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Bradley Fdn

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CLAREMONSTERS

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The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation The Lion House 1241 North Franklin Place Milwaukee, WI

SEE BRADLEY 2 6/16

 capt 519

JOINED AT HIP WITH KOCH, cfg etc

capt BRADLEY616

mjr funder , rival kochs?

bradly tag new

james okeefe

2 26

THE COMPLETE PROTECTION SYSTEM

Read together, Project 2025 creates a 10-layer protection architecture:

  1. Kill internal oversight (fire IGs)
  2. Terminate active investigations (FBI review authority)
  3. Fire investigators (Schedule F)
  4. Politicize FBI (remove independence)
  5. Control DOJ (presidential litigation control)
  6. Eliminate financial crime agencies (abolish CFPB, FTC)
  7. Redirect trafficking investigators (HSI to immigration)
  8. Remove police oversight (curtail consent decrees)
  9. Create fear (expand death penalty)
  10. Block campaign finance enforcement (defer to FEC)

Every single layer protects elite criminals from investigation.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is, alongside the Koch brothers’ network, one of the chief funders of the conservative nonprofit world. Although the organization focused in its early years on local anti-poverty projects in Milwaukee and anti-animal cruelty nonprofits, as journalist Jane Mayer notes in Dark Money, a 1985 acquisition of the Allen-Bradley company by Rockwell International boosted the Foundation’s assets from $14 million to more than $290 million, “making it one of the twenty largest foundations in the country.” The cash infusion shifted the foundation’s focus to anti-government ideology.

The shift to conservativism, though, was ironic, given that both the Rockwell International and Allen-Bradley fortunes were built on government defense contracts. Allen-Bradley teetered on the brink of insolvency until World War I and World War II more than tripled its production, with seventy and eighty percent of its business coming from government contracts, according to Mayer. And Rockwell International was, at the time of its acquisition of Allen-Bradley, the country’s largest defense contractor. In fact, Mayer notes, the purchase of Allen-Bradley was a result of demands by economic analysts that the company diversify its business away from solely defense contracts.

The newly ideological organization quickly hired Mike Joyce, a higher-up at the Olin Foundation, to run its grantmaking. At the time, Joyce was told that the Bradley Foundation wanted to be “Olin West” and duplicate the massive funding of conservative ideology. TheNational Review called Joyce “the chief operating officer of the conservative movement…. Over the period of his Bradley service, it’s difficult to recall a single, serious thrust against incumbent liberalism that did not begin or end with Mike Joyce.” From 1985 through 2000, the Bradley Foundation would give away more than $280 million to conservative causes, more than two-thirds of its total grantmaking, according to Dark Money.

Unlike the Olin Foundation, which was mandated to spend itself out of existence by 2005, the Bradley Foundation invested its assets, which ballooned from the initial $290 million in 1985 to more than $630 million in 2012, “enabling it to dole more than $32 million in grants during that year alone.” Mayer writes that the Bradley Foundation has “paid for some six hundred graduate and postgraduate fellowships, right-wing think tanks, conservative journals, activists fighting Communism abroad, and its own publishing house, Encounter Books.” Additionally, according to Dark Money, Bradley “virtually drove the early national ‘school choice’ movement, waging an all-out assault on teachers’ unions and traditional public schools.”

Besides the Olin Foundation’s mandated expiration, there was little daylight between the two foundations. Mayer writes that at the Bradley Foundation, Joyce “continued to fund many of the same academic organizations he had at Olin, including half of the same colleges and universities.” In fact, according to Bruce Murphy at Milwaukee Magazine, “Typically, it was not just the same university but the same department, and in some cases, the same scholar,” which led to “intellectual cronyism” and funding of academics who were strong ideologues but “rarely great scholars.”

One such example was the continued funding of Charles Murray at the Manhattan Institute, where he worked on anti-welfare research. Murray was fired from the Manhattan Institute after his book The Bell Curve, which suggested an inherent IQ difference between blacks and whites, was widely discredited. However, Joyce and the Bradley Foundation ensured Murray that his “fellowship was portable,” and Murray found a new home at the American Enterprise Institute.

The Bradley Foundation hands out Bradley Prizes annually at a gala that Mayer describes as the “Academy Awards ceremony for conservatives, a night at the Washington’s Kennedy Center on the banks of the Potomac filled with evening gowns, tuxedos, overlong acceptance speeches, live musical fanfares, and up to four annual $250,000 prizes given to a Who’s Who of the movement.” Past winners have included columnist George Will, the founders of the Federalist Society, Bill Kristol, Fox News’ Roger Ailes, andHeritage’sEd Meese.

Notable Fact:

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Bradley Foundation Bankrolled Push Back on John Doe Criminal Probe  walker

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12515/bradley-foundation-bankrolling-pushback-against-scott-walker-dark-money-criminal

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Federal Judge Who Halted Walker Dark Money Criminal Probe Attended Koch-Backed Judicial Junkets

The federal judge who ordered a halt to Wisconsin's "John Doe" criminal investigation into spending during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections has regularly attended all-expenses paid "judicial junkets" funded by the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and other ideological and corporate interests.

On May 6, federal District Court Judge Rudolph Randablocked an ongoing John Doe criminal probe into allegedly illegal coordination between nonprofit groups like Wisconsin Club for Growth, which spent $9.1 million on electoral ads during Wisconsin's recall elections, and the recall campaigns of Governor Scott Walker and state senators. John Doe investigations are similar to grand jury investigations, and Wisconsin Club for Growth -- and its director,Eric O'Keefe,a longtime compatriot of the Koch brothers -- asked the federal court to stop the probe, alleging it violated their "free speech" rights.

