Political Ruminations

VIDEO: Who is Secretly Buying Our Elections?

Chilling. And as someone else said [can't remember exactly who], this election is for all of the marbles. VOTE.

 

Update: FEC Filing of Concerned TaxPayers of America

The group which garnered national attention when they intervened in the DeFazio race in Oregon, Concerned Taxpayers of America, consists of only two people/entities. From the Washington Post:

Daniel G. Schuster Inc., an Owings Mills, Md., concrete firm, gave two donations to the group totaling $300,000, new disclosure records show. New York hedge fund executive Robert Mercer gave the group $200,000.

And that's the extent of the financial support reported by Concerned Taxpayers, which says it was formed in September "to engage citizens from every walk of life and political affiliation" in the fight against "runaway spending."

The group's rapid creation - and its narrow funding base - illustrates how one or two wealthy donors can have a dramatic impact on political races, particularly in the wake of recent court rulings that have swept away many traditional spending limits. The situation also underscores how the precise motivations and goals of many independent groups can remain stubbornly opaque, even when disclosure is required.

The Concerned Taxpayers, which lists a Capitol Hill townhouse as its address, has spent $450,000 on television advertising targeting just two lawmakers: Reps. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Frank M. Kratovil Jr. (D-Md.).

Are these two donors acting as fronts? We may never know. We desperately need public financing of all elections.

Silly Dumb Little People........the GOP Thinks You Don't Care Who's Funding Them

Whoops! [emphasis mine]

It has become an article of faith among certain Beltway inside-game commentators that there’s no way the Dem attack on secret money funding elections could ever have a prayer of working. Surely the issue is too esoteric, too process-y, and too removed from voter concerns about the economy to resonate.

But a new poll commissioned by MoveOn, and done by the respected non-partisan firm Survey USA, strongly suggests that the issue may indeed matter a good deal to voters after all.

The poll finds that two thirds of registered voters, or 66 percent, are aware that outside groups are behind some of the ads they’re seeing. This makes sense, since the issue has dominated the media amid the battle over the huge ad onslaught against Dems funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s groups.

What’s more, an overwhelming 84 percent say they have a “right to know” who’s bankrolling the ads. And crucially, the poll also found that the issue is resonant when linked to the economy. A majority, 53 percent, are less likely to think a candidate who is backed by “anonymous groups” can be trusted to “improve economic conditions” for them or their families. People don’t believe these groups are looking out for their interests.

I guess we no longer need to wonder why Karl Rove, the Chamber, and the Republican media want the Left to stop talking about their secret little fundraising pacs.

h/t Oliver Willis

Citizens United Ruling Fallout: Concerned Taxpayers of America Intervenes in Oregon’s 4th District Race

Concerned Taxpayers of America [CTA], one of the new super pacs, is intervening in Oregon’s 4th District race by making large ad buys against the Democratic incumbent, Rep. Peter DeFazio.

The secretive Concerned Taxpayers of America (CTA) is out with a new $79,000 ad buy against Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), bringing its total spending in Oregon's 4th congressional district race to more than $165,000 -- four times what DeFazio's opponent has spent.

CTA is a right wing Pac, as is evident when you look at Arthur Robinson, the candidate they’re supporting against DeFazio, who is a libertarian, a global warming denier [it’s a hoax to enslave the American people!], is in favor of abolishing public education, and so forth, and so on.

DeFazio told The Huffington Post that he believes Robinson's outspoken advocacy on behalf of conservative causes is the reason CTA is going after him so aggressively. "This is a small group of individuals, unknown, undisclosed, with obviously very, very deep pockets who have decided to campaign just to attack me and help my opponent, who obviously supports their radical extreme right-wing libertarian agenda," he said. "He has run in the highest circles of the right-wing libertarian whack jobs for decades. He's well known, he's a prominent national speaker on the homeschooling movement, he wants to abolish public education, and he is their front person with an organization and a so-called petition against global climate change, and he himself has [said he has] definitively proven climate change theory and knows it's a hoax to enslave the American people. I mean, this sounds like stuff that wouldn't go anywhere, but with hundreds of thousands -- or millions -- of dollars behind it in a swing district like mine, you don't know where it will go."

Finally, I must again offer thanks for recent decisions by our right wing Supreme Court, defenders of the plutocracy, which made it possible for corporations and other entities to form these secretive super pacs, so that they may then spend unlimited amounts of money while only disclosing their donors to the Federal Election Commission, which may not matter much because they don’t have to disclose until October 18. Coincidentally, Oregon votes by mail, and this is about the same time that the Oregon ballots will be mailed out (the ballots are mailed between the 14th and 18th days prior to an election).

These groups must operate independently from political parties and campaigns, and while they must disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, campaign finance advocates argue that they're able to largely operate in the shadows. "They're springing up like wildfire because they can take corporate money in huge amounts and while they have to file disclosure forms, the next time those reports are due isn't until the middle of October, so they're really able to spend money for a really critical part of the election season without having to disclose," said Lisa Gilbert, democracy advocate at U.S. PIRG [……]

Adding…I plan to check the FEC site for the donor disclosure list in October, and will post the names, as well as any background info I can find, here. Stay tuned…

UPDATE: Tuesday, October 19

As promised, an update.