future45
New dark money group in Wyoming prompts call for campaign finance reform
NICK REYNOLDS 307-266-0634, Aug 15, 2018 UpdatedJun 25, 20190
Election Day
Some are calling for campaign finance reform in Wyoming after the appearance of a new dark money group.
File, Star-Tribune
NICK REYNOLDS 307-266-0634,
The registration of a new political action committee in Wyoming with dark money ties has one state legislator calling for a revival of a failed campaign finance reform bill in the coming session.
Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne – a chief architect of a failed financial reform bill put forth in the Legislature this past year – released a statement publicly condemning “dark money” political advertising in the 2018 gubernatorial race, specifically calling on all six Republican candidates as well as the state party to publicly condemn the various, anonymous mailers circulating this cycle.
On Monday, Zwonitzer, who serves as chairman of the Legislature’s Committee on Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions, claimed without specific evidence that “key Republican leaders in this state” have been behind numerous negative campaign mailings distributed throughout the state in the final weeks of the GOP gubernatorial race. His campaign finance bill, House Bill 67, will likely be revisited by his committee in the coming months, he said, and will be resubmitted in the upcoming legislative session.
“It’s only going to get worse from here,” he told the Star-Tribune. “We need to get some baseline laws in now.”
One group behind a set of mailers targeting Republican Mark Gordon, called Protecting Our Constitution, is neither listed with the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office nor is it listed as an active political action committee with the Wyoming Board of Elections. The group shares an address and suite number with a Sheridan-based LLC called Advance LLC, which was incorporated anonymously in late March through a third-party corporate registry, according to documents filed with the secretary of state’s office.
PAC connections
But Zwonitzer’s chief concern lies with the latest PAC to appear on the state’s roster of political action committees, one which he said “set alarm bells” off in his head that a string of negative ad buys would be coming during the campaign’s final weeks.The group in question, called Jobs For Wyoming, bears eerie similarities to two other PACs involved in dark money-heavy races in Indiana and Tennessee, both of which were backed by GOP mega donor Joe Hollingsworth Jr., according to numerous media reports.
Jobs For Wyoming lists an anonymous P.O box in the Washington D.C. suburb of Herndon, Virginia, as its address and names two individuals – James McKay and Maria Wojchiechowski—as its chairman and treasurer. Registered with the state on Friday, it lists McKay’s phone number and Wojchiechowski’s email address on the form. That P.O. box, according to Federal Elections Commission records, has also been listed for the address of Convergence Media LLC, a D.C.-area media vendor that, most recently, has been utilized in races like that between Republican Rick Saccone and Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania. The firm is also a preferred vendor of the National Republican Congressional Committee and, on its website, touts its success in helping to elect Republican Karen Handel to victory in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, a race that was described as “the most expensive congressional election ever run.”
It is unclear what groups or individuals are behind Convergence Media: its filings with the Virginia Secretary of State list Delaware as its jurisdiction of formation, which has some of the least restrictive corporate filing laws in the United States. Two separate filings for Convergence Media there were both registered through third-party corporate registrars.
A phone call and email to both McKay and Wojchiechowski from the Star-Tribune were not immediately returned.
Jobs For Wyoming shares its treasurer with a PAC called Tennessee Jobs Now, a PAC organized by Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth was also behind a similar PAC called Indiana Jobs Now, which he used to help elect his son, Trey Hollingsworth, to Congress. Hollingsworth has not spent any money in Wyoming, according to campaign finance disclosures.
Wojchiechowski, according to filings with the Federal Elections Commission, also served as treasurer for Donald Trump-supporting PAC called Future45, which committed nearly $25 million in opposition spending against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. That PAC, according to FEC filings, counts substantial financial support from billionaires Sheldon Adelson and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, who owns a ranch roughly 45 minutes outside of Jackson.Both he, along with gubernatorial candidate Foster Friess, were prime contributors to a Mitt Romney-supporting PAC, Restore Our Future, in 2012.
Coincidentally, Friess joined both the Koch brothers and GOP donor Paul Singer in donating to Ricketts’ son’s 2014 campaign for governor in Nebraska, with Friess personally contributing $20,000, according to filings with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. Ricketts’ son also received $25,000 in campaign contributions from Susan Gore, founder of the Wyoming Liberty Group, which has pushed against substantial expansion of Wyoming transparency law and whose presence, a pro-transparency group based in Cheyenne said, may have led to the failure of House Bill 67 back in the spring.
State lags in transparency
Campaign finance transparency here in Wyoming is among the worst in the nation, said Phoebe Stoner, executive director of the left leaning Equality State Policy Center. According to Stoner, the bill introduced into the House last spring took some “baby steps” in closing the state’s most gaping loopholes in line with similar reforms passed by 40 other states. However, she believes the bill was never heard largely because those on the House floor were given “slanted definitions” of campaign finance’s purposes.
“For me it’s really simple. It has nothing to do with the fact these folks are sending out mailers and exercising their First Amendment rights,” she said. “Where the rubber meets the road for us if I’m a voter, it is my right to be able to understand who is on the ballot, what they’re about and who’s behind them. The issue is not centered in the First Amendment, the issue is centered in those independent expenditures.”
