Bush's Secret Stash - 501(c)s

[reprehensor]

The GOPs answer to 527s is the 501(c).



By Nicholas Confessore

Like the natural world, campaign finance is governed by inescapable laws of physics. One is that what goes up usually keeps going up: During every pres-idential election, the two parties manage to raise more money than they did the last time around. Another is that any given action rarely produces an equal and opposite reaction. Every four years, the GOP outraises and outspends the Democratic Party, usually by tens of millions of dollars.

snip

But last summer, a coterie of labor campaign operatives, liberal advocacy-group leaders, and old Clinton hands began exploiting one of McCain-Feingold's loopholes. They organized several groups under Section 527 of the tax code to raise and spend the soft money which the Democratic Party no longer could. Scores of wealthy liberals, among them George Soros, have together given tens of millions of dollars to these "527s," which have generic names like Americans Coming Together and Voices for Working Families. And in March and April, these groups spent a chunk of the money on issue ads attacking Bush, just as Bush was spending $50 million from his campaign war chest to attack Kerry. Though Kerry has raised $85 million worth of the $2,000 and under "hard money" donations permitted under McCain-Feingold--a Herculean amount for a Democrat--Bush has raised more than twice that. Without help from the 527s, the Kerry campaign would probably be in big trouble.

The GOP, of course, is well aware of this. Which is why its lawyers have filed legal challenges with the Federal Election Commission to get the 527s shut down, charging that this "Democratic shadow party" represents a "conspiracy" to "illegally" pump soft money into the presidential race. Such campaign finance groups as Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Alliance for Better Campaigns--which once butted heads with Bush over his opposition to McCain-Feingold--have joined the battle against this new Democratic weapon, as have anti-soft money editorial boards at newspapers across the country. In an editorial titled "Soft Money Slinks Back," The New York Times inveighed against "political insiders" who were "carving a giant loophole" in election law, while the Los Angeles Times called upon the FEC to "issue tough new rules" against the 527s. The Boston Globe was even more acerbic, raging in April that the commission "has all but declared itself impotent to act during this election cycle."

snip

But they were also eager to protect a whole other category of 501(c)s--one that has garnered little attention from campaign finance reform groups or reporters covering the 2004 election. Like the Democratic 527s, these groups have innocuous-sounding names: , for example, and Progress for America. Like the 527s, these groups are staffed by veteran party operatives and, in practice, are wholly or primarily devoted to getting their side's candidates elected. And like the 527s, they may raise and spend unlimited amounts of soft money on radio and television ads, direct mail, and voter contact efforts.

more@link

Very informative.

[cosmicdot]

1. "garnered little attention from campaign finance reform ... or reporters"

yet, they're so obvious

501(c)s like the Council on Foreign Policy draw from both sides of the aisle ... maybe that's a clue why little attention is giving to the Heritage Foundation (one of the favorites for cable news 'experts' for analysis, commentary), etc.

I want to see them on the things-to-do list for reform.



The Heritage Foundation is a public policy, research, and educational organization operating under Section 501(C)(3). It is privately supported, and receives no funds from any government at any level, nor does it perform any government or other contract work.

The Heritage Foundation is the most broadly supported think tank in the United States. During 2001, it had more than 200,000 individual, foundation, and corporate supporters representing every state in the U.S. Its 2001 contributions came from the following sources:

Individuals 60.93%
Foundations 27.02%
Corporations 7.61%
Investment Income 1.60%
Publication Sales and Other 2.84%

The top five corporate givers provided The Heritage Foundation with less than 3.5% of its 2001 income. The Heritage Foundation's books are audited annually by the national accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche.

http://www.heritage.org/About/Help/faq.cfm#q2

http://www.heritage.org/About/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=4713

wish I could copy the photo of the Board of Trustees ... such a diverse group of people

[reprehensor]

2. In a word, 'Scaife'.

He is to the right wing what Soros is to us.