Judge Randa sided with O'Keefe, and also ordered prosecutors to destroy all evidence gathered in the investigation, an extraordinary edict in a criminal case made even more astounding by the fact that it came in the context of a preliminary injunction. The Seventh Circuit has blocked this part of his ruling; an appeal of the remainder of his decision is pending.

An analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy shows that Judge Randa attended privately-funded, all-expenses-paid judicial seminars put on by George Mason University in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012, according to publicly-available financial disclosure forms. (The 2013 disclosure form has been requested but has not yet been publicly posted).

The George Mason University seminars are bankrolled by a long list of right-wing foundations, like Koch, Bradley, and the Searle Freedom Trust, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and corporations like BP, Exxon Mobil, and Dow Chemical. Many of these interests have long opposed limits on money in politics, although it is not known whether campaign finance reform was a topic at the seminars Randa attended.

The seminars amount to a privately-funded all-expenses paid trip for judges, with conference sponsors picking up the costs of a judge's flights, hotel rooms, and meals. One seminar Judge Randa attended was in La Jolla, California, a swanky San Diego suburb that is home to both great golfing and Mitt Romney; the location of other seminars Randa attended is unknown. The content of the seminars has a decidedly pro-corporate bent, and the expensive gifts raise concerns about improper influence when corporate sponsors have a stake in a case before a judge. (Some reports have directly connected the trips to judge's decisions).

No other federal district judges in Wisconsin attended the privately-funded George Mason seminars, according to the Center for Media and Democracy's review of publicly available financial disclosure documents.

Koch and Bradley Bankrolled Junkets Randa Attended

The Judicial Conference of the United States -- which oversees the conduct of federal judges -- has notedthat judges may be "influenced inappropriately" at the privately-funded events, and since 2007 has required that seminar organizers disclose the names of funders.

The disclosures do not specify how much each funder contributed towards the judge's expenses and seminar costs, but for the years that Judge Randa attended the seminars, some donations can be ascertained by foundation tax filings.

According to the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation's tax filings, in 2012 it gave $5.45 million to the George Mason University Foundation, and $51,000 to its "Law and Economics Center." The Charles G. Koch Foundation gave $4.7 million to George Mason in 2010 for "general operating support and education programs," $2.78 million in 2008 for "general operating support," and $350,000 in 2006 for "educational and research programs."

The Koch network also funded Wisconsin Club for Growth, which filed the case before Judge Randa. A full list of the Club's funders is not known, but tax filings show that the Koch-connected Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR) funneled $225,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth in 2011. CPPR also entirely bankrolled the Coalition for American Values, which spent $400,080 on pro-Walker ads in the final weeks of the recall elections. (In California, CPPR was hit with an unprecedented $1 million fine for its involvement in a campaign finance shell game to evade the state's donor disclosure laws.) Other Koch groups, like Americans for Prosperity, have reportedly been subpoenaed in Wisconsin's John Doe investigation.

In 2010, the Bradley Foundation gave George Mason $40,000 "to support educational programs for judges conducted by the Law and Economics Center." It also gave George Mason $40,000 in 2008 "to support the judicial education program," and $35,000 in 2006 "to support education programs."

The Bradley Foundation's President and CEO, Michael Grebe, chaired Scott Walker's 2010 and 2012 gubernatorial campaigns. Walker's 2012 campaign is under investigation in the John Doe for allegedly illegal coordination.

Both Bradley and Koch have long demonstrated antipathy for limits on money in politics, and for years have bankrolled organizations that fight against campaign finance reform, like the Center for Competitive Politics.

Judicial Seminars Reflect Principles in Powell Memo

Some have drawn a direct line between these corporate-funded judicial seminars and the 1971 Powell Memo, a call-to-arms for corporate America to aggressively push back against the "attack on the free enterprise system" -- represented by the likes of Ralph Nader -- by developing a set of institutions to reshape politics and law.

The Powell Memo reportedly sparked the development of a right-wing infrastructure and the formation of groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (better known as ALEC), the Cato Institute, the Federalist Society (with which Judge Randa is affiliated), and others. As the New York Times recently reported, Charles Koch specifically referenced the Powell Memo in a 1974 speech previewing what has become the "Koch network," calling for a "well-financed cadre of of sound proponents of the free-enterprise philosophy" and for business to "undertake radical new efforts to overcome the prevalent anti-capitalist mentality."

Some of the memo's most aggressive language was reserved for the judiciary, which its author, then-tobacco lawyer and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, called “the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.”

As a Supreme Court Justice, Powell would play a key role in decisions like First National Bank v. Bellotti andBuckley v. Valeo, which declared that "money equals speech" and reshaped the First Amendment into a tool to protect the ability of corporations and wealthy individuals to spend on elections.

Privately-Funded Seminar Disclosure Still Spotty

Although the Judicial Conference requires that judges publicly disclose their attendance at privately-funded seminars, and that those who conduct the events publish details about their funders, tracking the reports can be difficult, as the Center for Public Integrity has noted.

The Eastern District of Wisconsin website has a page that is supposed to list all seminars attended by federal judges in that court over the past three years, yet claims that there is "no attendance reported" for any Eastern District judges since 2011. This is contradicted by a review of Judge Randa's 2012 financial disclosure form.

