newton, buck rep

Environmental groups say the RAGA meeting in July was no different from their own efforts; the Republican attorneys general plotted strategy with like-minded groups. The environmentalists say that they are exercising the free speech RAGA claims to be protecting and that they also have the right to petition government officials and to consult experts. Their meetings were not secret, they add.“This is much more like collusion,” said Nick Surgey, research director at the Center for Media and Democracy. “These corporations have leverage because they pay into RAGA. And most of their money goes to elections.”Much of RAGA’s strategy will revolve around television ads in states where the group hopes to make a difference.The group has booked $3.8 million in broadcast and cable TV advertising time for the final five weeks of the state attorney general campaign in North Carolina, where the Republican nominee, state Sen. Buck Newton, is in a tough race against Democratic state Sen. Josh Stein.The association has already spent, through its Mountaineers Are Always Free PAC, nearly $2 million on four rounds of ads in West Virginia, where it is highlighting the fight against the Clean Power Plan, which would hurt the state’s coal industry. And it has sent $2 million to Josh Hawley’s campaign for attorney general in Missouri, which allows direct contributions. RAGA plans further spending in those states as well as in Pennsylvania and Indiana.