By Louis V. Galdieri
Posted on his blog Feb. 15, 2016*
Reprinted with permission
A
ProPublica investigation of dark money organizations lends context and additional color to some of what I had to say a a short while ago about the Marquette County Road Commission’s (MCRC) lawsuit against the EPA.
Sponsored by State Senator Tom Casperson, the Republican representing Michigan’s 38th district, the MCRC lawsuit is being funded by a non-profit organization called Stand UP. Stand UP is exactly the kind of dark money organization profiled by ProPublica: it’s a special kind of non-profit, a 501c4 "social welfare" organization that is not required by law to disclose the names of donors. It does not have to confine its fundraising and expenditures to the MCRC lawsuit or any other specific purpose. It is a trough of dark money that can serve any number of political efforts.
So, as I tried to suggest in a series of posts on the MCRC complaint (
here,
here,
here and
here), while the lawsuit is nominally over a haul road that will serve both mining and timber companies, it also appears to be part of a larger, coordinated effort to sideline federal regulators, stifle local environmental watchdogs, and arrogate the authority and power to direct economic development in the Upper Peninsula to a set of undisclosed actors and moneyed interests.
Now, as Robert Faturechi reports, with efforts in 38 states to make non-profit organizations like Stand UP more accountable and transparent gaining ground, powerful conservative groups are "coaching" allies on how to fight back against any new legislation requiring the disclosure of dark money sources. The tactics they recommend should sound familiar:
Get the debate to focus on an "average Joe," not a wealthy person. Find examples of "inconsequential donation amounts." Point out that naming donors would be a threat to "innocents," including their children, families and co-workers.
And never call it dark money. "Private giving" sounds better.
They urge dark money groups to claim the victim’s mantle and to see conservatives as "a persecuted class," according to one January 2016 memo Faturechi uncovered. It’s "all part of a plan to choke off our air supply of funding," they warn.
The documents presented by Faturechi were distributed at a conference held in Grand Rapids by
The State Policy Network. The Network "calls pro-regulation activists 'enemies of debate,'" and generally takes the line that regulation quashes freedom and criminalizes belief -- a refrain often heard from climate change denialists -- and that transparency will only threaten privacy.
The State Policy Network brings together conservative and tea-party organizations from around the country dedicated to "advancing freedom and making a difference," so it’s well positioned to coordinate local efforts like the MCRC lawsuit against the EPA with other state, regional and national causes. In Michigan, the Network’s member organization is the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Just last week, they ran a
widely shared update (303 "likes" and counting) on the MCRC lawsuit in which Casperson crows about the progress they’ve made in the discovery phase of the suit and wails about prejudicial treatment at the EPA.
* Click here to visit Louis V. Galdieri's blog.
Inset photo: Guest author Louis V. Galdieri. (File photo courtesy Save the Wild U.P.)