Requesting an individual judge's financial disclosure form can take weeks, although Judicial Watch has postedmany forms online.

Judge Randa reported no travel reimbursement on his 2010 financial disclosure form, but the Center for Public Integrity reports that he attended a 2010 seminar at George Mason titled "The Rule of Law."

George Mason also has apparently tried to dodge the limited donor disclosure rules that do exist. Prior to 2012, it disclosed its list of corporate and foundation seminar funders -- which consistently included Koch and Bradley and corporations like Exxon Mobil -- but in 2012 listed the only funder as "xyz corp," and listed itself as the only donor. In 2013 it returned to providing a full list of donors.

-- Lisa Graves contributed to this article --

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http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/03/11999/racial-entitlements-long-term-effort-end-voting-rights-act-and-affirmative-action

The U.S. Supreme Court may roll back two pillars of the civil rights era this term -- the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and affirmative action -- both of which have long been targeted by the right-wing and whose challenges are backed by the same set of deep-pocketed ideological funders.

Scalia Sees Voting Rights and Affirmative Action as "Racial Entitlements"

Wednesday's oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder indicated hostility among some justices towards Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which requires states with a history of state-sanctioned racial discrimination to get federal pre-approval before implementing changes to their voting laws or procedures. Congress has renewed it four times since 1965 with significant bipartisan support, most recently in 2006, when every U.S. Senator voted for it.

But that support was "very likely attributable to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement," Justice Antonin Scalia asserted from the bench. "Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes," he said, a characterization of the landmark civil rights law that was met with gasps in the courtroom.

This is not the first time Scalia has talked about "racial entitlements" -- and his perspective will almost certainly apply to another civil rights case in the Court's docket this term.

"To pursue the concept of racial entitlement -- even for the most admirable and benign of purposes -- is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred," he wrote [3] about affirmative action in a concurring opinion in the 1995 case Adarand Constructors v Pena, a decision that enacted a high bar for government affirmative action programs.

Chief Justice John Roberts has expressed similar support for so-called color-blindness under the law. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," he wrote [4] in a 2007 case striking down the consideration of a student's race by school districts striving for diversity in schools in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky. Likewise, in a 2009 decision about the VRA, Roberts expressed a view that race matters less today, and therefore Section 5's federal pre-clearance requirement may no longer be justified since "things have changed in the South."

Roberts and Scalia have another bite at the affirmative action apple this term. In October, the Court heard oral arguments in Fisher v University of Texas, which challenges race-conscious university admission policies. Questioning from Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia indicated the Court may have a five-justice majority to reverse parts of a 2003 ruling that allowed consideration of race in college admissions (a decision that came before President George W Bush named two justices to the court).

The statements from these justices on affirmative action and voting rights reflect a view that race plays little role in America today (! [5]), or at least that it should no longer be acknowledged under the law. In fact, "explicit anti-black attitudes" have actually increased [6] over the past four years, particularly among Republicans, according to research by social scientists at Brown and the University of Michigan.

If the Court sides with plaintiffs in Fisher and Shelby County, it would be a victory for the right, which for decades has been laying the groundwork for rolling-back these sorts of progressive gains by adopting the terminology of "color-blindness."

Long-Standing Opposition to Affirmative Action, Section 5

Both the VRA and affirmative action grew out of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, and have been targeted for reversal ever since by generations of reactionaries.

President Lyndon Johnson's support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act led to realignments within America's two major political parties. Southern Democrats like "Dixiecrat" Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina defected to the Republican Party, and over time many voters who had long supported "the Party of Lincoln" shifted their allegiance to Democrats.

Ronald Reagan's opposition to civil rights programs, for example, was a key part of his effort to win the presidency by appealing to the racial views of white Southern voters. He famously kicked-off his successful presidential bid by declaring his support for "state's rights" at a Mississippi event held just a few miles from where three civil rights activists were murdered in 1964. "States rights" had been a rallying call for Southern states opposing Brown v. Board of Education and the end of racial segregation, and provided a facially neutral way to oppose the VRA's Section 5 federal pre-clearance requirements. He called the VRA "humiliating to the South" and described affirmative action as a form of "reverse discrimination" where whites are "victims." As legendary campaign consultant Lee Atwater acknowledged [7] after the campaign, the way Reagan discussed voting rights and affirmative action was part of a careful effort to garner the votes of white Southerners by using "abstract" and coded language to avoid express racism.

Once elected, Reagan stopped enforcing several affirmative action programs, and his Justice Department began filing amicus briefs in support of white men claiming injury from the programs. In 1982, when the Voting Rights Act was up for reauthorization, John Roberts was working for the Reagan Administration and argued for [8] a watered-down version of the law. After Congress rejected the administration's efforts and passed a strengthened VRA with bipartisan support, a hesitant Reagan nonetheless signed the reauthorization -- prompting Roberts to write [9] "we were burned." President Reagan also appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justices who passed the litmus tests of a narrow view of affirmative action and civil rights laws: Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, who are still on the Court, as well as William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor.

Right-Wing Institutions Laid Groundwork

Part of the long-term success of modern Republicanism, which grew out of opposition to the civil rights gains of the 1960s, is attributable to the development of a network of right-wing funders and well-funded institutions starting in the mid-1970s. For example, in 1973, legendary right-wing activist Paul Weyrich co-founded both the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heritage Foundation.

