Following the charter school cash in the Washington State Primary: The latest money scheme
Nowhere is the chasm between the hard reality of our political system and the American ideals of merit, choice, and freedom more on display than during an election cycle.
Money matters – a lot.
The challenge for large money donors is how to spend big on your candidate(s) without offending the voters you’re trying to persuade. Voters understand politics is a dirty game, but they still believe in the idea that democracy should work for everyone.
Big donors have come up with a practical two step solution to this problem:
- Keep the money moving through various PACs.
- When it’s time to spend the money, use independent expenditures to further mask the source.
Openly supporting charter schools is a still a risky position for many politicians in Washington State. Let’s take a look at how pro-charter PACs supported their preferred candidates through the use of a PAC with a different name and independent expenditures.
The Name Game
Between July and August of 2016, three PACs contributed $265,500 dollars to Voters for Washington Children. They were:
Stand for Children Washington PAC
7/14 $76,000
7/25 $10,000
Total: $86,000
Washington Charters PAC
7/15 $70,000
7/25 $27,500
7/25 $10,000
8/03 $15,000
Total:$122,500
Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) Washington PAC
7/14 $40,000
7/18 $ 7,500
7/25 $10,000
Total:$57,000
The Independent Expenditure Shell Game
Voters for Washington Children contracted with a group called RALLY in San Francisco to produced digital ads and mailers for the candidates Stand for Children, DFER, and Following the charter school cash in the Washington State Primary: The latest money scheme | Seattle Education:
