in the southwest. Expect to see plenty more dark money flying around in the run-up to that vote.

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Power Company Comes Clean: We Bankrolled Arizona’s Anti-Solar Blitz

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Surprise! Mitch McConnell Reads Mother Jones

by Cass Barret Posted on October 18, 2013

Mother Jones

In an interview on Thursday morning with the National Review‘s Robert Costa, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made an intriguing comment that caught our eye. Fresh from helping to broker the deal to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling, McConnell was asked by Costa if political factors in Kentucky were shaping his legislative strategy in Washington. As we’ve reported, McConnell faces a tough reelection fight, including a fierce primary challenge, with Kentucky tea partiers steaming over McConnell’s deal-making on issues like the 2012 fiscal cliff deal, Syria, and now the debt ceiling.

McConnell’s response: “Oh, that’s the Mother Jones thesis.”

Here’s the full exchange:

COSTA: A lot of reporters think your decisions are driven by political considerations in your home state, especially your primary versus Matt Bevin and a potential general-election campaign versus Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. How are those factors shaping your strategy?

MCCONNELL: Oh, that’s the Mother Jones thesis. I have nothing to say about my primary opponent. And this week, it’s pretty obvious about whether that’s driving my decisions. As for Lundergan Grimes, the whole rationale for her candidacy is that I’m part of the dysfunction in Washington, so she’s probably been pretty unhappy over the past 24 hours. I’ve demonstrated, once again, that when the Congress is in gridlock and the country is at risk, I’m the guy who steps forward and tries to get us out of the ditch. So it’s been a bad 24 hours for her, and she’s going to need to find a new rationale.

We’re flattered to know that McConnell, arguably the most influential Republican official in Washington, reads Mother Jones. We assume he’s referring to a September 19 story by David Corn which examined whether McConnell’s tea-party challenger, Matt Bevin, was preventing the minority leader from fully engaging in the shutdown negotiations. “McConnell must fear the wrath of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and the Paulites, should he engage in wheeling and dealing that results in any accords that offend the sensibilities of the tea partiers,” Corn wrote. “Caught between Rand Paul and the White House, one of the most powerful and sly politicians in Washington has little room to work his behind-closed-doors magic.”

For what it’s worth, we’d also direct McConnell to our reporting on other aspects of his reelection fight, including the race’s hefty price tag, the fundraising dream team assembled by Lundergan Grimes, McConnell’s tea party challenger, and grassroots conservatives’ dim view of McConnell and their eagerness to oust him.

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Surprise! Mitch McConnell Reads Mother Jones

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The Conservative Fundraising Racket, Part 674

by mariawilkerson67 Posted on October 17, 2013

Mother Jones

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This morning in my inbox I have a “personal appeal from Rand Paul.” Nothing unusual about that, but check out the subject:

Dear Concerned American:

“I owe these unions.”

President Barack Obama couldn’t have stated it any more clearly.

And after spending an estimated BILLION dollars to re-elect Barack Obama and maintain control of the U.S. Senate, the union bosses couldn’t agree more.

They’re wasting no time demanding PAYBACK.

Top AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka has already made clear that he expects Big Labor’s Card Check Forced Unionism Bill to be a top priority in Obama’s second term.

….Since Barack Obama doesn’t have to face the voters again for re-election, the union bosses understand this may be their last — and best — opportunity to make Card Check Forced Unionism the law of the land.

That’s why it’s vital you act today!

Vital indeed. And “VERY expensive,” of course. So please make a generous contribution to the National Right to Work Committee.

The fact that Rand Paul opposes unions—and supports the NRWC—is no surprise, but this pitch is a sign of just how much of a racket conservative fundraising has become. There’s no question that card check is something that both unions and Democrats support, but it couldn’t even pass in 2009, when Democrats controlled the House and had a supermajority in the Senate. It has zero chance of passing now, and everyone knows it. Rand Paul certainly knows it, and the National Right to Work Committee knows it.

But there are frightened legions of Fox News viewers out there who don’t know it, and Rand Paul wants a chunk of their Social Security checks. Right now. For a campaign against a nonexistent bill that he knows perfectly well isn’t going to take place. Nice work.

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The Conservative Fundraising Racket, Part 674

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Quote of the Day: $3.5 Million Is Chickenfeed

by dx1d3x0 Posted on October 8, 2013

Mother Jones

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From Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:

I don’t think $3.5 million is a heck of a lot of money.

This remark came in the context of oral arguments over campaign finance limits. Scalia’s position seems to be that since there’s a ton of money already flooding our political campaigns, there’s not much reason not to allow even vaster sums to sluice through the system. I guess you have to be a constitutional scholar to understand this logic.