ALEC, as the Center for Media and Democracy has documented, has advanced an array of policy initiatives at the state level to advance a right-wing agenda, for example by privatizing public institutions like education and prisons, and by successfully promoting efforts to restrict voting rights (some of which have been thwarted in the past year by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act). In addition to voter ID legislation [10], ALEC has adopted model bills like the deceptively named "Civil Rights Act" [11] to end affirmative action programs run by states and universities.

The Heritage Foundation has become one of the largest think tanks in the country, and has long [12] opposed [13] affirmative action and Section 5. In recent years, Heritage Foundation legal fellow Hans Von Spakovsky (who was recently profiled by [14] New Yorker author Jane Mayer in a piece crediting research from CMD) has promoted the myth of rampant voter fraud to justify restrictive state voting laws. He argues [15] that Section 5 is an outdated statute that allows the feds to trample on state liberty and has also opposed [16] affirmative action.

The last three or four decades have also seen the development of an array of legal institutions attempting to achieve right-wing political victories through the courts. The best known is the Federalist Society, which has contributed to the development of legal theories to advance preferred policy outcomes through the judicial system, and has cultivated a network of like-minded lawyers and judges, including Justice Scalia and Chief Justice Roberts.

And these groups have been funded by a shared set of wealthy donors. In the 1970s and 1980s, foundations created by the Coors and Scaife family fortunes provided the seed money for groups like ALEC and the Heritage Foundation. The Bradley Foundation and Koch family foundations also provide tens of millions to an array of right-wing organizations.

Likewise, the current Supreme Court challenges to both the Voting Rights Act and university affirmative action programs are backed by top funders of the movement and were organized by the same right-wing activist -- and are carrying forward this long-term project to roll-back the gains of the civil rights era.

Same Group and Donors Behind Fisher and Shelby County Cases

The Project on Fair Representation is a "legal defense fund" dedicated to reversing race-based legal protections, and its director, Ed Blum, coordinated the challenges in both the Fisher and Shelby County cases. Blum has likened his role in high-profile litigation to "Yenta the matchmaker."

"I find the plaintiff, I find the lawyer, and I put them together, and then I worry about it for four years," he said [17].

Blum urged Shelby County, Alabama, to bring its Section 5 challenge after the Department of Justice blocked its effort to dilute the voting power of the growing African-American population. He also connected with Abigail Fisher, a white student who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin and claimed it was because of her race. Blum was also behind the last Voting Rights Act challenge to make it to the Supreme Court, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder.

The Project on Fair Representation's legal fees are entirely funded by the secretive Donors Trust, which has been described as [18] a "Dark Money ATM." Donors Trust funnels money from the Kochs and other funders to organizations in the right-wing network, but keeps the original donors secret.

Blum's known contributors include the Bradley Foundation, which also bankrolls groups promoting voter suppression, writes [19] Ari Berman of The Nation:

Blum's group does not have to disclose which funders of Donors Trust are giving him money, but he has identified two of them: the Bradley Foundation and the Searle Freedom Trust. The Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation paid for billboards in minority communities in Milwaukee during the 2010 election with the ominous message "Voter Fraud Is a Felony!", which voting rights groups denounced as voter suppression. Both Bradley and Searle have given six-figure donations to ALEC in recent years, and Bradley funded a think tank in Wisconsin, the MacIver Institute, that hyped discredited claims of voter fraud to justify the state's voter ID law, currently blocked in state court.

The Bradley Foundation has also been a major funder of attacks on affirmative action. It has given millions to Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action "American Civil Rights Institute," and it has given over one million dollars to a group that calls itself the "Center for Equal Opportunity," whose activities include traveling the country [20] urging Republican legislators to crack down [21] on affirmative action programs, which it claims constitute "reverse discrimination." In 2011, a Center for Equal Opportunity representative claimed [20] the University of Wisconsin was guilty of "severe racial discrimination." This is a difficult claim to believe given that 2.6 percent of the university's 42,180 students are African-American and 3.8 percent are Hispanic, much lower percentages than the general population.

Legal Victories May Not Help GOP's Long-Term Viability

Institutions [22] of higher [23] education [24] -- and many employers [25] -- indicate that taking race into account remains an important tool for promoting diversity in classrooms and the workplace, particularly to help compensate for the institutional forms of racism [26] that contribute to ongoing inequity.

And civil rights groups strongly contend that Section 5 remains a vital part of the VRA's goal of protecting access to the ballot box. The Act was designed to end decades of racist Jim Crow voting restrictions, like literacy tests, which might have been facially neutral but had a racially discriminatory impact. And in the past year, Section 5 has been applied to block the wave of voter ID restrictions passed in states like South Carolina [27] and Texas, as well as to stop discriminatory redistricting in Texas and to keep Florida from reducing early voting hours in certain areas. Like the Jim Crow-era restrictions, the ALEC-inspired voter ID laws and limits on early voting would disproportionately impact voters of color.

The problems of the 1960s and 1970s remain concentrated [28] in the areas covered by Section 5: six of the nine states fully covered by the provision have passed new voting restrictions since 2010, but only one-third of the rest of the country passed similar restrictions during the same period. Justice Elena Kagan noted during Wednesday's oral argument that while covered jurisdictions hold less than 25% of the U.S. population, they account for 56% of successful voting-rights lawsuits.

Although each case currently before the court asks a separate constitutional question -- for Fisher, whether considering race in university admissions violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection guarantees, and for Shelby County, whether requiring federal approval for changes in state voting procedures violates the 10th Amendment's protections for "state's rights" -- if the Court sides with the plaintiffs, the cases will represent major victories for the right-wing movement's effort to roll-back civil rights gains.

