public integrity alliance pia

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In fact, the Republican Primary for Attorney General may be the ugliest race of any election year in Arizona history. And we are basing that solely on how ugly it already is here in 2013. Familiar faces, familiar tactics, hypocrisy by the boatload, and two candidates who are likely to get lost in all of the mud. Oh yes, and a Democrat nominee hoping all of this comes to pass.</p>

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The offending group is the <b>ironically named Arizona Public Integrity Alliance</b>. Don’t bother trying to find out who is paying for their work because their donors are secret. Their Vice President and spokesperson is Tyler Montague who, when we last saw him, was working with liberal bomb-thrower and racial demagogue Randy Parraz to recall conservative Republican Russell Pearce and replace him with Jerry Lewis.</p>

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Their target is Republican Attorney General Tom Horne. Their tactic is smear. They want you to know that Tom Horne has been accused of having an affair, was accused of giving jobs to “cronies”, was investigated by the FBI, and took campaign contributions from law firms who do business with the AG’s office.</p>

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They are spending a lot of money on ads and mailers designed to soften up Horne before the Republican primary and, to avoid campaign finance laws, they are disguising their attacks as issue ads in support of a newfound agenda to pass two reforms to the AG’s office. One of their early ads has already had to be pulled and redone because it was proven factually inaccurate.

What isn’t clear is if they simply hate Horne, they want to elect his Republican challenger Mark Brnovich, or they want to elect the Democrat candidate Felicia Rotellini. Because AZPIA’s donors are secret, we can’t know where their money is coming from. But Montague’s history of working with Democrats to elect more liberal candidates is well established, and the AZPIA’s attacks are basically rehashes of the Democrat Party’s talking points about Horne.

Republicans across Arizona are rightfully worried about Horne losing the general election to Rotellini in 2014. But they are ignoring that Horne has a largely solid record as AG and that Arizona remains a solidly red state. Rotellini and her allies outspent Horne and his allies in 2010 and he won anyway. It is quite probable that a united Republican Party would be able to defend Horne’s office in 2014. But smear campaigns fronted by Republicans and funded by dark money a year before the election promises to muddy both Republican candidates to the point where neither can recover. Then Arizonans will get to see what Chicago style politics really look like with Rotellini in charge.

Tyler Montague works from home for a national banking firm. Politics is not a profession for him. It's a hobby, one that he just happens to be very good at. During the recall campaign against former state Senate President Russell Pearce, he was one of the Mesa Republicans who helped recruit and raise money for victorious Pearce rival Jerry Lewis. Montague was hooked, and began the AZPIA as a way to knock some moderate sense into his chosen party. Among his targets has been Attorney General Tom Horne. Montague raised more than $600,000 to run ads statewide against the embattled AG, an impressive amount for someone who only draws a salary on his day job. Montague is also one of the shrewdest analysts not in the business. And his heart is on the side of the angels, which is why we dig him.

2016 missouri ag schaegffer

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/politics/elections/ad-campaign-targets-schaefer-as-battle-over-hawley-leave-issue/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/arizona-public-integrity-alliance

e Public Integrity Alliance is a non-profit member organization. It was formed in 2012 in Arizona as the “Arizona Public Integrity Alliance,” a trade name still used in Arizona. As we have grown in size and accomplishment, people across the country have expressed interest in joining themselves to our cause, and in 2015 we began accepting members from other states and changed our official name to the “Public Integrity Alliance.” Our mission is to promote integrity in the behavior of government officials and institutions. We use both public education efforts, and actions through the legal system to call attention to unconstitutional, unethical, unfair, or illegal behavior, and to bring about needed change. Our members are sometimes first to bring issues to our attention, and often we beat the press as the first to blow the whistle on matters large and small. Please join us as a member of or donor to the Public Integrity Alliance. Contribute to our cause. Help us right some wrongs. Website: http://publicintegrityalliance.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PublicIntegrityAlliance/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/thePIAorg

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oops

http://time.com/4134259/campaign-finance-state-ads/

<h2 class="article-excerpt" itemprop="alternativeHeadline">One in four political TV ads came from groups unaffiliated with 2015 candidates</h2>

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<p>National political groups are bigfooting their way into state elections through ad campaigns, part of a growing trend in which groups independent from candidates or parties are taking a larger role in shaping the narratives of political campaigns.

