Keating, David
SEE SPEECHNOW
ctr public integrity
CAMP FIN OVERVIEW:
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But the funding that is known offers key clues about the players behind the greatest unraveling of campaign finance regulation in U.S. history.
‘Buckley’ and Cato
One must travel back in time more than 40 years to understand how today’s motley collection of campaign money laws came to be — and how limits on political fundraising and spending have unraveled along the way.
It began with the Supreme Court’s *Buckley v. Valeo* decision of 1976, a reaction to Watergate reforms passed by Congress. The court upheld limits on contributions to political campaigns, but in a critical part of the ruling which would play a major role years later, allowed for unlimited spending on campaigns.
The Buckley v. Valeo fight also helped inspire Ed Crane, former national chairman of the Libertarian Party, which was one of the case’s plaintiffs, to create a libertarian equivalent to the predominant think tanks of the day — the liberal Brookings Institution and the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
With $500,000 from Charles Koch, Crane became the leader in 1977 of the Cato Institute, previously named the Charles Koch Foundation. In 1981, it moved from San Francisco to the heart of American political power — Washington, D.C.
Ever since, the Cato Institute has tirelessly fought against campaign finance laws it considered antithetical to its philosophy of small government and largely unencumbered speech.
“We stand against campaign finance laws in general,” Cato Institute research fellow Trevor Burrus said. “We believe that most campaign finance laws are unconstitutional. They are clear impediments of political speech.”
For the Kochs, was Cato an ideological enterprise or vehicle for self-interest? Both, to some degree. Avowed libertarians, the Kochs control a vast empire of heavily regulated companies that would undoubtedly benefit from less government intrusion. Coloring the political system red instead of blue has practical, financial implications for the Kochs, who overwhelmingly support Republican candidates and causes.
The nation’s campaign money system largely stood unchanged until 2002, when Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act — commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Act, named for its two Senate sponsors. The law curtailed a variety of political activities and included a ban on unlimited “soft money” contributions — corporate and union cash — given to political parties.
It also attracted an immediate backlash by foes of campaign finance legislation. Twelve suits brought by more than 80 plaintiffs — were consolidated as McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, named for Mitch McConnell, a U.S. senator from Kentucky and current majority leader, who has long been in favor of liberalizing restrictions on campaign contributions.
‘McConnell’ et. al.
Those joined together under McConnell included the National Rifle Association, the Republican National Committee, the National Right to Life Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others.
Generally, the backers of these campaign finance case litigants are well-known, but not always.
And some are surprising.
Take the ACLU. Despite its reputation as an unabashedly liberal organization, the ACLU has routinely aligned itself with libertarians and conservatives in recent legal fights against campaign finance regulations. Who are the top donors to the ACLU?
Tops is the left-leaning Sandler Foundation, having given more than $24 million to the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation since 2001, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s review of tax records.
Other known funders of the ACLU’s 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit arms include the ACLU Foundation; Equal Justice Works; Proteus Action League; GLBTQ Legal Advocates; and the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, The Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. Together, they’ve given more than $856,000 since 2010, tax filings show.
Proteus Action League is an affiliate of Proteus Fund, a left-leaning philanthropic organization. It also creates and oversees grants aimed at limiting money and politics, according to its website. Between 2013 and 2015, the Proteus Fund and the Proteus Action League have together given $306,000 to the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation.
Publishers Clearing House money has infused the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, which in turn has contributed more than $6.6 million to the ACLU Foundation for various initiatives, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s review of available tax documents from 2005 to 2015.
The National Rifle Association is prominent for its passionate support of firearms rights, and more recently, the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. But it, too, began supporting campaign finance deregulation in earnest at the time of the McConnell case.
One of the NRA nonprofit’s more notable funders is the Cabela’s Outdoor Fund, a social welfare organization connected to the famous outdoor outfitter Cabela’s, which is also a major firearms retailer.
From 2012 to 2015, the fund gave the NRA $1.3 million. Richard Cabela, the now deceased founder of Cabela’s, was a passionate supporter of the NRA. The company, which Bass Pro Shops acquired earlier this year, had about $4.1 billion in revenue last year, according to its annual report.
Koch-connected organizations have also been quite active.
Cato intervened by filing an “amicus brief” in McConnell, as did the Institute for Justice, a group that got its start thanks to the Kochs.
The Supreme Court, for the most part, upheld the “soft money” and political advertising restrictions of the McCain-Feingold law but struck down the age restrictions on minors’ ability to contribute money to politicians as a violation of free speech rights.
The mixed ruling gave pro-political speech advocates fuel to continue challenging campaign laws, and the chipping away of the reforms began in earnest.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC in 2007 further eroded the McCain-Feingold law by allowing certain nonprofit groups to air political issue ads within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. Wisconsin Right to Life Inc., a nonprofit advocacy group, wanted to run ads that would ask voters to call their senators urging them to oppose filibusters of judicial nominees.
