PAC received $11 million of anonymous money for Prop 30 and Prop 32.

by Brian Leubitz

It turns out that everything comes around in the end.

The political arm of the Small Business Action Committee (SBAC) filed official termination papers on Monday, six months after agreeing to hand over $300,000 in campaign cash to state officials for accepting what turned out to be the largest anonymous donation to a political effort in California history. (KQED / John Myers)

If you don’t remember exactly what happened, check the dark money tag. Long story short, a few payments, totaling over $10 million, were dropped into the SBAC accounts right before the November 2012 election to fight for Prop 32 (unions) and against Prop 30 (Brown’s tax measure). Common Cause filed a complaint, and the FPPC eventually came down with the biggest fine ever.

Now, the fine would have worked out just fine if those meddling good government types hadn’t gotten in the way of the profligate spending right before the election. That fine is just another cost of buying an election, if you have that kind of money. But, in the end, the problem was that the money played directly into the campaign message that the Prop 32 opponents (including me) had been stating for the past 6 months. While the SBAC was able to spend a lot of money right before the election, it could be argued that the earned media was just as valuable for the other side.

Closing down a PAC isn’t really that big of a deal, because it isn’t hard to open another one. If Joel Fox or his compatriots have any big plans, there is no doubt that a similar group will be up and running in a few days. Nonetheless, it does mark something of a turning of the page on the 2012 election.

$10 million disappears in right-wing money laundering operation

by Brian Leubitz

How go those Gap jeans you are wearing today? And your Charles Schwab account is growing, I’m sure. And, of course, you totally bought Eli Broad’s support of Gov. Brown’s tax measure, right?

Well, welcome to the world of dark money, a bizarro land where people get to say and do very different things. Reports released by state investigators show a complex money laundering scheme involving several shady right-wing money movers and organizations, all to help hide the donors of about $25 million intended to fight against Gov. Brown’s tax measure, Prop 30, and for the anti-labor measure, Prop 32. While many of the names will be unfamiliar, some of them are pretty much household names. But these are people that don’t really want the attention, they just want to get their way. Because they are rich and that is what happens.

So, a pair of Republican consultants, Tony Russo and Jeff Miller, went about laundering the money through a vast network of Koch brother connected organizations in order to hide the true source of the money. Just to be clear, there is a word for that here in California: illegal.

The Fisher family, of the clothing firm Gap Inc., contributed more than $9 million. San Francisco investor Charles Schwab gave $6.4 million, and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad sent $1 million.

The money went to a Virginia nonprofit that would use it to pay for the ad blitz and be allowed to keep the contributors secret. Nonprofits, unlike political action committees, are not required to identify their donors under federal law. … But things went from bad to worse. Although Russo handed over $25 million, only about $15 million ended up back in California. And when the money surfaced, it sparked an investigation by state authorities, who last month levied $16 million in penalties against the Arizona group and three others.(LA Times

Somewhere along the line, Sean Noble, a Koch-affiliated operative, decided that he actually wasn’t into sending the last $10 million back to California through their little washing machine. The attention had gotten to be too much. The fact that Russo claims he still doesn’t know what happens to that cash is something of a funny post script.

But the real fight is over the large penalty handed down to the Small Business Action Committee(SBAC), the California PAC that spent the money attacking Prop 30 and supporting Prop 32. The FPPC levied a “disgorgement” penalty that requires the group to pay to the state an amount of money equal to the dark money that they accepted. Of course, the SBAC is fighting the fine, and the result of that fight could mean a lot for how ballot measures are run over the next few years.

Perhaps if voters had easy access to more information, they could simply vote against any initiative campaign that was using the shady money. But in the real world, cash is still king.  If the fine is upheld, dark money could stall at the state border. If it is overturned, expect the secretive cash to become an even bigger (yet still overwhelmingly shady) tool in initiative campaigns.

Photo credit: Mayor Gavin Newsom on Flickr. Mayor Newsom (a prominent supporter of Prop 30) appeared with Charles Schwab at the opening of the Charles Schwab flagship space in San Francisco.

Money laundered from engineering trade group to a campaign against Prop 30 and for Prop 32

by Brian Leubitz

This was bound to happen at some point, the first of the donors to the so-called “Small Business Action Committee” that supported Prop 32 and opposed Prop 30 has been outed by reports.

An engineering trade organization that advocates for privatizing government work has been tied to the group behind the $11 million dark money donation that prompted a legal showdown in California last fall.

The $400,000 that can now be traced back to a group called the American Council of Engineering Companies in California (ACEC-CA) may not be the biggest of disclosures, but when it comes to dark money in politics, any transparency at all is a revelation.