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Quote of the Day: $3.5 Million Is Chickenfeed

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Andrew Cuomo’s Much-Touted Corruption Watchdog Is Beginning to Look Like a Joke

by RowenaBernardin Posted on October 8, 2013

Mother Jones

In June, an anti-corruption bill that included the holy grail of money-in-politics reforms—public financing of elections—died in the New York State Senate. Progressives and election reformers had pinned their hopes on passing a public financing system modeled after New York City’s, a system that helped Bill de Blasio clinch the Democratic mayoral primary. But they weren’t left empty-handed when the bill died: In its place, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) created the Commission to Investigate Public Corruption to get at the root of Albany’s corruption woes and to study the funding of state elections.

Now, it looks like Cuomo’s commission is not all it’s cracked up to be. And the Cuomo administration is partly to blame.

State lawmakers are refusing to turn over the information about their outside income that the corruption commission requested, the New York Times reports. Cuomo’s staff, meanwhile, “has leaned on the commission to limit the scope of its investigations,” according to the Times.

Here’s more from the Times:

The turmoil over the commission began in late August, when it asked members of both houses of the Legislature to release information about their outside income above $20,000. Several weeks later, lawyers for the Legislature refused, saying, “These demands substantially exceed what New York law authorizes.”

The commission’s relationship with the governor’s office has also been freighted. It issued a flurry of subpoenas at the start, but then was slowed by Mr. Cuomo’s office in several instances, according to people familiar with the situation who insisted on anonymity because they feared retribution by the governor.

In one such instance, when the commission began to investigate how a handful of high-end residential developers in New York City won tax breaks from Albany, its staff drafted, and its three co-chairmen approved, a subpoena of the Real Estate Board of New York. But Mr. Cuomo’s office persuaded the commission not to subpoena the board, whose leaders have given generously to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign, and which supported a business coalition, the Committee to Save New York, that ran extensive television advertising promoting his legislative agenda.

A Cuomo spokeswoman told the Times that “ultimately all investigatory decisions are up to the unanimous decision of the co-chairs.” Still, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said he’s worried about “interference and micromanagement” at the commission, and good-government groups are increasingly disillusioned over the commission’s trajectory. “New Yorkers are losing patience with the continuing culture of corruption in Albany and the continued indictment of their representatives,” reads a letter from Common Cause New York to Cuomo. “The commission was established to help restore their faith in government, not confirm their cynicism that the system will never change.”

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Andrew Cuomo’s Much-Touted Corruption Watchdog Is Beginning to Look Like a Joke

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This Supreme Court Case Could Usher In a “System of Legalized Corruption”

by AntonioRe Posted on October 8, 2013

Mother Jones

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case that’s been dubbed “the next Citizens United.” The plaintiff, GOP donor Shaun McCutcheon, and his conservative allies say the case is about getting rid of restrictions on political spending that stifle free speech. Campaign finance watchdogs, meanwhile, fear the case could eviscerate an important piece of what’s left of the federal laws governing money in politics. McCutcheon, says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, will decide “whether we return to the system of legalized corruption we have had in the past and that has led to some of the worst Washington corruption scandals in the nation’s history.”

Here’s what you need to know about the case.

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This Supreme Court Case Could Usher In a “System of Legalized Corruption”

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Democratic Super-PAC Targets GOP “Crybabies” With Hilarious Ad

by Nomi Steen Posted on October 7, 2013

Mother Jones

Here’s a political ad that gets right to the point.

House Majority PAC, the super-PAC angling to win back the House for the Democrats next year, is on the airwaves with a new TV ad depicting a crying baby and likening a crew of House Republican lawmakers to petulant children. The ad targets House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and a crew of tea party lawmakers—including Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio), Gary Miller (R-Calif.), Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), and Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)—saying these GOPers are, well, big crybabies throwing a temper tantrum over their failed efforts to derail Obamacare.

“Speaker John Boehner didn’t get his way on shutting down health-care reform,” the ad’s narrator says. “So he shut down the government and hurt the economy.” The ad features the Twitter hashtag #GOPTemperTantrum.

The partial shutdown of the federal government now enters its second week, with no resolution in sight. On ABC’s This Week, Boehner said he would not move to reopen the government until President Obama agrees to negotiate over Obamacare, the centerpiece of which went into effect last Tuesday. Asked whether the nation was set to default on its obligations in mid-October when it hits the government’s borrowing limit, Boehner replied, “That’s the path we’re on.” Obama, of course, refuses to enter talks about weakening or defunding his health insurance overhaul.

Don’t be surprised, then, to see more crying babies on your TV set in the days ahead.

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Democratic Super-PAC Targets GOP “Crybabies” With Hilarious Ad

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Charts: Income Growth Has Stalled For Most Americans

by trqe9vwyqm Posted on September 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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Yesterday the Census Bureau released its latest income data, confirming what millions of Americans already know: the recession may be over, but the recovery has yet to trickle down. Specifically, the Census reported that median household incomes didn’t budge between 2011 and 2012.

Digging deeper into the new data reveals more evidence of the widening income gap between the rich and the rest.

The only bright side of stalled incomes is that they are no longer experiencing the steep decline that started in 2007 before the recession hit. But that’s hardly cause for celebration: At $51,017, the real median household income in 2012 is even less than it was at the end of the ’80s, and it’s down 9 percent from its high in 1999.

