Schwab, C

charitable fdn gave $ to CMD (berman claims?) daf

 ==

CMD 3 22

The Dirty Dozen Funders of Climate Misinformation

A dozen of the largest nonprofits donated $47.8 million to the leading climate denial organizations, accounting for 88% of the funds CMD was able to track down using FY 2014-20 federal tax returns. 

Half of the traceable funding came from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, two donor-advised fund sponsors that pass along their clients’ donations to other charities approved by their boards of directors. While the two funds give exclusively to conservative causes, no restrictions are apparent within that ideology. For instance, CMD was first to report that DonorsTrust is by far the biggest known funder of American white nationalist hate groups.

Among the “Dirty Dozen” climate denial financiers are foundations established by the right-wing Bradley, Koch, Mercer, Searle, and Scaife families. The Kochs, Mercers, and other Republican megadonors pour additional money into political groups and electoral campaigns focused on electing right-wing candidates who oppose meaningful action on climate change and often support expanding and deregulating the fossil fuel industry.

The funders named in this report have also financed a broader right-wing political strategy to misinform the public about a number of issues and increase GOP voter turnout.

“Bad actors are using a tried and tested playbook to weaken public mandates and create confusion [about] viable solutions going forward,” notes Jennie King, head of civic action and education at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an independent nonprofit dedicated to protecting human rights and reversing polarization, extremism, and disinformation around the world. “This includes weaponizing climate response within a broader ‘culture wars’ frame and conflating it with any supposed controversy, from Covid-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates to critical race theory, trans rights, or geopolitics.”

Leading non-ideological donor-advised fund sponsors connected to the Vanguard and Fidelity financial firms are also among the Dirty Dozen climate misinformation funders.

“We cannot solve the climate crisis until we solve the climate misinformation crisis,” U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told CMD. “It is disappointing that mainstream organizations are still keeping ties with groups that have attacked climate science and legislative solutions. We need to be calling this behavior out publicly, so Americans know which organizations are linked to climate denial efforts.”

All nonprofits identified by CMD that gave $10,000 or more to the top climate misinformation groups from 2014–20 are listed in the table below.

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}:

tABLE 2

Top Nonprofit Climate Denial Funders, 2014-20

Numerous charities, private foundations, and trade associations have bankrolled the climate misinformation movement.

 Page 1 of 4  

Table with 9 columns and 53 rows. Currently displaying rows 1 to 15.

Donor    2014 2015 2016   2017 2018   2019 2020   TOTAL

1 DonorsTrust/Donors Capital Fund $3,293,850 $3,816,850 $3,676,750 $2,422,000 $3,830,200 $2,101,732 $1,416,500 20,557,882

2 Searle Freedom Trust $839,500 $589,500 $1,140,000 $940,000 $1,096,000 $754,000 $985,000 6,344,000

3 Sarah Scaife Foundation $350,000 $610,000 $842,000 $875,000 $960,000 $715,000 $1,245,000 5,597,000

4 Mercer Family Foundation $885,000 $100,000 $1,075,000 $970,000 3,030,000

5 Dunn Foundation $1,200,000 $250,000 $325,000 $200,000 $350,000 $350,000 $350,000 3,025,000

6 Bradley Foundations $344,376 $318,876 $458,500 $519,000 $280,000 $475,000 $110,000 2,505,752

7 American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers $365,000 $275,000 $470,000 $400,000 1,510,000

8 Koch Foundations $100,128 $431,891 $333,028 $413,016 $84,000 $99,049 $18,749 1,479,861

9 Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program $38,500 $228,500 $265,000 $230,000 $235,000 997,000

10 Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund $35,525 $21,350 $27,867 $241,355 $212,310 $231,055 $201,952 971,414

11 National Philanthropic Trust $150,000 $175,000 $175,500 $176,000 $200,000 876,500

12 Bartley J. Madden Foundation $45,000 $270,000 $270,000 $250,000 $30,000 865,000

13 Thomas W. Smith Foundation $150,000 $175,000 $200,000 $200,000 725,000

14 The 85 Fund $700,000 700,000

15 Ed Uihlein Family Foundation $10,500 $129,000 $35,000 $115,000 $115,000 $140,000...

16 SCHWAB 500k$

----

California's top five Republican mega-donors dwarfed by Democrats, still spent $36 million