But, as today's Republican Party tries to lose its image as the party of white people, these potential legal wins may instead be pyrrhic victories that reinforce it.

PR Watch is published by the Center for Media and Democracy. © Center for Media and Democracy 2013.

Center for Media and Democracy • 520 University Avenue, Suite 260 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703 • Phone: 608-260-9713 • Fax: 608-260-9714

Source URL: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/03/11999/racial-entitlements-long-term-effort-end-voting-rights-act-and-affirmative-action

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brulle 2013

donor trust 14%

scaife 7%, bradley 5 plus 1% ed, koch 5, howard charatible fdn 4, john w pope 4, searle 4, templeton, dunn's fdn for the adv of rt thinking 2, smith richardson 2, vanguard 2, ...annenbeg

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stein 2005 cites as #1 assets 496M$

http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/organization/Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation

shares 74 grantees with exxon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Foundation

vouchers 7/13

In addition to the DeVos family foundations, the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation is one of the top school privatization funders in the country, spending over $31 million over the past eleven years promoting "school choice" nationwide, according to One Wisconsin Now; for decades, Bradley has also been a major ALEC funder. The foundation has over $600 million in assets and is headed by Michael Grebe, Scott Walker's campaign co-chair.

Before Milwaukee became the first city in the nation to implement a school voucher program, Bradleybankrolled the groups that laid the groundwork. When the plan was challenged in Wisconsin courts, Bradleyfunded its legal defense, which included hiring Kenneth Starr -- later known for pursuing Bill Clinton over Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky -- to represent the state.

s hayward is a bradley fellow at heritage?

...

For Bradley Foundation, Challenging Affirmative Action & Voting Rights Is Part of Long-Term Crusade

by Brendan Fischer [1] — June 27, 2013 - 8:36am

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The Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation is one-for-two in legal challenges to civil rights and racial equality this term, with the U.S. Supreme Court striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in one case bankrolled by Bradley, and in another, remanding an affirmative action case to a lower court, turning back the Bradley-backed challenge. The cases represent the latest in the Bradley Foundation's long-term effort to dismantle the gains of the civil rights era.

In the 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, the Court effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, which had required states with a history of legalized racial discrimination to get pre-approval from the federal government before making changes to either voting laws or procedures. One day earlier, in Fisher v. University of Texas, the Court punted on a challenge to affirmative action, sending the case back to a lower court rather than outright prohibiting the consideration of race in college admissions.

The challenges to both the Voting Rights Act and university affirmative action programs were organized by the same activist, who has acknowledged that he receives funding from the Bradley Foundation [8] -- a Milwaukee-based funder of right-wing causes that has long targeted racial equity.

Same Group and Donors Behind Fisher and Shelby County Cases

The group that brought both challenges [9] is the Project on Fair Representation, a legal defense fund dedicated to reversing race-based legal protections and whose website says it devotes "all of its efforts to influencing jurisprudence, public policy, and public attitudes regarding race and ethnicity." The Project was founded and led by one person, Ed Blum, who coordinated the challenges in both the Fisher and Shelby County cases.

Blum has likened his role in high-profile litigation to "Yenta the matchmaker." "I find the plaintiff, I find the lawyer, and I put them together, and then I worry about it for four years," he said [10].

Blum urged Shelby County, Alabama, to bring its Section 5 challenge after the Department of Justice blocked its effort to dilute the voting power of its growing African-American population. He also connected with Abigail Fisher, a white student who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin and claimed it was because of her race. Blum was also behind the last Voting Rights Act challenge to make it to the Supreme Court, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder.

The Project on Fair Representation covered the legal fees in both the Shelby County and Fisher cases using funds filtered through the secretive Donors Trust, which has been described as [11] a "Dark Money ATM" since it stealthily funnels money from the Kochs, Bradley and other funders to organizations in the right-wing network.

Typically, the identity of Donors Trust funders remain secret, but two of Blum's donors have been revealed [9]: the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, which gave at least $100,000 to bankroll Blum's latest legal challenges, and the Searle Freedom Trust, which for years has funded the Project on Fair Representation.

Bradley, which is headed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's campaign chair Michael Grebe, hands out $30 million in grants each year, and its support of Blum's group is only one example of its long-term effort to roll-back both voting rights and affirmative action.

With Bradley-Funded Challenge, Court Eviscerates Voting Rights Act

"Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions," Roberts wrote in the Shelby County case, joined by four other conservative justices. "African- American voter turnout has come to exceed white voter turnout in five of the six States originally covered by §5 [of the Act], with a gap in the sixth State of less than one half of one percent."

But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four dissenting justices, said: "In the Court's view, the very success of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act demands its dormancy." Invoking the words of Martin Luther King, Jr, she wrote: "'The arc of the moral universe is long,' he said, but 'it bends toward justice,' if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion. That commitment has been disserved by today's decision."

"Hubris is a fit word for today's demolition of the VRA."

Bradley's role in attacking voting rights is not limited to its support for Blum and his Project on Fair Representation.

In advance of the 2012 elections, Bradley was revealed as the secret funder [12] that had bankrolled giant billboard ads, exclusively in neighborhoods of color, stating "Voter Fraud is a Felony" during a period when voter ID was on hold in Wisconsin and many were confused as to its status. It funded groups [13] that employed James O'Keefe, whose heavily-edited undercover videos hyped voter fraud allegations and helped take down ACORN, which had helped millions of low-income people register to vote. It also funded the legal advocacy group that represented O'Keefe.