According to Steve Klein, a campaign finance policy analyst with the Wyoming Liberty Group, campaign finance laws serve only to restrict free speech. Though he said he supports many aspects of House Bill 67, he said he has reservations around how much speech can or should be regulated by the state, adding the opinion that onerous regulations on top of hard to understand campaign finance laws is an affront to free speech on its own.
“I don’t see a compelling interest for donors in reporting themselves to the government or revealing what candidates they’re supporting,” he said.
Klein also noted that candidates and PACs in Wyoming are already required to disclose their contributions and expenditures, and said that improving the state’s financial disclosure system when other priorities – such as opening the state’s books around taxpayer spending — are still on the table.
Stoner believes that greater campaign finance transparency should be a priority.
“I think that sounds like a really terrible excuse,” she said in response to Klein. “It’s not OK to deny voters what they have the right to have because we claim we don’t have the resources. If we don’t have that, we need the money to make that possible.”
She noted several easy to fix loopholes, including the addition of something called rolling reporting, which can help address the fact that the state lacks a mechanism to report on last-minute contributions. Under the current system, where expenditures only have to be disclosed up to seven days prior to the election, massive expenditures can be made in the key final days of a race, she said.
Letting loopholes like that stand, she said, only gives Wyoming a reputation as a place where rules are not enforced.
Though Wyoming has campaign finance laws, Stoner said the existing reporting requirements “don’t have any teeth.” Improvements in the law, similar to those in place in other states, could fix the problem.
“We saw this as a problem, and we tried to find a solution knowing the 2018 election was around the corner, and we didn’t,” Stoner said. “That was really disappointing.”
Follow politics reporter Nick Reynolds on Twitter @IAmNickReynolds
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/11/03/20421/pro-trump-super-pac-back-fray-time-spanish
no lnx
Republican super PAC Future45 is back, with fresh cash from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and Spanish-language ads attacking Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for past remarks she’s made about illegal immigration.
The new Spanish-language ads urge Latino voters to think twice about voting for Clinton. They also serve as an opportunity for Republicans to reconnect with Latino voters at a time when GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has alienated many of them with his comments about Mexicans and immigrants.
The ads are running on the Spanish-language channels Telemundo and Univision nationally, as well as in presidential battleground states such as Arizona, Florida and Nevada. They include clips of Clinton, in 2003, describing herself as “adamantly against illegal immigrants” and saying “people need to stop employing illegal immigrants.”
The ads’ sponsor
As a super PAC, Future45 can accept unlimited contributions from donors that it must then disclose to the Federal Elections Commission.
The Republican group came out swinging in 2015 with money from hedge fund managers including Paul Singer and Ken Griffin.
Another top funder is Joe Ricketts, founder of online brokerage TD Ameritrade and patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which defeated the Cleveland Indians early Thursday morning to win its first World Series since 1908.
Money in
Ricketts donated $1 million to Future45 in late September — something that would have seemed implausible just a few months ago.
That's because Ricketts and his wife, Marlene Ricketts, gave nearly $6 million to an anti-Trump super PAC during the GOP presidential primary, prompting a Twitter insult from The Donald himself.
Ricketts paired his latest contribution with a blog post called “Why I’m supporting Future45.” It read, in part: “This election comes down to a binary choice between extending the failed Obama-Clinton economic policies and believing that Messrs. Trump and Pence bring fresh thinking to how we can reignite the engines of economic opportunity.”
Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate, and his wife, Miriam Adelson, each donated $5 million to Future45 in September, according to campaign finance records.
And earlier this week, Adelson was reported to have committed an additional $25 million to Future45.
That appears to be on top of money Adelson has reportedly infused into Future45’s sister nonprofit, the 45Committee. (As an issue advocacy organization, the 45Committee may legally keep its donors secret as long as it doesn’t make electoral politics its primary purpose.)
Other Future45 donors include Joe Craft, the CEO of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners ($750,000) and Petco Petroleum Corp. owner Jay Bergman ($500,000).
Money out
The group spent about $730,000 on media and advertising early in the 2016 presidential race before going dark in February. Its previous ads hit Clinton’s record in the Middle East and blamed Clinton for the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria.
Filings with the Federal Election Commission show Future45 was largely inactive from February until September.
Future45’s chairman, Ron Weiser, left in May when he was named a vice chairman of the Trump campaign fundraising committee.
Now flush with 11th-hour cash, Future45 announced this week a new $10 million advertising campaign to capitalize on the “bombshell” dropped by FBI Director James Comey, when he disclosed the agency was looking into new emails that might be related to the case against Clinton.
And Future45 is spending at least $1.5 million on its Spanish-language ads.
Why it matters
Trump has not aired a single Spanish-language ad, according to data provided to the Center for Public Integrity by ad tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG. So he certainly could use the outside help in a late bid to appeal Spanish speakers.
Through Oct. 19, Trump’s campaign and the super PACs supporting it had raised $312 million — compared to $702 million raised by Clinton and her super PAC allies.
The Republican outreach to Latino voters, in particular, makes sense win, lose or draw, Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, a political science professor at the University of Texas, told the Center for Public Integrity.
“Latinos that are closer to the immigration experience and closer to Mexico tend to be more conservative,” she said. “So Republicans are saying ‘hey, remember there’s a Republican party [that shares Latinos’ socially conservative values].’”
Officials at Future45 did not respond to requests for comment.