Dakota War College ties Rich to IM-10

At least one blogger in South Dakota believes that Howie Rich is the man behind Initiated Measure 10 there. Like the Colorado plan offered by Colorado At Its Best, Clean Government Colorado and the Independence Institute, IM 10 would prohibit campaign contributions from a large population of South Dakotans.

The Dakota War College published its theory on September 30 and cited several other sources to support it.

Rich, a wealthy Libertarian New York real estate developer who is the founder and chairman of U.S. Term Limits, has been a stealthy operator in the growing field of ballot initiative politics and in making use of the most unregulated political entities — nonprofit organizations. Critics complain that Rich and his colleagues are abusing the initiative process by using their nonprofit status to hide the identity of a handful of wealthy conservative businessmen and large corporations pursuing various anti-government causes aimed at freeing industry from regulations and taxes.

and…

Two initiatives funded by Rich’s shell groups were aimed at the judiciary last year. One that lost in Colorado would have allowed the recall of judges. The other, called Jail 4 Judges, in South Dakota, would have created a special grand jury to indict judges for such offenses as a “deliberate disregard of material facts,” and “blocking of a lawful conclusion of a case.” After three such “convictions,” the judge would be fired and docked half of his or her retirement benefits. It failed by an 8-1 margin.

and…

“Rich is the figurehead who seems energized by these stealth methods of operating,” said Bill Hogan, an investigator with the Center of Public Integrity, a nonprofit nonpartisan group that funds investigative reporting. “He’s built layers of nonprofit organizations (that are) pretty hard to fathom. They seemed to be set up to avoid disclosure triggers.”

If all of these connections were circumstantial, Dakota War College found a significant real one too: "Well according to a commenter, (and as verified by myself) the IM10 and SDCAC websites were hosted at the same location as the website for Rich’s Americans for Limited Government (www.Americansforlimitedgovernment.com). Although that was no longer the case after those website comments were posted. Coincidence? Maybe. Although, there seems to be more than just that."

There’s other parts of the trail. As this website discloses, it seems as if people are talking more and more about this possible funder of Jail-4-judges pushing the Open and Clean Government act in several states:

In 2008, Rich moved away from tax fights and is concentrating his efforts on trying to diminish the voices of employees. Rich is one of the primary funders behind the “Open and Clean Government” initiatives in both South Dakota and Colorado. Open and Clean Government prohibits political contributions by labor unions that have collective bargaining agreements with state or local governments but is silent about corporate gifts to elected officials and ignores most contributions by large and out-of-state corporations. These two initiatives served as the model for Alaska’s Anti-Corruption Act.

When the Anchorage Daily News attempted to clarify Rich’s involvement in the Anti-Corruption Act, Scott Kohlaas a Libertarian working on the initiative said, “I can tell you he sent me an e-mail telling me not to ‘eff’ this up.”

Read the Alaska writeup here. And here’s what this same website had to say about South Dakota:

The 2008 election has also seen activity by anti-government and anti-worker ideologues. An initiative deceptively titled “Open and Clean Government,” is being funded by Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, and has possible ties to Howie Rich, the libertarian New York developer behind the 2006 TABOR initiatives. The initiative, while wrapped in the guise of government reform and transparency, would severely restrict the ability of regular South Dakotans to participate in elections or lobbying their government. Any person or entity with a no-bid government contract, including labor unions, would be prohibited from contributing to a political candidate or lobbying the state legislature, as would any member of the extended family of the person with the contract or any person associated with the entity that has the contract. As an example, the cousin of a member of the teacher’s union who contributes to a candidate for the state legislature would be committing a crime if this law passes. The initiative is so extreme that South Dakota’s labor unions and chambers of commerce have united to oppose it.