Charles & Helen Schwab — $12,947,500

Geoffrey Palmer— $10,460,400 Laura Khouri & Michael Hayde — $5,804,580Barbara Grimm-Marshall & Darcy Marshall — $4,213,497 Saul Fox — $2,570,803 Charles Schwab, the billionaire owner of his self-named financial services company, and his wife, Helen, together are California’s largest source of individual contributions to conservative and Republican causes.

Geoffrey Palmer, a California real estate developer,has given $6million to the America First Action Super PAC that supports President Trump and Trump’s agenda. He also donated to many state Republican parties and candidates. Laura Khouri and her husband Michael Hayde own a large property management company in Orange County and have given millions to get more Republicans elected to Congress.

Barbara Grimm-Marshall, a giant in the baby carrot industry, and her husband, Darcy Marshall, are the third-largest individual contributors to Republicans, giving money to committees that support Trump and Republican parties around the country.Saul Fox, a private equity CEO, has donated more than $2.5 million in this election cycle and has hosted fundraisers for Trump at his Silicon Valley home....

==

Two Of America’s Richest Men Secretly Tried To Sway Montana’s Judicial Elections

In the post-Citizens United world, these billionaires have found a new way to attack a state law they don’t like.

By Paul Blumenthal

A public defender running for state justice was attacked for being a public defender.

WASHINGTON — Ed Sheehy was driving home one day in the middle of his 2012 run for a Montana Supreme Court seat when he received a call from a local newspaper reporter. The reporter wanted to read Sheehy the transcript of a blistering new radio ad.

“Fortunately, I pulled over before he did,” Sheehy recalled for The Huffington Post.

The ad assailed Sheehy’s work as a state public defender in a high-profile death penalty case several years earlier, arguing that it showed the lawyer had “activist values” unsuitable for the state’s highest court.

At the time, Sheehy was one of only a few public defenders in Montana who could take a capital case; he had all the pertinent qualifications and had already handled eight capital cases. He was assigned to defend Tyler Miller, who had been charged with, and ultimately pleaded guilty to, murdering his former girlfriend and his daughter on Christmas Day 2010. Sheehy sought a life sentence for his client. “That was an argument I had to make,” Sheehy said, noting that public defenders are duty-bound to use all available arguments to aid their client’s defense.

But the ad spun that case as evidence that Sheehy was some sort of bleeding heart liberal. “It was a slap in the face for victims’ families and justice,” intoned the ad’s female narrator. “Now Ed Sheehy wants to take his activist values to the Montana Supreme Court.”

Sheehy was dumbfounded. “Before 2012, nothing like that had ever happened in a judicial race in Montana,” he said.

Montana’s judicial elections are officially nonpartisan — candidates do not have a D or R next to their names. Moreover, the candidates are bound by a code of conduct requiring them to be “scrupulously fair and accurate in all statements.”

Even more surprising than the appearance of the anti-Sheehy ad was its source: not his main competitor and the ultimate victor in the judicial race, Laurie McKinnon, but a brand-new, little-known conservative nonprofit group. Called the Montana Growth Network, it had some big money behind it.

Spending to sway judicial elections has been increasing across the country for nearly two decades, but it soared after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which served to legalize unlimited electoral spending by corporations, unions and individuals. The court’s decision led to the overturning of Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act, which banned direct and indirect corporate political spending in the state. The Montana law had been passed in 1912 after powerful mining corporations, like the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, essentially took over the state’s political institutions, particularly the judiciary.

Montana is one of many states where funds have poured into judicial races from groups unaffiliated with judicial candidates — the kind of supposedly independent spending that Citizens United empowered. As the amount of money has increased, so too have the nasty attacks.

