PAC shielded $2.3 million in donations by LA charter school backers
LOS ANGELES
Nearly $2.3 million in donations made by charter school supporters during this year's Los Angeles school board races were shielded from disclosure until after the election was over, a review of records shows.
Those contributions - from philanthropist Eli Broad, heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others - were made prior to the May 19 election to California Charter Schools Association Advocates, a political action committee in Sacramento. That group then forwarded campaign funds to a local affiliated committee.
The Los Angeles-based PAC was required by campaign laws only to identify the state charter group as the source of the funding, not the individual donors.
As a result, the donors remained anonymous in Los Angeles campaign filings. In September, the state charter group filed a required state report listing all of its contributors.
While the practice appears to be within the law, state campaign regulators said they are concerned about how the contributions remained unreported for so long.
Jay Wierenga, a spokesman for the California state Fair Political Practices Commission, said the goal of state law is "to elicit and promote meaningful disclosure to the public when it counts - before an election."
A state charter association spokesman said the group did nothing wrong in the way it handled the contributions. He emphasized that the group's objective is to improve education opportunities for families.
The donors "see the value in our goals and mission to provide a high-quality educational option to parents and students," said Richard Garcia, director of elections communications for the California Charter Schools Association.
Garcia noted that charter advocates lack the extensive financial base of dues-paying members that unions can rely on. The L.A. teachers union was the main force opposing charter-backed candidates in school board elections that are widely recognized as the costliest in the nation.
Charters are independently managed, publicly funded schools that are exempt from some rules that govern traditional campuses. Most are nonunion.
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times asked the charter group for a list of donations made in 2015 in advance of the election. The group declined. But Garcia said in a recent interview that it was not trying to hide anything in setting up the local PAC to receive money from the state PAC.
"Local committees are established across the state to give a local flavor to each race, including (a) local name on disclaimers for campaign materials," he said. "This is a common practice as campaign consultants believe it best to maintain local name ID."
Voters following the election in Los Angeles knew only that the money flowing into the campaign during 2015 came from the state charter PAC.
While the names of the donors were absent from L.A. records, some did appear in campaign reporting documents related to races elsewhere in the state. In those contests, the state charter group had not created a local PAC to channel the funding through. As a result, some contributors were revealed.
The name the charter group gave its Los Angeles PAC was Parent Teacher Alliance in Support of Rodriguez, Galatzan, and Vladovic for School Board 2015. The victory of Ref Rodriguez was a first for a charter school operator in L.A. Incumbent Tamar Galatzan lost and Richard Vladovic, who also was supported by the teachers union, was re-elected.
The charter PAC was the biggest money player in these contests, spending about $2.7 million. The teachers union spent about $1.6 million, according to state and local records.
Among the charter donors not disclosed in L.A. filings was Bloomberg, who gave $350,000 in 2015. Bloomberg already had contributed $250,000 in 2014, an amount that was disclosed prior to the election because the funds arrived before the end of 2014.
Other donors from 2015 who were disclosed after the election included:
_Gap clothing co-founder Doris Fisher ($750,000). The longtime charter supporter also gave $550,000 in 2014.
_Wal-Mart Corp. heirs Carrie W. Penner ($150,000) and Jim Walton ($225,000). The two also gave a combined $620,000 in 2014.
_Grower Barbara Grimm ($500,000), owner of one of California's largest farming operations, who started a charter school near Bakersfield. Grimm also gave $586,400 in 2014.
_Emerson Collective ($150,000), a corporation under the control of Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, which supports charitable and political causes.
_Investor John H. Scully ($100,000). He and his wife also gave $400,000 in 2014.
_Philanthropist Eli Broad ($50,000). He also gave $305,000 to the state charter PAC in 2014.
Broad contributed to the state charter PAC not to delay disclosure but "because he supported the organization's statewide election strategy," said Karen Denne, chief communications officer for the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.
Recently, the Broad Foundation spearheaded a proposal to enroll half of Los Angeles students in charters over the next eight years. Potential funders listed in a confidential June draft, obtained by the Times, included key donors to the charter PAC or the affiliated statePAC shielded $2.3 million in donations by LA charter school backers | The Sacramento Bee:
