Dubke, M

=see ajsam's for job security
pebble mine<div>pension plan akin gump</div><div>politico</div><div>
</div><div>Former Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), meanwhile, who also joined Akin Gump after leaving Congress in January, reported lobbying for four clients. They include HerdX, a ranching logistics company; Otis Eastern Service, an oil-and-gas pipeline company; Pebble Limited Partnership, which is trying to develop an open-pit mine in Alaska; and Pfizer, the giant pharmaceutical company.
=</div><h2 class="news_head" style="margin: 15px 0px 5px; clear: left;"><a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/02/trump-brings-dubke-in/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Trump brings Dubke in from the dark</a></h2>February 17, 2017 | Mike Dubke is no stranger to the value of a good communications strategy: He’s provided advice, through his Crossroads Media firm, to House and Senate candidates, the Republican party and some of the biggest conservative outside spending groups. But his new role, as White House communications director, is an unusually public one for him. Dubke…
Dubke is no stranger to the value of a good communications strategy: He’s provided advice, through his Crossroads Media firm, to House and Senate candidates, the Republican party and some of the biggest conservative outside spending groups.But his new role, as White House communications director, is an unusually public one for him. Dubke cofounded a politically active nonprofit — aka “dark money” group — years before such organizations became the hot new thing in campaigning, able to spend money to sway elections while providing anonymity to its benefactors.He’s also been central to a Koch operative’s political scheme and GOP strategist Karl Rove’s efforts to engineer his party’s comeback after he left the George W. Bush administration and Barack Obama won the presidency.Dubke has two consulting firms; besides Crossroads Media, there is Black Rock Group, and both have made good money from Republican clients, including the mother-of-all super PACs that Rove started. But it is Dubke’s forays in the shadowy terrain of nondisclosing groups that has some questioning whether he’s suited for the White House job. And the dark money group he started long ago has run afoul of regulators more than once.Dark money dealerIn 1998, Dubke co-founded one of the earliest bona fide dark money groups, <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/political-nonprofits/summary?id=522062978" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Americans for Job Security</a> (AJS). Long before Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions helped trigger the proliferation of such outfits, AJS went around the country advocating for and against candidates at the state and federal level and promoting the pet issues of its wealthy corporate and individual donors — who, of course, could remain unidentified under IRS rules.Over the years, AJS has pushed the boundaries of what many thought these groups could do in the political realm. In a landmark study of <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/08/study-outside-groups-secret-money-far-more-prominent-than-ever-before/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">dark money in elections from 2000 to 2016</a>, produced by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Wesleyan Media Project, AJS was one of the only politically active nonprofits active in the earliest cycles, running thousands of ads in presidential and Senate races as far back as 2000.But AJS was never just a dark money group that aimed to elect or defeat certain politicians. The group has advocated for “basically anything we label a ‘pro-paycheck’ message,” as Dubke <a href="http://www.unz.org/Pub/WashingtonMonthly-2004may-00017" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">told the Washington Monthly</a> in 2004. He may have been talking about his own paycheck: From the outside, these campaigns looked less like the general promotion of business friendly policies and more like the sorties of a group willing to jump into any fight its wealthy anonymous donors were bankrolling.In 2008, for example, AJS paid the state of Alaska <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/us/politics/24donate.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">a $20,000 fine</a> for spending $1.6 million on a referendum that sought to restrict development of the Pebble Mine, a gold and copper mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. Alaska regulators were surprised to see a secretive group out of Washington swoop in and oppose such a specific project, so they investigated and found that AJS had received $2 million from a financier named Robert Gillam, who owned a private fishing lodge in the area. Gillam had been in touch with Dubke before becoming an AJS “member.”AJS funneled nearly all of Gillam’s money to a group called Alaskans for Clean Water, run by an AJS board member. That same year, Dubke handed over AJS’s reins to a young New Hampshire GOP operative named Stephen DeMaura, who said he made the decision to fund ACW “based upon his own research and judgement” — though the decision seemed contrary to the professed pro-business bent of a conservative group like AJSAlaska officials weren’t convinced. AJS settled with them, paying $20,000 for acting as an improper conduit for anonymous money and promising not to do that in Alaska ever again.This activity, year after year, was a part of AJS’ overall operations, which also included sizeable and mounting political spending in elections. While AJS had been active for more than a decade before the Supreme Court handed down its Citizens United decision in 2010, the decision — along with the earlier Wisconsin Right to Life v FEC ruling in 2007 —  allowed AJS to more openly target candidates. From 2008 through 2012, AJS reported spending more than $34 million in congressional and presidential elections. The money all came from secret donors and other similarly <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/political-nonprofits/receipts?cycle=2010&id=522062978" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">opaque nonprofit organizations</a> that got their money from secret donors; money twice laundered was less likely to give up the name of its true source.While Dubke relinquished control of AJS to DeMaura in 2008, he remained a constant presence in the years that followed through his consulting contracts with the group he founded.And the group continued to trigger regulators’ interest.In 2012, Americans for Job Security was part of an elaborate “<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/10/california-investigation-reveals-so/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">campaign money laundering</a>” scheme in California, that led to historic fines in the state against two groups that served as conduits of AJS money into ballot initiatives in the state.And last year, the FEC settled with AJS and two other dark money groups, 60 Plus and American Future Fund, for a total of $233,000 for not disclosing the source of money it spent on ads aired in congressional races in 2010. The funds for more than $2 million in ads run by AJS came from the Center to Protect Patient Rights, a 501(c)(4) that was then the hub for the distribution of Koch-controlled funds to like-minded groups, and the head of the hub group helped produce the ads and directed where they ran, according to the <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/storage.