California's campaign finance watchdog agency demands names of donors to shadowy Arizona group
Posted: 10/25/2012 04:25:48 PM PDT
Updated: 10/25/2012 11:27:13 PM PDT
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Ann Ravel, chairwoman of the California Fair Political Practices... (Rich Pedroncelli/AP file)
SACRAMENTO -- California emerged Thursday at the center of the national debate over the influence of shadowy super PACs, as the state's political watchdog filed suit against a Phoenix group that made an anonymous $11 million contribution to defeat Gov. Jerry Brown's tax-hike initiative and boost an anti-union ballot measure.
The surprise contribution -- believed to be the largest anonymous political donation in state history -- last week stunned the governor and the labor and education groups working to pass Proposition 30, a tax-hike initiative that Gov. Jerry Brown claims is vital to adequately funding K-12 education and state colleges and universities. Under furious assault from negative ads, the measure is sliding in the polls.
Ann Ravel, the chairwoman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, is suing to force disclosure of information about Phoenix-based Americans For Responsible Leadership. That group made the contribution last week to the Small Business Action Committee, a political action committee running ads against Proposition 30 and for Proposition 32, which would bar unions from collecting union dues for political purposes.
"It's incredibly important to the public to know who is spending money on campaigns in California to influence the electorate," Ravel told this newspaper. "People make decisions based on information about the different sides and the identities of different groups. And we're getting so close to the election
that we're asking for expedited action."
Did ALEC buy your state representatives? Now you can find out.
Now you can find out for sure. ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is notorious for bribing paying for state lawmakers and their families to take lavish vacations. At posh resorts like Hilton Head, ALEC makes sure state representatives get babysitting services, fine dining and face time with deep-pocketed corporate contributors.
ALEC calls these free trips "scholarships." Seriously.
Now, our friends at the Center for Media and Democracy issued a new report listing all the corporations that gave money to fund the trips and all the lawmakers who received them, by state.
You can peruse the report here.
We took a quick look. In a matter of minutes we found these interesting items:
- In Wisconsin, right-to-work-for-less advocate Rep. Robin Vos got a
bribescholarship worth $2,223.64 from ALEC. Corporations that contributed to the Wisconsin scholarship fund included T-Mobile USA, PhRMA and Xcel Energy. - In Maine, Rep. Carol Weston received a $3,828.55
bribescholarship. She's theKoch brothers chief puppetAmericans for Prosperity state director. - In Georgia, Sen. Don Balfour was granted a
bribescholarship worth $1,536.00. Balfour sponsored the bill earlier this year to make it a felony to conspire to picket. (It failed.)
There's more ALEC news: A former IRS official accuses ALEC of lying about its assets. Roll Call reported yesterday,
The former head of the IRS’ Exempt Organizations division accused the conservative nonprofit American Legislative Exchange Council of lying about its assets in its federal tax filings in a letter sent to the agency Wednesday.
Marcus Owens, a lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale who for a decade directed the IRS division responsible for approving organizations’ charity statuses, said ALEC made conflicting statements to federal and state regulators in an attempt to maintain its status as a tax-exempt charitable nonprofit. A copy of the letter was obtained by Roll Call.
It’s the second complaint against ALEC that Owens has filed with the IRS this year on behalf of Clergy Voice, a coalition of Christian progressive ministers in the battleground state of Ohio. The clergy group is concerned that ALEC is violating its tax status and that the strict voter identification laws it promotes ultimately disenfranchise voters.
Sounds like trouble in ALEC Land. Heh-heh.