A Washington, D.C.-based group funneled millions of dollars from a New Jersey teachers union into TV ads about the Garden State’s General Assembly races. A billionaire’s gun safety group broadcast its gun control messages in Virginia legislative races, possibly testing them for 2016. And two large partisan associations obscured their affiliations by funding lesser-known groups with more innocuous names voters would not recognize in the Kentucky and <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/19/18863/outside-groups-try-help-vitter-catch-louisiana-governor-race" target="blank">Louisiana</a> gubernatorial races, with <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/04/18824/republicans-whip-democrats-key-state-races" target="blank">mixed results</a>.

In total, 33 outside groups poured more than $32 million into their own political ads this year, accounting for more than one-third of the estimated $86 million in <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/10/01/18101/2015-state-ad-wars-tracker" target="blank">broadcast TV ad spending in the seven states</a> with major races, according to a <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/" target="blank">Center for Public Integrity</a> analysis of data from media tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG.

That represents more than 1 in 4 political spots aired, compared with fewer than 1 in 5 ads in both 2011 when the same states had comparable races and in 2014 when major races occurred in <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/09/22/15623/state-ad-wars-tracker" target="_blank">45 states</a>.

“In the past four election cycles or maybe more, there has been a growing nationalization of money in state and local elections,” said Michael Malbin, co-founder and executive director of the <a href="http://www.cfinst.org/" target="_blank">Campaign Finance Institute</a>, a Washington think tank studying money and politics. “People who want to make change in policy are looking increasingly at state and local politics, and there is an increased capacity of these national organizations to raise money and distribute it.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters" target="_blank"><em>Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</em></a> ruling and other related cases opened the door for such increased power of outside groups by ruling that nonprofits, corporations and labor unions could spend unlimited sums to persuade people to vote for certain candidates.

This is also helping drive up the bill for political campaigning. In 2015, political advertisers upped their game, largely due to heated governors’ races in Louisiana and Kentucky. The combination of candidates, parties and independent groups overall spent approximately $50 million more on TV ads than political advertisers spent in 2011.

Advertisements aired 84,000 more times than in 2011, according to an analysis of data from Kantar Media/CMAG, which monitors 211 media markets around the country. The figures do not include ads for radio, the Internet, direct mail or TV ads that aired on local cable systems. The estimates also do not include the cost of making the ads.</p>

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<div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" line-height: 24px;"><a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/12/03/18903/where-do-ads-shaping-state-politics-come-increasingly-these-outside-players">https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/12/03/18903/where-do-ads-shaping-state-politics-come-increasingly-these-outside-players</a></span></font></div>

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<p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 28px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Learn more about six other national groups playing in the 2015 races:</font></p>

<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Republican Attorneys General Association</strong>, a national organization looking to fill every attorney general seat with a Republican, spent $1.1 million on ads in Kentucky’s race. Its major donors over the past 13 years include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, businessman Sheldon Adelson and the conservative Judicial Crisis Network. Democratic corporate attorney Andy Beshear beat out Republican Whitney Westerfield, despite the group’s support.</font></li>

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Republican State Leadership Committee</strong>, a tax-exempt group looking to fill state-level offices with Republicans, spent an estimated $988,000 on ads about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court race, losing all three races to Democrats. Its top donors include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the conservative legal group American Justice Partnership and tobacco company Reynolds American.</font></li>

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Public Integrity Alliance</strong>,</span> a nonprofit that can keep its donors hidden, entered the attorneys general races in Louisiana and Mississippi, spending an estimated $213,000 combined airing TV ads targeting Republican Buddy Caldwell and Democrat Jim Hood. Caldwell lost his race, while Hood won. This group based in Arizona played in the 2014 Arizona attorney general primary and expanded its efforts after unnamed activists asked for help, according to its president, Tyler Montague.</font></li>

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Center for Individual Freedom</strong> spent more than $748,000 on ads attacking Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell during his fight to hold his position. Caldwell lost to former U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry in an all-Republican runoff. Tobacco executives formed the Virginia-based nonprofit more than 15 years ago to combat government smoking restrictions. The nonprofit, which does not need to disclose its donors, has generally backed conservative candidates across the country, airing ads in the 2014 contests for Arkansas attorney general and Michigan Supreme Court.</font></li>

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Humane Society Legislative Fund</strong>, the lobbying arm of the animal rights protection group, supported Vitter in the Louisiana governor’s race by buying an estimated $116,000 worth of ads.</font></li>

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<li style=" box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><strong style=" box-sizing: border-box;">The Bluegrass Action Fund</strong> backed unsuccessful Republican Hal Heiner for the Kentucky governorship, spending an estimated $233,000 on campaign ads. About a third of its donations came from the nonprofit Citizens for a Sound Government based in Lakewood, Colorado, which does not disclose its donors. Its chairman is Alan Philp, the COO of Aegis Strategic, a group funded by David and Charles Koch.</font></li>

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