“What we’ve been seeing over the past 15 years is interest groups paying increased attention to state courts,” said Alicia Bannon, senior counsel for the democracy program at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

While the influx of money, particularly post-Citizens United, has had profound effects on all kinds of political campaigns, it’s particularly troubling in those judicial races. “Judges are hearing cases involving campaign contributors, and it does create troubling conflict concerns,” Bannon said.

This was certainly the case in Sheehy’s 2012 race, although the public didn’t know it at the time.

The Montana Growth Network was launched that year by Jason Priest and Ed Walker, then both Republican state senators. It went on to spend $900,000 on the state Supreme Court race, more money than the Sheehy and McKinnon campaigns combined. Because the group was organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit under the federal tax code, it was not required to disclose its donors. Any interest those donors had in the race was obscured, as was any potential conflict that the group’s favored candidate, McKinnon, might later face on the bench.

Three years passed before the identities of the billionaire businessmen funding the ads came to light, following an investigation by Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices. The December 2015 probe found that the Montana Growth Network had violated state election laws and forced the nonprofit to disclose its funders.

The largest portion of the group’s money came from two of America’s richest men. San Francisco billionaire Charles Schwab, the founder of the eponymous discount brokerage firm, donated $300,000. James Cox Kennedy, the Atlanta-based chairman of media giant Cox Enterprises, gave $100,000. Schwab is worth a reported $6.4 billion, while Kennedy is worth $10.2 billion — ranking both of them among Forbes’ wealthiest 400 Americans.

If they can’t win in court, they’ll change the court. They’ll change the justices that make the decisions.John Gibson, president of the Public Land/Water Access Association

The probe also revealed that the two billionaires had a direct stake in a case moving through Montana’s courts at the time of the 2012 election. While neither are residents of Montana, they both own large estates there. The two properties include streams and rivers to which the owners would like to restrict access. But Montana has some of the most liberal laws for recreational waterway use in the country: The state’s 1972 constitution allows broad public access to those waterways.

“The stream access law allows public access to the stream to do whatever you want to,” said John Gibson, president of the Public Land/Water Access Association, a volunteer organization. “You can go down there and throw rocks or wade or swim or float or whatever, inner-tube, trap, whatever you want to do under high water mark. A lot of people simply just go down there and play — kids do in the summertime.”

Schwab and Kennedy don’t like that law — at least as it applies to their land. They’ve spent more than a decade challenging it in court, sometimes with the support of other wealthy out-of-state landowners. By 2012, they had already lost at least three cases before the Montana Supreme Court.

In the mid-2000s, Schwab and a handful of other rich landowners sought to restrict access to a slough that ran off the Bitterroot River, arguing that the extensive work they had done to channelize and irrigate the slough meant it no longer qualified as a natural waterway — a prerequisite for the open access granted under state law. In 2008, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Schwab and the other landowners.

Kennedy has been in and out of court attacking the law since 2000. His more recent challenges have revolved around whether the two barbed wire fences he put up at bridges along the Ruby River and a third on nearby Seyler Lane, all three of which are on his property, are illegally preventing public access to the water. The Public Land/Water Access Association filed suit to try to force Kennedy to remove the barriers.

Two wealthy men tried to cut off public access to waterways that ran across their property.

In 2008, a judge ordered the barriers blocking the Ruby River bridges to be removed, but not the Seyler Lane fence. The Public Land/Water Access Association appealed on the Seyler Lane issue, and the case eventually went to the state Supreme Court. That court ruled in favor of the open-access advocates, directing that Kennedy’s blockades be removed. The billionaire then countersued, challenging the constitutionality of the entire stream access law.

This was the state of the legal battle when Kennedy donated $100,000 to the Montana Growth Network in a bid to shape the membership of the high court.

“If they can’t win in court, they’ll change the court,” said Gibson, of the Public Land/Water Access Association. “They’ll change the justices that make the decisions, and that’s ongoing.”

A spokesman for Kennedy provided a written statement on his behalf to The Huffington Post. “Jim Kennedy is a strong advocate for democracy, and in no way would attempt to interfere with the results of an election,” said the statement, which also noted that Kennedy has been “an active part of the Montana community for nearly two decades” and referenced his many contributions to Montana nonprofits.