This loss of real income hasn’t affected all Americans equally. For the top 20 percent of earners, average incomes grew 70 percent since 1967, and they grew 88 percent for the top 5 percent. Meanwhile, middle-income households have seen their earnings grow just 20 percent in the past four decades.

This translates into a greater share of total income going to top earners. In 2012, the top 20 percent took in more than half of all income in the United States, according to the Census.

To put that into sharper focus, I’ve charted how each percentile’s share of total income has changed since the late ’60s. After experiencing significant growth in the mid-1970s, the bottom 20% of earners have seen their share steadily drop. Compare that with the top 5 and 20 percent, which have seen their piece of the pie expand in the past two decades while all other Americans’ shrunk.

This trend is also seen in the latest income data complied by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, which shows that the top 10 percent of earners now hold their largest share of total income since the eve of the Depression.

The new Census data on the bleak state of the American Dream came one day after Forbes released its latest list of 400 wealthiest Americans. Together, they are worth more than $2 trillion. The past year has been very good to them:

The average net worth of list members is a staggering $5 billion, $800 million more than a year ago and also a record. The minimum net worth needed to make the 400 list was $1.3 billion. The last time it was that high was in 2007 and 2008, before property and stock market values began sliding. Because the bar is so high, 61 American billionaires didn’t make the cut.

As Piketty and Saez report, 95 percent of all income growth between 2009 and 2012 went to the 1 percent.

Sources: Chart 1: Census Bureau, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2012″ (PDF); charts 2-4: Census Bureau historical income data; chart 5: Emmanuel Saez, UC Berkeley (Excel)

Front page image: rangizzz/Shutterstock

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Charts: Income Growth Has Stalled For Most Americans

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Birther John Philip Sousa IV Wants a Tea Party Darling to Run For President

by apitjwdu Posted on August 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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Dr. Ben Carson went from acclaimed Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon to conservative hero when, in February, he rebuked President Obama during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. With Obama seated a few feet away, Carson blasted the “PC police,” stumped for a flat tax, and ripped the president’s positions on health-care reform and deficits. Overnight, Carson became a tea party hero. The Wall Street Journal editorial board headlined its write-up of Carson’s half-hour speech: “Ben Carson for President.”

A new super-PAC chaired by John Philip Sousa IV, the great-grandson of the man who wrote “Stars and Stripes Forever,” aims to do just that—nudge Carson into the 2016 race. The National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee recently filed papers with the Federal Election Commission to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money—as all super-PACs can—in an effort to convince Carson to launch a presidential run. On the super-PAC’s website, RunBenRun.org, you can sign a petition that begins, “You said that if the American people were still ‘clamoring’ for you to run for president, you would seriously consider doing so. Well, I’m clamoring for you to run for president of the United States.” As the Center for Public Integrity notes, the super-PAC’s creator is Vernon Robinson, a resident of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who has unsuccessfully run for Congress three times.

As for Sousa IV, this isn’t his first crack at rallying behind a tea party hero. As my colleague Tim Murphy reported in July 2012, Sousa helped bankroll Americans for Sheriff Joe, a political action committee devoted to electing controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio:

Sousa, who has largely avoided politics since unsuccessfully running for Congress as a Republican 38 years ago, says he’s already raised $1 million from more than 40,000 individuals and businesses across the country. (A quarterly filing provided by the group reveals that most of that $1 million went to pay for direct-mail costs.) “I heard from the guy who filed the report for us that our report was almost the size of Obamacare, at 2,200 pages,” he says.

Sousa is an immigration hardliner who notes on his personal web site that “I am tired of pressing one for English, I am tired of looking for the English instructions on boxes. If you don’t speak English or you are not willing to learn English, I would strongly suspect that you should not be a permanent resident in the United States of America.”

In Arpaio, Sousa found an anti-immigration champion who’s not afraid to stand up for what he believes. “We had read lots about Hispanic civil rights group La Raza going after Sheriff Joe, about George Soros going after Sheriff Joe, about Eric Holder going after Sheriff Joe, about Obama not liking Sheriff Joe and wanting him replaced,” Sousa says in an interview, explaining the genesis of his PAC. “And the immigration issues of this country are not getting fixed—not that he can fix them, but at least he enforces the laws of this country.”

Sousa is also something of a birther. In an interview with Murphy, he said, “I mean, can you unequivocally say that Obama was born in the United States? I can’t!” He went on: “I don’t trust the documentation. I don’t distrust it. I don’t know.”

What’s been Carson’s response to the “Draft Ben” effort? Muted, so far. He told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that he loved John Philip Sousa’s music but he wasn’t going to “interfere” with Sousa IV’s effort. “I believe that god will make it clear to me if that’s something that I’m supposed to do,” he said. “It’s not something I particularly want to do. I find life outside of politics much more appealing.”

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Birther John Philip Sousa IV Wants a Tea Party Darling to Run For President

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