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/27133249/Conciliation-Agreement-AJS.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">FEC conciliation agreement</a> AJS signed.Consulting cashAJS — which has never had more than a single employee — has long operated out of an Alexandria office space <a href="http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/11/28/the-incestuous-bleeding-of-the-republican-party/" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">buzzing with interconnected Republican political consulting and media firms</a>, at least two of which involve Dubke. They’ve received millions of dollars in fees from AJS.<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/expends/vendor.php?year=2016&vendor=Black+Rock+Group" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Black Rock Group</a>, a political consulting firm that Dubke runs with Carl Forti, has been paid a minimum of $1.7 million in the last three election cycles (CRP’s 2016 data only goes through early fall) by a variety of Republican candidates and groups. Forti was political director of American Crossroads, the group formed by GOP strategist Karl Rove and others that was the Goliath of super PACs for several years. And indeed, American Crossroads was among Black Rock’s biggest clients. In 2012, the group also did work for the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future — which was run by Forti.<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/expends/vendor.php?year=2012&vendor=Crossroads+Media+Llc" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Crossroads Media LLC</a>, also founded by Dubke, was paid hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2012 presidential campaign cycle, FEC and IRS records show — including $9 million by American Crossroads; <a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/272/272753378/272753378_201212_990O.pdf?ga=1.126735437.1174804551.1487343360" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">more than $118 million</a> by that group’s dark money arm, Crossroads GPS; and $15 million by AJS, the nonprofit Dubke started. (Note: Much of the money paid to media consulting firms is used to buy expensive TV time for their clients’ ads; it’s impossible to tell how much the firms keep.)  In the 2014 midterm cycle, the firm appeared to scale way back, taking in just $11.8 million from federal-level political clients (it may have earned more working in state races). But, according to <a href="http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/465/465187544/465187544_201412_990O.pdf?ga=1.127267789.1174804551.1487343360" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">tax documents filed in 2015</a>, $4.7 million of that came from Carolina Rising, the dark money outfit that <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/10/political-nonprofit-spent-nearly-100-percent-of-funds-to-elect-tillis-in-14/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">spent nearly all the money it raised</a> working to get Republican Thom Tillis elected to the U.S. Senate from North Carolina. Long after votes were cast, tax filings revealed that Carolina Rising received nearly <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/11/pro-tillis-dark-money-group-funded-entirely-by-crossroads-gps/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-height: 1e+06px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">99 percent of its funds</a> from shadowy fellow traveler Crossroads GPS. Dark money being what it is, of course, the original donors are mostly unknown.Critics waste no time Given all this, Dubke’s appointment strikes some observers as ironic.And it’s not going over well with transparency advocates. “This raises serious questions about what we’re going to know about what this administration is up to,” said Jordan Libowitz, spokesman for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which filed the complaint that resulted in the FEC settlement with AJS last year. “Dubke is a luminary of the dark money world.”Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, which has also filed complaints against AJS, expressed similar thoughts in a statement early on Friday, though he also commented what he said was a tangled web of Dubke-connected enterprises.“(T)here is a sense in which he is a perfect fit for the Trump administration,” said Weissman. “With his self-enrichment…he embodies the administration’s signature amalgam of personal and political cronyism and insider dealing.”Dubke could not be reached for comment at the time of publication. <div class="related-box" style="box-sizing: inherit; 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==AC GPS:  The political director of American Crossroads is Carl Forti, a veteran operative specializing in running independent expenditure campaigns. Forti ran an $80 million operation at the NRCC in 2006. The Crossroads family that Forti runs has spent $26 million on independent expenditures so far this cycle. Forti also runs the communications strategy firm Black Rock Group with Michael Dubke. Dubke also operates the organization Crossroads Media, which is not directly associated with the Crossroads family. Crossroads Media, however, is the media company for the Crossroads family and has received $20.89 million from American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS for media and advertising services.Dubke is also connected to another big independent expenditure operator on the Republican side, Americans for Job Security. Dubke helped found Americans for Job Security and served as executive director and then president from 1997 to 2007. Americans for Job Security operates out of the same office as Crossroads Media and the Black Rock Groupand is currently run by Stephen DeMaura, the 25-year old former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party. DeMaura is the only employee of the group. Crossroads Media has received $2.95 million from Americans for Job Security for media services in the 2010 midterms. This group has spent $4.39 million on independent expenditures so far this election. Forti, the political director for the Crossroads family, also handles the PR and media profile of The 60-Plus Association. The 60-Plus Association was founded in 1992 as a conservative counter to a perceived liberal bias in the group senior citizen advocacy group AARP. So far, The 60-Plus Association has spent more than $5 million on independent expenditures. <a href="http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2010/10/21/hydra-of-independent-groups-fuels-republican-side/">http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2010/10/21/hydra-of-independent-groups-fuels-republican-side/</a>

