Anonymous money floods Colorado too

It's a system: An anonymous donor supplies funding to a non-profit organization, which then supplies funding to a campaign committee, which then promotes a ballot measure that, in some way, meets the needs of the original anonymous donor.

Why does the donor remain anonymous? It's anybody's guess.

Why does the donor contribute to a non-profit organization instead of directly to a campaign committee? Because non-profit organizations don't have to reveal their donors, while campaign committees are required to report that information.

It's a system, and the Colorado Independent found $2.4 million flowing through one in Colorado.

Nonprofits are traditionally “social welfare” organizations that register with the federal Internal Revenue Service, but recently they have been used in Colorado to fund political causes, all while keeping secret the names of donors who have paid for campaign costs or for petition efforts to put a proposal on the ballot.

Morgan Carroll, an Aurora Democrat who is running against Republican Suzanne Andrews in Senate District 29, said she wants to bring further transparency to nonprofit electioneering, possibly by supporting legislation in 2009 that would require certain nonprofit groups to disclose funders or by using state audits to examine the organizations’ political activities.
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“To the extent people really are electioneering and using the [nonprofit] status as a way to avoid disclosures I think we need to address that assuming we can find a clean constitutional way to do it,” Carroll says.

The majority of initiative campaigns this year have not funded their efforts exclusively with anonymous nonprofit funds, according to state campaign-finance records. For instance, Colorado For Equal Rights, a campaign supporting a ballot question to define a fertilized human egg as a person, has disclosed dozens of individual names. Protect Colorado’s Future, another group opposing Amendments 47 and 49, has released records showing that a large majority of the campaign’s funding comes from various labor unions.

In contrast, the Amendment 49 campaign, being supported by the Golden-based Independence Institute conservative think tank, has collected nearly 100 percent of its funding through a nonprofit organization called Colorado At Its Best, receiving more than $1.4 million dollars since February, records show.

Anonymous dough flows into Colorado initiative campaigns

Rich pushed Alaska's "Anti-Corruption Act" too

Two days after Cindi Ross Scoppe named Howie Rich and his goal to "dismantle government" as a decisive factor in her newspaper's endorsement of candidate, the director of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group named Howie Rich as a destructive force in Alaska politics, too.

The so-called Anti-Corruption Initiative has hidden the money it has received. Supporters have said they will ask New York real-estate tycoon Howie Rich for money if they make the ballot, which they now have in 2010. Rich has thrown his money into ballot initiatives across the United States, in an effort to further his own interests.

Some of these initiatives have been thrown off the ballot, as in Montana where, in September of 2006, District Judge Dirk Sandefur removed three bogus initiatives from the November ballot. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer challenged Rich to a public debate, saying: "I am writing to invite you to Montana to meet the folks whose lives you wish to change so drastically through your shady campaign. We would like to learn more about who you are, and about your motive to impose such a poisonous constitutional amendment on us."

... By wrapping their initiative in the guise of fighting corruption, Anti-Corruption Initiative supporters are attempting to hide their efforts to negate Clean Elections. But that is exactly what their initiative will do.
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Most importantly, with clean elections, corporations and special interests can't buy their way into the halls of government. Special interest money is simply taken out of the equation. This puts people back in charge of the electoral process and their democracy.
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The Clean Elections Initiative is a positive step toward political campaign reform in Alaska. It will allow Alaskans of all political stripes to run for office and put out their ideas as to what is best for Alaska. The founders of this country and this state certainly didn't want wealthy special interests dominating political life. Clean elections are a way to get our system back.

My turn: Clean Elections transparent, 'Anti-Corruption' masks funding
Juneau Empire (AK) - June 22, 2008

AG questions measures' constitutionality

On May 24, South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long told citizens that three of the ballot measures proposed in his state might be unconstitutional and would likely be challenged in court if they were approved. If state laws are challenged in court, it's the attorney general's responsibility to defend them, so South Dakota law requires the attorney general to give the voters his advice before a ballot measure comes to the polls.

The Aberdeen American News wrote this about Initiated Measure 10, which was sponsored by a group called South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government:

Initiated Measure 10: The full text of Initiated Measure 10 is about 2,000 words and attempts to prohibit a broad range of political activities. The petition drive to place Measure 10 on the ballot was funded almost entirely by the newly formed South Dakota Conservative Action Council, whose directors have refused to disclose their sources of revenue, and the Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform.

Those two organizations provided nearly all of the money to the South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government ballot committee that is sponsoring the initiative. The initiative's official sponsors were Tonchi Weaver of Rapid City, Jessica Walberg of Sioux Falls and James Anderson of Sioux Falls.