Both Bradley and Searle have funded the American Legislative Exchange Council, which promoted voter ID laws in states across the country. And in the wake of Shelby County, ALEC-inspired voter ID bills and other restrictions will likely take effect across the South. As many as eleven percent [14] of registered voters don't have government-issued photo ID and would be unable to vote under the laws, with those percentages even higher among communities of color and students.

Bradley also backs state-based conservative think tanks like Wisconsin's MacIver Institute, which have advanced unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud to drum-up support for restrictive laws like voter ID. And it has given millions to groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, which have long hyped voter fraud and called for more restrictive voting measures.

Shelby County Means ALEC-Inspired Voter ID Law Will Be Implemented in Multiple States

As J. Christian Adams writes [15] in a publication from the Bradley-funded Federalist Society: "those states that fall under Section 5 will be able to enact voter identification laws without seeking clearance from the federal government."

Indeed, just hours after Shelby County was published, Texas' Attorney General announced [16] the state's ALEC-inspired voter ID law, which could disenfranchise up to 800,000 registered voters but was blocked by a federal court under Section 5 last year, would immediately take effect; so will the state's problematic redistricting map [17], which had been blocked by a federal court due to its discriminatory impact.

Mississippi voters will also be subjected to a voter ID requirement, since state officials need not wait for federal pre-clearance to implement a 2011 constitutional amendment. South Carolina's voter ID law, which was initially stalled by the DOJ, will also take effect. A strict voter ID law passed in Virginia this year [18] -- which likely would not have been pre-cleared under Section 5 -- can also be implemented without federal approval.

True the Vote, whose poll watchers have been accused of voter suppression and which was awarded a $35,000 grant from Bradley in 2011 (later rescinded because the group hadn't received its 501(c)(3) status), stated [19]:

"This is without doubt a step in the right direction for our Republic."

Hiccup for Bradley's Long Fight Against Affirmative Action

The Bradley-funded effort to end affirmative action in the Fisher case was less successful than the attack on Section 5. The challenge to the University of Texas' admissions program was kicked back to a lower court for further proceedings, albeit with instructions that the court more strictly scrutinize the university policy. Affirmative action supporters didn't celebrate the decision, but breathed a sigh of relief that the Court didn't entirely ban consideration of race in college admissions.

The case was only one front in the Bradley-funded war on affirmative action.

It has been a top funder of the Center for Individual Rights [20], a right-wing legal organization that has challenged affirmative action laws [21] across the country (and where Ann Coulter worked as a litigator in the 1990s). CIR litigated two of the most significant affirmative action cases in recent decades, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, both decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003. It had a major victory in the 1996 Hopwood v. Texas case in the 5th Circuit that radically reshaped diversity programs at the University of Texas -- potentially even banning recruitment of people of color -- until the decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The group represented the sponsors of Proposition 209, the 2001 California referendum that eliminates affirmative action in state programs, among other efforts. Bradley has given at least $2 million to CIR since 1989.

The Bradley Foundation has also given millions to Ward Connerley [22]'s anti-affirmative action "American Civil Rights Institute [23]," including $700,000 in 2001 to support the Proposition 209 ballot initiative, and in 2005 awarding Connerley a $250,000 "Bradley Prize." And it has consistently funded the National Association of Scholars, giving millions to the group whose mission is fighting affirmative action by building scholar networks and organizing conferences and panels on college campuses across the country.

Bradley has also given over one million dollars to the "Center for Equal Opportunity [24]," whose activities include traveling the country [25] urging Republican legislators to crack down [26] on affirmative action programs, which it claims constitute "reverse discrimination."

In 2011, a Center for Equal Opportunity representative claimed [25] the University of Wisconsin was guilty of "severe racial discrimination" -- a questionable assertion given that just 2.6 percent of the university's 42,180 students are African-American and 3.8 percent are Hispanic -- prompting protests from students already energized in opposition to the agenda of Governor Scott Walker, whose campaign chair and transition team leader was Bradley CEO and President Michael Grebe.

Bradley Foundation Is Not Going Away, and Neither Are These Fights

The Bradley Foundation is one of the largest "philanthropic" organizations in the country and has funded an array of organizations advancing right-wing causes, ranging from school privatization (as documented by One Wisconsin Now at BradleyWatch.org) to Islamophobia [27], union-busting, "tort reform" and other issues. Between 2001 and 2010 it gave over $350 million to hundreds of institutions [28], which is nearly as much as the seven Koch and Scaife family foundations combined.

(See a full list of Bradley Foundation contributions here [29]).

Which means the Bradley Foundation is not going anywhere anytime soon -- and battles over racial equity, voting rights, affirmative action and a range of other issues will continue to be funded and fought for years to come.

This article has been updated.