<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_21932215/fppc-releases-names-donors-who-made-secret-11"> </a>===

<a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_21932215/fppc-releases-names-donors-who-made-secret-11">http://www.mercurynews.com/elections/ci_21932215/fppc-releases-names-donors-who-made-secret-11</a>

Americans for Job Security has been described by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics as "pro-Republican," "pro-business" and "established to directly counter labor's influence." It was founded in 1997 by Michael Dubke and David Carney, the same two GOP strategists who formed Crossroads Media, which runs advertising for American Crossroads, GOP uber-strategist Karl Rove's Super PAC.

In September, Americans for Job Security spent $8 million in ads in the swing states of Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado blasting President Barack Obama for what it said was his failure to turn the economy around.

The Center to Protect Patient Rights, also based in Arizona, is run by Sean Noble, an operative of the Koch brothers, who are worth a combined $50 billion, according to Forbes. Noble, a GOP strategist, was hired in 2010 to coordinate the Koch brothers' distribution of millions of dollars to dozens of entities. He has been a member of a group, called the Weaver Terrace Group -- dubbed Rove's "Fight Club" -- that meets regularly to plot campaign financing strategies, said Viveca Nova, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsive

===

<h1 class="entry-title">Hydra of independent groups fuels Republican side</h1>

<address class="byline author vcard"><a rel="author" class="url fn" href="http://sunlightfoundation.com/people/pblumenthal/">Paul Blumenthal</a></address>

Oct. 21, 2010, 11:02 a.m.</div>

Outside groups aligned with Republicans are dominating spending on independent expenditures in the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections. As of October 20, these groups have spent more than $99 million, more than twice as much as the party committees tasked with electing Republicans to the House of Representatives and the Senate, to both support Republican candidates and oppose Democratic candidates.

These non-party groups are supplanting the traditional role of party committees on the Republican side. Nearly all of the money spent on independent expenditures to support Republicans or oppose Democrats comes from groups that exclusively spend money to aid Republicans.

Four of the top five non-party spenders are supported and run by a series of political operatives who, in effect, make up the Republican Party in exile. <a href="http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/independent-expenditures/committee/american-crossroads">American Crossroads</a>, <a href="http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/independent-expenditures/committee/crossroads-grassroots-policy-strategies">Crossroads GPS</a>, <a href="http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/independent-expenditures/committee/the-60-plus-association">The 60-Plus Association</a> and <a href="http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/independent-expenditures/committee/americans-for-job-security">Americans for Job Security</a> are linked together by their connections to the power structure that won elections for the Republican Party from the 1990s to the end of the George W. Bush presidency. So far, these four organizations have spent $35.97 million attacking Democrats and praising Republicans.