Campaign finance reports released last week in California show that the Sacramento, Calif.-based ACEC-CA wrote two checks to the conservative group Americans for Job Security in 2012, one in July for $150,000 and one in September for $250,000, which were described in disclosures to California’s Secretary of State as intended for “issue advocacy.”(TPM)

Now, the biggest checks were still written by a man we know all too well, Charles T. Munger, the son of Warren Buffet’s business partner. But, we may yet learn a few more names about who else laundered a bit of cash to support Prop 32’s anti-labor agenda.

A friendly reminder

by Brian Leubitz

It is that time of the year, GOTV weekend. With some very important ballot measures and local candidate races on the ballot, we have to make sure that the Republicans don’t win a few just because our voters didn’t show up. That means getting everybody to vote by Tuesday.

The California Democratic Party has a great Battleground California tool that will help you find your closest volunteer location or let you make calls from home. The No on 32 also has a No on 32 Volunteer page with listings for lots of events.

Let’s bring this home! We have to make sure California votes YES on 30 and NO on 32!Note: Brian Leubitz, the editor of this blog, works for the No on 32 campaign. Please like the campaign on facebook or follow on twitter. Statements are his own.

Funny video reveals some very worrisome outcomes

This chap is pretty chatty for a SuperPac Billionaire, bue he does like to hide now and again. However, from his tweets and this new video, he’s spilling some serious beans. And guess what, we should trust him and his big business friends, they know what is best for us!

Note: Brian Leubitz, the editor of this blog, works for the No on 32 campaign. Please like the campaign on facebook or follow on twitter.

Calls out Yes on 32/No on 30 “Small Business Action Committee” for hypocrisy

by Brian Leubitz

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You may have already heard the news about the $11,000,000 donation from the “Americans for Responsible Leadership,” a group that refuses to discloses its contributors. In fact, last week we posted about the Sacramento Bee calling out both the group that gave and received the anonymous cash.

However, Joe Mathews, a noted California political journalist and analyst, points out how the secretive money puts the lie to the notion that Proposition 32 is about campaign finance reform.

Seriously, do you remember a more counterproductive donation than this one? In this case, the $11 million is being given in such a way that it destroys whatever chances Prop 32, the measure that anonymous donors are supposedly supporting, might have had of passing.

Prop 32 is being sold as campaign finance reform. An anonymous donation steps on that message; the huge, overwhelmingly negative publicity the donation has drawn to 32 has to be worth more than the $11 million. And in a larger sense, the donation exposes the core of what’s wrong with Prop 32 and other attempts at what is sometimes called “Paycheck Protection” as a way to blunt union power. … Instead, they are giving and accepting an anonymous donation, an act that will confirm the worst stereotypes about critics of public employee unions. If the backers of Prop 32 want true political reform, and less domination by public employee unions, they should give the $11 million back. Right away.(emphasis added, Fox and Hounds Daily)

As Mr. Mathews states, the secretive $11,000,000 tells a lot more about what Prop 32 really is. It is a measure to silence working Californians, while allowing for the proliferation of secretive SuperPACs like the “Americans for Responsible Leadership.”

Read the full column at  Fox and Hounds Daily.

Note: Brian Leubitz, the editor of this blog, works for the No on 32 campaign. Please like the campaign on facebook or follow on twitter.

Noted LA Times columnist calls out the phony political reform

by Brian Leubitz

George Skelton has seen most of the smarmier side of California politics. And when he calls something out for being phony, you should at least take notice. However, in the case of Prop 32, he’s gone further:

Even a cursory look at Prop. 32 shows that it’s about a covey of special interests from the right attacking a rival interest on the left, organized labor.

If backers had turned their initiative into an honest debate about curtailing labor muscle – specifically the influence of public employee unions – they would have deserved more serious consideration.

But by deciding to phony it up – crafting what they perceived to be the best marketing pitch based on public opinion surveys – they’ve created a laugher and an insult to the voters’ intelligence.(LA Times)

Of course, this is nothing all that new. What he is saying is the same thing that the League of Women Voters and Common Cause have been saying: this is not real political reform. It is a thin veneer with a whole other set of goals beneath. While Prop 32 would silence working Californians, like teachers, cops, nurses and firefighters, it would only empower the real special interests to spend unlimited and unregulated sums on their own favored politicians and measures.

As Mr. Skelton put it, “Prop. 32 is a self-serving sham.”

Note: Brian Leubitz, the editor of this blog, works for the No on 32 campaign. Please like the campaign on facebook or follow on twitter.