Center for Media and Democracy • 520 University Avenue, Suite 260 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703

Phone: 608-260-9713 • Fax: 608-260-9714

Source URL: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/06/12142/bradley-foundation-challenging-affirmative-action-voting-rights-part-long-term-cr

Links:

[1] http://www.prwatch.org/users/35275/brendan-fischer

[2] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/democracy

[3] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/politics

[4] http://www.prwatch.org/topics/race-ethnic-issues

[5] http://www.prwatch.org/projects/alec-exposed

[6] http://www.prwatch.org/projects/wisconsin-protests

[7] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prwatch.org%2Fnews%2F2013%2F06%2F12142%2Fbradley-foundation-challenging-affirmative-action-voting-rights-part-long-term-cr&linkname=For%20Bradley%20Foundation%2C%20Challenging%20Affirmative%20Action%20%26%20Voting%20Rights%20Is%20Part%20of%20Long-Term%20Crusade%20

[8] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bradley_Foundation

[9] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/us-usa-court-casemaker-idUSBRE8B30V220121204

[10] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/us/edward-blum-and-the-project-on-fair-representation-head-to-the-supreme-court-to-fight-race-based-laws.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[11] http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/02/14/12181/donors-use-charity-push-free-market-policies-states

[12] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/11/11834/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-controversial-billboards-treading-controversial-new-

[13] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43105_Page3.html

[14] http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/voter-id

[15] http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20130606_VoterIDWP6513.pdf

[16] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/25/2212281/two-hours-after-the-supreme-court-gutted-the-voting-rights-act-texas-ag-suppresses-minority-voters/

[17] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/26/2216721/thanks-to-the-supreme-court-wendy-davis-will-probably-lose-her-senate-seat/

[18] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/21/1622471/virginia-lawmakers-approve-strict-measure-requiring-voters-to-show-photo-id/

[19] http://www.truethevote.org/news/true-the-vote-statement-regarding-the-u-s-supreme-court-s-voting-rights-act-decision

[20] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Individual_Rights

[21] http://www.thenation.com/article/affirmative-racism#axzz2XMdZK9xJ

[22] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ward_Connerly

[23] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Civil_Rights_Coalition

[24] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Equal_Opportunity

[25] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/09/11019/group-alleges-university-wisconsins-diversity-policies-are-discriminatory-protest

[26] http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/10/11085/wisconsin-legislature-holds-hearings-affirmative-action-students-criticize-priori

[27] http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/pdf/islamophobia.pdf

[28] http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/from-local-roots-bradley-foundation-builds-conservative-empire-k7337pb-134187368.html

[29] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Contributions_of_the_Bradley_Foundation

In the early 1990s the foundation helped support *The American Spectator*, which at the time was researching damaging material on President Bill Clinton. In the March 1992 issue of the magazine, David Brock called Anita Hill "a bit nutty and a bit slutty", and in January, 1994, it published Brock's article regarding Troopergate and Clinton's alleged extramarital affairs. David Brock later recanted both articles.

The Bradley Foundation has provided funding for the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). PNAC brought together prominent members of the (George W) Bush Administration (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz) in the late 1990s to articulate their neoconservative foreign policy, including sending a letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to invade Iraq.

...

Latest grantees

These are among the latest grants awarded to conservative organizations:

[edit] Past and present grantees

List of grants and cumulative amounts given from 1985-2002 [2].

[edit] National organizations

These are a few of the many donations that have been granted by the Foundation.

Over $10 million

Over $5 million

Over $2 million

Over $1 million

Over $500,000

Over $100,000

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation  eh

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, according to The Bradley Foundation 1998 Annual Report, was giving away more than $30 million per year.[1]

Harry was one of the original charter members of the far right-wing John Birch Society, along with another Birch Society board member, Fred Koch, the father of Koch Industries billionaire brothers and owners, Charles and David Koch.[2]

According to the Media Transparency web site, the Foundation's "resources, its clear political agenda, and its extensive national network of contacts and collaborators in political, academic and media circles has allowed it to exert an important influence on key issues of public policy. While its targets range from affirmative action to social security, it has seen its greatest successes in the areas of welfare 'reform' and attempts to privatize public education through the promotion of school vouchers...

"The overall objective of the Bradley Foundation, however, is to return the U.S. -- and the world -- to the days before governments began to regulate Big Business, before corporations were forced to make concessions to an organized labor force. In other words, laissez-faire capitalism: capitalism with the gloves off.

"To further this objective, Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privatization of government services. As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S. Right ... Heritage Foundation ... Madison Center for Educational Affairs ... American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, literary home for such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D'Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William J. Bennett, and arch-conservative jurists Robert H. Bork and Antonin Scalia...[3]

"Other Bradley grantees include ... Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation" ... Potomac Foundation and Encounter Books. [4]

Contents[hide]

Board of Directors and Personnel

Board of Directors (2005)

Officers

Former staff

Contact

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

P.O. Box 510860

Milwaukee, WI 53203-0153

Phone: 414 291-9915

Fax: 414 291-9991

Web: http://www.bradleyfdn.org

Other SourceWatch Sources

External links

References

  1. ↑ Media Transparency The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. - Funder profile, accessed March 15, 2011
  2. ↑ Lee Fang How John Birch Society Extremism Never Dies: The Fortune Behind Scott Walker’s Union-Busting Campaign, ThinkProgress, February 21, 2011
  3. ↑ Media Transparency The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. - Funder profile, accessed March 15, 2011
  4. ↑ Media Transparency The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc. - Funder profile, accessed March 15, 2011
  5. ↑ Jason Stein Scott Walker names key figures to his transition team: Bradley Foundation's Michael W. Grebe and real estate exec John Hiller get posts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal-Sentinel November 5, 2010

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lynde_and_Harry_Bradley_Foundation"

Categories: Foundations | Right-wing

http://www.prwatch.org/node/10347

Harry Bradley, a founding member of the John Birch SocietyIn the last three years, the MacIver Institute has gotten at least $300,000 in funding from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which advocates eliminating labor unions under the guise of "restoring worker rights" and "modernizing labor laws." Harry Bradley, after whom the Foundation is named, was one of the original charter members of the 1960s right-wing extremist group, the John Birch Society, along with another Birch Society board member, Fred Koch, the father of Koch Industries' billionaire brother-owners, Charles and David Koch.