Schwab did not respond to a request for comment.

But the situation looks fairly clear to Bruce Farling, executive director of Montana Trout Unlimited, a conservation group that has worked to defend the stream access law against these challenges.

“Those guys wrote big checks to this outfit [Montana Growth Network] to write big checks to [support] McKinnon, and I can’t think of any other reason they would be interested in that race other than the fact that their stream access cases have shown up before the Montana Supreme Court,” he said.

MONTANA COMMISSION OF POLITICAL PRACTICESOne of two $50,000 checks written by James Cox Kennedy to the Montana Growth Network.

MONTANA COMMISSION ON POLITICAL PRACTICESA $200,000 check written by Charles Schwab to the Montana Growth Network.

McKinnon went on to win the 2012 race by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent. She took a seat on the state Supreme Court as Kennedy’s constitutional challenge was underway. Although the court ultimately upheld the stream access law by a 5-2 vote, McKinnon — who declined to comment for this story — was one of the two justices who sided with Kennedy.

While their interest was the most obvious, Kennedy and Schwab were not the only 2012 donors to the Montana Growth Network that might have had business before the state’s highest court. Oil and gas companies operating in Montana — including Continental Resources, Boich Companies, Great Northern Properties and Shale Exploration — all donated to the nonprofit. None of the companies responded to requests for comment.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce donated $100,000 to the Montana Growth Network in 2013 to support its efforts in legislative races.

After its involvement in the 2012 judicial race, however, the Montana Growth Network suffered some serious setbacks. Two board members resigned the following year, citing differences over the group’s direction. Cofounder Priest pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting his wife and daughter in 2014. And the 2015 ruling from the state’s Commissioner of Political Practices effectively ended the group’s operations.

Still, a string of elections influenced by “dark money,” including the 2012 judicial race, sparked Montanans’ concerns about money flowing into local politics from unknown sources. Bipartisan legislation requiring groups like the Montana Growth Network to disclose their donors went into effect in 2015.

Sheehy, meanwhile, is back at work as a public defender. He threw his hat in the ring for another open seat on the state Supreme Court in 2014, but that didn’t pan out. He said he’s concerned about the future of his state’s democracy, now that he sees who has been funding attack ads. He is especially worried that the new post-Citizens United campaign spending dynamic will send Montana back to the days when major corporations and the rich men behind them ran the state.

“When Montana passed its Corrupt Practices Act, it was designed to get corporations out of the judiciary — because where I work now in Butte, which is my hometown, the Anaconda Company controlled the judges that were on the bench,” Sheehy said. “That was the idea, to let people have a right to a true, fair trial.”

The surreptitious campaign to defeat him four years ago suggests that right has already been degraded.

According to tax documents, Montana Growth Network raised more than $900,000 in 2012, but as a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization, the group was not required by law to disclose its donors. The group’s IRS Form 990 disclosed at least $495,301 in payments to SCRP Media, Persuasion Innovation from Florence, and 47 North Communications of Helena.

Documents uncovered during the course of the lawsuit revealed that much of the group’s funding came from out-of-state donors, including $50,000 from billionaire media mogul James Cox Kennedy and $200,000 frombillionaire financial executive Charles Schwab. Both men had been involved in high-profile disputes over Montana’s constitutional stream access law.

Kennedy was embroiled in a 12-year lawsuit against the state, and the case eventually made it to the state Supreme Court. In a January 2014 decision the high court upheld Montana’s stream access law. McKinnon joined Justice Jim Rice in dissenting from the majority in that case.

“In my view, the court’s opinion disregards more than a century of precedent governing prescriptive easements and undermines the balance the Legislature has struck between landowners and recreationists,” McKinnon said at the time.

Priest denied that the Montana Growth Network was formed to help wealthy out-of-state landowners undermine Montana’s stream access law.

“The mission of the Montana Growth Network is in its 990 and was on the website, and that was to have a dialogue about the courts and Montana’s prosperity. That was all it was intended to do,” Priest said.