The attorney general's explanation attempts to summarize Measure 10 in 125 words:

"Measure 10 would prohibit state and local governments, their officers, employees, independent contractors, consultants and candidates, from using government revenues or resources for campaigning or lobbying. Some communications and appearances before legislators and public bodies are exempted.

"It would prohibit persons who employ legislators or recent legislators from obtaining government contracts. It would prohibit, until two years after contract termination: some public officers, candidates and their agents from soliciting, accepting or directing contributions from some holders of competitively bid government contracts and their family members; and no-bid government contract holders, their officers, employees, agents, vendors and family members from making contributions to, or independent expenditures for, all candidate campaigns.

"The Secretary of State would be required to summarize government contracts over $500 on its website."

Long added that if Measure 10 is adopted, all or part "will likely be challenged in court and may be declared to be in violation of the United States Constitution. If so, the State may be required to pay attorney fees and costs."

Long noted that state laws already prohibit the acceptance of campaign contributions from all government and tribal entities; prohibit spending of public funds to support or oppose ballot measures; and prohibit certain state and county contracts which financially benefit legislators.

"Ballot issues raise concerns," Aberdeen American News (SD) - May 24, 2008

Same financier pushed ballot measures in CA

A few days after the Spartanburg Herald-Journal suggested that New Yorker Howard Rich might be the source of support for South Carolinians for Responsible Government and its fliers supporting pro-voucher challengers to state lawmakers, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat of California reminded its readers of Rich's work there in 2006 on a ballot measure.

Supporters of Proposition 98 contend the June 3 ballot measure is about limiting the authority of government to seize private property through its powers of eminent domain. But here's what it's really about: Landlords using the power of the initiative process to trick voters into getting rid of rent control in California.

Under the guise of dealing with eminent domain, Proposition 98 is a back-door attempt to prohibit state and local governments from controlling what property owners charge to lease or otherwise occupy property. The net effect is that rent control ordinances in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles would be phased out along with similar measures governing mobile home parks in areas including Sonoma County and all nine of its cities.

This explains why Proposition 98 is funded largely by mobile home parks owners, owners of apartment complexes and other landlords throughout the state.

But this deceptive measure has more than just renters and tenants of mobile home parks nervous. Proposition 98 would amend the state constitution in a way that would cripple the ability of state and local governments to acquire property for important public projects such as school construction and widening highways.
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Backers of Proposition 98 hope to get this past voters by taping into the outrage that still exists following a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Kelo vs. New London). In that case, the high court upheld the right of Connecticut government officials to use eminent domain to seize private property and give it to a private developer.

This is the second attempt in California to pander to fears about this decision. Two years ago, state voters wisely rejected a proposition bankrolled by New York libertarian Howie Rich that sought many of the same changes as Proposition 98.

"No 98, Yes 99: This is all about pandering to fears of property owners," Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA) - May 22, 2008

The newspaper recommended that its readers vote down the new measure.

South Dakota group offers an Alaska-like plan

In Alaska, while a group of activists worked to support an "anti-corruption" ballot measure, a similar group in South Dakota hit upon a similar idea at roughly the same time. On February 6, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader published this item among a list of news briefs:

A group trying to uncouple money from state government says it received $10,000 to help underwrite a ballot initiative to restrict political campaign spending and to enhance financial transparency in government. South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government says the donation was made by Americans for Tax Reform, one of the nation's leading taxpayer watchdogs.

The petition being circulated to get the South Dakota Open and Clean Government Act before voters would prohibit public money from being used to advance political agendas, including increased taxes. It would prevent legislators from securing "golden-parachute" jobs after their public service has ended. Recipients of no-bid contracts would be prohibited from donating to political campaigns while they hold a state contract and two years thereafter.

"Husband fired gun during fight, police say," Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) - February 6, 2008

A few weeks later, the Argus Leader gave the group and their proposal a little more coverage. They were not opposed to the rights of private groups to hire private lobbyists, but they equated public agencies hiring lobbyists with "corruption."

A ballot initiative that would shake up Pierre lobbying and place limits on government contracts has been submitted to the secretary of state. Organizers say the Open and Clean Government Act will prevent corruption and expand transparency. But critics say the initiative will silence key players in the lawmaking process. If it passes, dozens of government associations that are supported by tax dollars no longer would be able to contact legislators.
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The act would affect almost anyone who receives a government contract. It says someone awarding a contract can't accept campaign money from a recipient, and it would prohibit anyone who employs a legislator or legislative staffer from receiving a government contract.

"Ballot may get crowded," Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) - March 22, 2008

On April 2, South Dakota's secretary of state certified the group's petitions, ensuring that their measure would be placed on the ballot.