By contrast, the official G.O.P. congressional committees -- the <a href="http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/independent-expenditures/committee/national-republican-congressional-cmte">National Republican Congressional Committee</a> (NRCC) and the <a href="http://reporting.sunlightfoundation.com/independent-expenditures/committee/national-republican-senatorial-cmte">National Republican Senatorial Committee</a> (NRSC) -- have spent a little less than $49 million on independent expenditures.

With the Republican National Committee (RNC) in shambles and the campaign committees hampered by contribution limits and disclosure rules, these outside groups have emerged as a replacement for the traditional party structure and they are largely being funded by a shadow establishment that operates in the dark without disclosure rules that have been ostensibly waived by the Supreme Court. There is no similar equivalent on the Democratic side.

The largest and highest spending of these groups is the two-headed organization comprised of American Crossroads, organized as a 527 and a Super PAC, and Crossroads GPS, organized as a 501(c)4 non-profit. These two organizations--both share the same PO Box number--are made up of the Republican Party in exile.

While Crossroads GPS, The 60-Plus Association and Americans for Job Security do not disclose their donors, American Crossroads is a so-called section 527 organization--named after the part of the tax code under which it's organized--and has to disclose its donors to the Internal Revenue Service. It also reports some of these contributions to the Federal Election Commission.

The reports are filed monthly and after yesterday's released disclosure American Crossroads is showing contributions exceeding $22 million. So far, the group has spent more than $16 million on independent expenditures in 24 different races.

The majority of this money has come from three donors and two corporations. Texas homebuilder Bob Perry has provided $7 million to American Crossroads. In 2004, Perry was a major funder of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a 527 group that ran ads assailing the Vietnam record of presidential candidate John Kerry. Perry also contributed millions to the Economic Freedom Fund, another 527 group that operated during the 2006 election cycle.

The other donors include Robert Rowling, a Bush Pioneer, and his company TRT Holding, which have contributed a combined amount exceeding $2 million. Alliance Resource Group, a company with large coal holdings, has contributed $2 million. The owner of Public Storage, Wayne Hughes, contributed $1 million.

Former White House Political Director Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie are both affiliated with the Crossroads groups and are known to help raise money and provide strategy. Rove and Gillespie are perhaps the most well-known high-level Republican operatives involved in the Crossroads family, but they are not the only ones.

President Steven Law previously worked as deputy secretary of Labor in the George W. Bush administration and was the executive director of the NRSC in 2000. Former Republican National Committee chairman Mike Duncan is the chairman of the board of American Crossroads. Jo Ann Davidson, director of American Crossroads, was previously the co-chair of the Republican National Committee. Jim Dyke worked at the Department of Commerce under George W. Bush and is now secretary at American Crossroads.

The political director of American Crossroads is Carl Forti, a veteran operative specializing in running independent expenditure campaigns. Forti ran an $80 million operation at the NRCC in 2006. The Crossroads family that Forti runs has spent $26 million on independent expenditures so far this cycle.

Forti also runs the communications strategy firm Black Rock Group with Michael Dubke. Dubke also operates the organization Crossroads Media, which is not directly associated with the Crossroads family. Crossroads Media, however, is the media company for the Crossroads family and has received $20.89 million from American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS for media and advertising services.

Dubke is also connected to another big independent expenditure operator on the Republican side, Americans for Job Security. Dubke helped found Americans for Job Security and served as executive director and then president from 1997 to 2007.

Americans for Job Security operates out of the same office as Crossroads Media and the Black Rock Group and is currently run by Stephen DeMaura, the 25-year old former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party. DeMaura is the only employee of the group. Crossroads Media has received $2.95 million from Americans for Job Security for media services in the 2010 midterms. This group has spent $4.39 million on independent expenditures so far this election.

Forti, the political director for the Crossroads family, also handles the PR and media profile of The 60-Plus Association. The 60-Plus Association was founded in 1992 as a conservative counter to a perceived liberal bias in the group senior citizen advocacy group AARP. So far, The 60-Plus Association has spent more than $5 million on independent expenditures.

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