MacNaughton thanked Priest for “accepting responsibility and for working with the COPP to achieve resolution of this matter for the people of Montana.” She also commended Gene Jarussi, the special attorney general who volunteered to litigate the case on behalf of the commissioner’s office.

John Adams is the founding editor of The Montana Free Press, where this story was first published. Attached to the story on the Free Press site is the settlement agreement, copies of checks from donors to the Montana Growth Network, and other fliers the group used in the 2012 election.

==

===

BUSTED koch dark $ CA:

California Secretary of State candidate Derek Cressman has made a career of fighting the billionaires who are trying to hijack democracy. 

His biggest victory so far was a 2012 case that resulted in the largest fine for a campaign-finance violation in California history.

While he was working at Common Cause, Cressman and his colleagues discovered a dark-money trail that led directly from the Koch brothers to political work on twoCalifornia referenda, Prop 30 (which raised taxes on the wealthiest Californians), and Prop 32 (which limited unions' ability to raise money for political purposes). The discovery propelled a dramatic $1.3 million judgment, made headlines, and kicked off a new wave of campaign reform in the state. 

Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill to make the sort of money-laundering subterfuge that case uncovered more difficult, and grassroots excitement is building for the prospect of real reform.

“Making Big Money Toxic”

Now, after twenty years of advocacy work with Common Cause and U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Cressman says people who care about the corrupting influence of money in politics need to take that message directly to the voters.

"The movement needs to be more election-focused," he says. "We need to show that candidates who are anti-reform … are losing candidates."

Disclosure is not enough, Cressman says. In California, "corporate Democrats" are winning races where both candidates take special interest money. 

"Disclosing campaign contributions by itself doesn't give voters a choice, or present a downside to taking that money," he says.

"The only way to change things is to find a way for candidates to run without taking that money," he says. "We have to make big money toxic."

That's not such an outlandish goal in the Secretary of State race, which is a relatively low-dollar affair.

"Unlike Congressional races or even the state legislature, it doesn't draw nearly as much corporate money, because the office doesn't have the power to regulate any particular industry," Cressman points out.

Cressman's $500,000 in funds raised so far puts him second in a field of eight candidates. The frontrunner, Democratic state senator Alex Padilla, has outraised Cressman by a margin of 4-to-1, with $2 million.

Still, $2 million is a pittance for a statewide race in California, Cressman points out, where an effective TV ad buy costs $6 million per week. 

Social media, word of mouth, and grassroots networking are critical to the outcome of the race.

Koch Brothers’ Network Partially Unmasked (and Fined)

Much of the energy behind Cressman's campaign comes from the high-profile case that exposed and turned back the Koch brothers' influence in California in 2012.

That story involved a dramatic unmasking of the corrupting influence of dark money groups in state and local politics.

Cressman was working for Common Cause in the fall of 2012 when he and his colleagues discovered  $15 million in contributions from undisclosed donors to oppose Prop 30, which sought to raise taxes on wealthiest in the state, and to support Prop 32, a so-called "paycheck protection" measure to further limit how unions can raise money and spend money during election season.

"I noticed the donations were linked to a guy named Sean Noble--that name rang a bell from previous research I'd done into the Koch Brothers," Cressman says. "We started digging and found an address in Virginia for a group that turned out to be 'ground zero' for dark money groups."

Cressman uncovered an illegal money-laundering operation. Californians – including big names like Eli Broad, Charles Schwab, and the Fisher Family, who own the Gap stores – were laundering their contributions through an out-of-state front group, in order to hide their support for the ballot measure.

Under California law, donors who seek to influence the outcome of a particular ballot measure -- unlike those who give money to more general causes-- must disclose their contributions.

Charles Schwab Emailed David Koch, Noting "Your Man," Sean Noble, Was Key

Common Cause filed a complaint, and the California Supreme Court met in an extraordinary emergency session by conference call on the Sunday before election day. 

"Literally, it was front page news in all the papers on election day 2012," Cressman says. 

The articles exposed that the donors had violated campaign law. This was particularly important because one of the measures they pushed, the anti-union paycheck protection act, purported to be about campaign finance reform.