Media Transparency

ein: 39-6037928

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc.

With $706 million in assets (2005), the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the country's largest and most influential right-wing foundation. As of the end of 2005, it was giving away more than $34 million a year [Bradley Foundation 2005 IRS 99-PF].

Lion's House - home of the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee Its financial resources, its clear political agenda, and its extensive national network of contacts and collaborators in political, academic and media circles has allowed it to exert an important influence on key issues of public policy. While its targets range from affirmative action to social security, it has seen its greatest successes in the areas of welfare "reform" and attempts to privatize public education through the promotion of school vouchers.

What Bradley Money Buys:

Within Milwaukee, Bradley money goes to a host of local organizations and institutions, most of which are not political in character. Virtually all the cultural institutions and most of the local colleges receive grants. The money buys good will and helps secure the hometown base.The overall objective of the Bradley Foundation, however, is to return the U.S. - and the world- to the days before governments began to regulate Big Business, before corporations were forced to make concessions to an organized labor force. In other words, laissez-faire capitalism: capitalism with the gloves off.

To further this objective, Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privitization of government services. As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S.Right. Bradley money supports such major right-wing groups as the Heritage Foundation, source of policy papers on budget cuts, supply-side economics and the Star Wars military plan for the Reagan administration; the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, which provides funding for right-wing research and a network of conservative student newspapers; and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, literary home for such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D'Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William Bennett, and arch-conservative jurists Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia.

Other Bradley grantees include the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation; the Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace; and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.There are the major conservative publications, such as The Public Interest, The National Interest,and The American Spectator. And there are organizations set up to play specific roles in promoting the right-wing agenda, such as the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that promotes privatization and deregulation, and the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, a vehicle for building support for privitization in low-income communities.

Where the Money Came From: The Allen-Bradley Company

Although not born into wealth, the late Lynde and Harry Bradley brothers were members of one of Milwaukee's most prominent families. Their maternal grandfather was William Pitt Lynde, one of Wisconsin's first two congressmen who also served as the state's U.S.Attorney, an alderman, and a mayor of Milwaukee. In 1903,Lynde and Harry founded a business that would become the Allen-Bradley Company, a major manufacturer of electronic and radio components. Harry was the more politically active of the two. A man with extreme right-wing views, he was an early financial supporter of the John Birch Society, one of the country's leading far-right organizations,based in nearby Appleton, WI.

Robert Welsh, who founded the Society in 1958, was a regular speaker at Allen-Bradley sales meetings. Harry distributed Birchite literature, as did Fred Loock, another key figure at the company. They also supported the Australian doctor Fred Schwarz, founder of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade; William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review; and a right-wing Midwest radio program produced by anti-communist producer Bob Siegrist. Harry's main political targets were "World Communism" and the U.S. federal government, not necessarily in that order. His political philosophy was laissez-faire capitalism, and he was strongly opposed to anything that might restrict his freedom to conduct his business as he saw fit. His promotion of "freedom", however, did not extend to his own workers. While women had worked at the plant since 1918, and made up nearly a third of the workforce during World War II, they weren't paid the same as men. They finally sued in 1966, charging the company paid less to women than male workers operating the same machines. A federal judge ruled in their favor.

Allen-Bradley was one of the last major Milwaukee employers to racially integrate, and then only through public and legal pressure. By 1968, when the company's workforce had grown to more than 7,000, Allen-Bradley employed only 32 Blacks and 14 Latinos. That year, demonstrators led by the civil rights leader Father James Groppi picketed the plant, demanding the hiring of more workers of color. The company was eventually forced to adopt an affirmative action plan, after the federal government backed a discrimination suit. And although Allen-Bradley had been unionized since 1937 (United Radio and Electrical Workers of America Local 1111), the company had bitterly resisted recognizing a closed or union shop. Around 1970, a 76-day strike forced management to agree to allow payroll deduction of union dues. All of these advancements for their workers did nothing to endear the company's owners to the idea of government regulation of industry. Lynde, Harry, and Frank Loock all shared a view of themselves as benevolent dictators over their workers, more than able to decide what their employees needed, without any advice from the federal government. If that included racial and gender discrimination, that was their business and no one else's, and they were determined to oppose any perceived threat, whether it came from Moscow or from Washington.

In 1942, the brothers formed the Allen-Bradley Foundation, which quickly became a key benefactor for local institutions such as St. Luke's Hospital, the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and the Boy's Club. In addition to being a major employer, Allen-Bradley was now an important source of money for the city as well. But while it gave a few grants to right-wing groups like the Freedoms Foundation and Morality in Media, it was still basically a local philanthropy.

A Newly Enriched Foundation Hires Chairman Mike

Things changed dramatically in 1985, when the Allen-Bradley Company was sold to Rockwell International, a leading defense and aerospace conglomerate, for a whopping $1.651 billion. The Foundation benefited heavily from the sale, seeing its assets shoot up overnight from less than $14 million to more than $290 million, catapulting it into the ranks of the country's largest foundations. At that point its name was changed to the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, to publicly separate it from the company. Flush with new money and an understanding that they were now poised to play a more national role, foundation trustees decided it was time to hire a professional to run the organization. They found their man in New York at the John M. Olin Foundation.

lots more  http://old.mediatransparency.org/funderprofileprinterfriendly.php?funderID=1

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