Ten months later the state's Fair Political Practices Commission imposed a record settlement of $1.3 million, the largest campaign finance violation fine in California history.

The Court found that an in-state network of donors had approached the Koch brothers’ network to launder money for them, so they would not be associated with the effort.

In one juicy email, Charles Schwab urged David Koch to become involved and noted "your man" Sean Noble was part of the effort. Schwab also wrote, "I look forward to seeing you on the golf course."

Following on the news of that case, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to make such money-laundering subterfuge more difficult.

"That's important," says Cressman, "Because if they'd been slightly more careful, they could have got away with it. If it was a wink and nod: 'Here's $5 million and spend it how you want.' Then, 30 minutes later, 'Hey, we really care about this issue.'"

Under the new law those sorts of winking deals will be more difficult.

Whose “Return on Investment?”

Cressman is running on a platform that includes publicizing the "return on investment" corporate lobbyists get from the politicians they bankroll--including Padilla.

In the state senate, Padilla authored and passed "the most anti-consumer bill ever introduced in California," according to Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network. The bill, which deregulates Internet-to-phone service, has the backing of the rightwing, pro-corporate American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC has been uncloaked by the Center for Media and Democracy’s ALECexposed.org project. The Center and ALECexposed.org are now part of Progressive Inc., the publisher of The Progressive and progressive.org).

"It takes the public utility commission out of Internet-to-phone, which is the future of phone service," says Cressman, who calls the bill "disastrous" for consumers.

Telecom firms gave Padilla $108,732, Cressman reports in a campaign document titled "Cumulative Return on Investments in the Padilla Portfolio Since 2006".

"The Secretary of State race is a rare opportunity to talk about these issues," Cressman says.

The Power of the Secretary of State: Remember Florida’s Reviled Katherine Harris

Cressman's run was propelled, in part, by the realization that the next secretary of state will make critical decisions about the future of democracy in California.

California is almost the last state in the union to create a statewide voter database. Even after getting a $40 million Federal grant for the purpose, state Secretaries of State have, for the last decade, failed to produce a database, a failure which prevents the state from implementing same-day voter registration and other important reforms.

It's part "bureaucratic ineptitude," Cressman says, and partly due to the fact that past Secretaries of State have been term-limited state legislators who, according to Cressman, lack the managerial experience or will power the job requires.

"The stakes are so high," Cressman says. "We've got to try something different than a termed-out state senator looking to use this office as a stepping stone to Congress."

Cressman: The State Democratic Party Is Filled with Activists on Campaign Reform

Meanwhile, Cressman is trying to capitalize in his campaign on the public sense that citizens can fight the corrupting influence of money in politics and win.

"I've been incredibly pleasantly surprised at the vibrancy of the grassroots within the Democratic Party," says Cressman. "As an outsider, you have this impression of a party full of hacks, where everything is rigged," he adds. "In California, that is not true. The party is full of activists, and my message has been incredibly well received."

In his stump speech, Cressman says he will hold hearings in every Congressional district on amending the U.S. Constitution to overcome the Supreme Court's Citizens United and McCutcheondecisions, which have opened the floodgates to corporate and non-profit money to influence who wins elections. 

He also calls for adding the top ten donors to every candidate and ballot measure to the official "voter information guide," which the California Secretary of State sends out.

He has been getting a lot of spontaneous applause at campaign events for these ideas.

Even in the wake of the Supreme Court's McCutcheon decision, which further expanded uncontrolled spending on elections by wealthy donors, Cressman is hopeful.

An “’All of the Above’ Strategy” for Restoring Democracy and Reforming Campaigns

At Common Cause, he says, he spent the last few years working on anti-Citizens United ballot measures.

"One year ago we attempted a statewide referendum, and it completely died in the legislature," Cressman says. "But this year, it sailed through committee. We could have a statewide ballot measure in 2014 in California. I've been leading with this in my stump speech."

Cressman favors an "all of the above" strategy to fight money in politics: tough disclosure laws, a Congressional drive for a constitutional amendment, state and local ballot measures, and electoral campaigns.

"One thing that holds us back is that individual activist get too focused on one silver bullet approach," he says by phone from California, adding that he was on his way to join in a citizens march against Citizens United. 

"We need protests, marches, ballot measures, campaigns. We need all of that," he says.

- See more at: http://progressive.org/node/187707#sthash.0ysCxB3M.dpuf

===

Those contributors include owners of the Gap Inc., for which California First Lady Anne Gust Brown was once a top executive, investor Charles Schwab and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad. The groups they donated to gave money to other organizations, which gave to the campaigns.

One of the campaigns was an effort to derail a 2012 tax measure pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown -- which Broad had said he supported. The other supported a separate initiative that would have limited the power of labor unions to raise political cash.

The Fisher family, which owns the Gap, gave more than $9 million to Americans for Job Security, a Virginia-based group which eventually sent millions to an Arizona-based non-profit that ultimately wound up in a California campaign committee. Gust Brown formerly was the company’s chief administrative officer.

San Francisco investor Schwab gave more than $6.2 million to the same group. Broad gave $1 million despite his stated support for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Americans for Job Security sent $11 million to the Arizona-based Center to Protect Patient Rights, an Arizona nonprofit. From there, the same amount was sent to Americans for Responsible Leadership, another Arizona group, before landing in a single campaign committee that worked to defeat the governor’s tax measure, Proposition 30, and pass Proposition 32, a measure that would have limited the political power of labor unions. The committee failed in both efforts.

Calls to Broad, Schwab and the Fishers seeking comment were not returned.

The donation scheme was designed by California Republican fundraiser Tony Russo, who was working as a consultant to Americans for Job Security, according to documents released by the state Fair Political Practices Commission. Calls to Russo were not immediately returned.

In its findings, announced Thursday, the Fair Political Practices Commission ruled that its reading of state law found that donors to the Arizona group need not be disclosed. But in a partly redacted list released by the FPPC, some of the identities are being revealed for the first time.

==

Charles Schwab Corporation, an investment company founded and run by Charles Schwab, who along with his wife has given $250,000 to Mitt Romney’s Super PAC Restore Our Future. [Source]

The Charles Schwab Corporation is a U.S. discount broker that provides financial services to individuals, independent advisors, and companies of various sizes. It has 7 million individual and institutional customers and manages approximately $1.3 trillion. Customers use its services by way of telephone, internet, or visiting offices. It offers private banking, bond trading, annuities, and mutual funds. It also offers mortgages, CDs, and other banking products through its Charles Schwab Bank. In 2006, it had sales of $5 billion and profits of $1.2 billion. ^{[1] [2]}

Political contributions

The Charles Schwabpolitical action committee gave $97,500 to federal candidates in the 2006 election - 56% to Democrats and 44% to Republicans. ^[3] Charles Schwab himself was acknowledged at the privately held Koch seminar in June 2011 in Vail, Colorado for donating at least $1 million to Koch-related causes.

Lobbying

The company spent $1,428,000 forlobbying in 2006. Six lobbying firms were used, including Ernst & Young and Alston & Bird. ^[4]

Personnel

Selected members of the Board of Directors:[6]

• William F. Aldinger III, Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HSBC North America Inc
• Nancy H. Bechtle, Former President and Chief Executive Officer of the San Francisco Symphony
• Donald G. Fisher, Founder of Gap Inc.

Contact details

101 Montgomery Street

San Francisco, CA 94104

Phone: 415-636-7000

Fax: 415-636-9820

Web:http://www.schwab.com

References

2. ↑ Charles Schwab Profile, Hoovers, accessed September 2007.
3. ↑ About page, Charles Schwab, accessed September 2007.
4. ↑ 2006 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets, accessed September 2007.
5. ↑ Charles Schwab lobbying expenses, Open Secrets, accessed September 2007.
6. ↑ Charles Schwab Key Executives, Yahoo Finance, accessed September 2007.
7. ↑ Board of Directors, Charles Schwab, accessed September 2007.

Categories: Banking industry | Corporations | United States