Emerging as a national figure in this case after working for years in lower courts was James Bopp, who was counsel for Wisconsin Right to Life.** A bevy of organizations intervened in the case, many arguing for religious freedom of speech. The American Civil Liberties Union, a regular stalwart opponent of limits on free speech, had its say, as did a number of Koch-connected organizations.
Among them, the Center for Competitive Politics (now the Institute for Free Speech), the Cato Institute, the Goldwater Institute and the Institute for Justice.
The Goldwater Institute is a public interest legal organization based in Phoenix, Arizona, named after former U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz. Timothy Sandefur, vice president for litigation for Goldwater, said its primary mission is “to defend constitutional principles, through direct litigation and amicus participation.” Donors Capital Fund, the Mercer Family Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation are among its most generous funders with a combined total of $4.2 million.
‘Citizens United’
In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that corporations, unions and certain nonprofits could raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against politicians. The enormity of the impact of the decision would not be realized for months, even years.
But those who argued the case and participated in it were well aware of its importance. The usual liberal reform groups chimed in, as well as a cadre of Koch-backed crew members, including: the Cato Institute, the Center for Competitive Politics and the Institute for Justice.
A few months later, a federal court ruling in SpeechNow.org v. FEC allowed for the creation of “independent expenditure-only committees” — political groups soon nicknamed “super PACs.” These super PACs could themselves accept unlimited money from corporations, labor unions and even 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofits and business trade associations that themselves could keep their donors secret.
Four years later in *McCutcheon v. FEC*, the Supreme Court axed limits on how much money a person could give, in aggregate, to political parties, candidate committees and PACs. The practical effect: people are now allowed to directly pump hundreds of thousands of dollars more into party and candidate coffers.
Among the organizations involving themselves in the case? The Cato Institute, the Center for Competitive Politics and the Institute for Justice.
Institute for Justice
The Institute for Justice is a nonprofit, libertarian public interest law firm headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with satellite offices in states including Florida, Minnesota and Arizona.
It was co-founded in 1991 by former Department of Energy Deputy General Counsel Chip Mellor and Clint Bolick, a former assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch provided $350,000 in seed money for the organization.
The players who have shaped campaign finance »
The Center for Public Integrity combed through tax information for the Institute for Justice and found some of its top donors include the Claws Foundation, Dunn’s Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking, Searle Freedom Trust and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, totaling about $19.8 million since 1998. But the largest donor identified for the Institute for Justice was the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust, giving more than $15.5 million since 2003, according to tax records.
Wilson was a notable hedge funder and philanthropist who jumped to his death from his New York apartment in 2013.
Donors Trust, a Virginia-based free-market charity and “donor advised” fund that distributes money to charities across states has been the Institute for Justice’s most consistent supporter.
Tax records show that Donors Trust has contributed to the Institute for Justice every year since 2004, giving it more than $1.6 million. Charles Koch’s foundation is one of the heavyweights that holds an account with Donors Trust. Koch’s organization also directly gave the Institute for Justice $9,600, according to 2014 and 2015 tax records. The David H. Koch Foundation gave $250,000 in 2001, according to records.
The Jewish Communal Fund, another donor advised fund, has given $317,050 to the Institute for Justice since 2010, according to tax records. The John Templeton Foundation, an avid promoter of free market ideas, gave $900,000 between 2013 and 2014, according to a review of tax records.
One of its other generous donors, however, is the National Christian Charitable Foundation, which gave almost $2.8 million since 2007.
This donor advised fund typically gives to Christian churches and ministries with a mission of “mobilizing resources by inspiring biblical generosity.”
The political leanings of organizations such as the Institute for Justice are not a basis of scrutiny for the National Christian Charitable Foundation, and they’re mostly unknown to the foundation, Chief Creative Officer Steve Chapman said.
“NCF doesn’t have any stance on campaign finance issues,” he said in a statement. “We don’t hold positions on such political topics, and we don’t hold stances on whether charities to which we make grants should or should not be active on that issue.”
Richard Uihlein, a wealthy conservative donor who increased his political giving after the *Citizens United* decision, gave the Institute for Justice $17,500 between 2014 and 2015. But, he wasn’t the only well-known donor to contribute. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which usually contributes to global health and economic development causes, donated $600.
The Institute for Justice has more than 8,000 donors, said Paul Sherman, a senior attorney for the Institute for Justice who specializes in First Amendment litigation. No one donor provides more than 8 percent of its budget. In its most recent fiscal year, donations comprised more than 96 percent of its income, while the rest came from court-ordered awards of attorneys’ fees.
But that doesn’t mean those donors shape the Institute for Justice’s work, Sherman said.
“IJ’s donors give to us because they support our mission,” he said, noting that the organization has litigated in the same areas for more than over 25 years. “We have never taken a case or passed on a case because of pressure from a donor.”
Other notable contributions to the Institute for Justice include $90,000 from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, which was started by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her husband in 1989. The foundation has given yearly since 2004, except for 2012 and 2014.
‘SpeechNow.org’ victory
The Institute for Justice notched a win in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, a critical lower-court case.
In the case, the Institute for Justice and the Center for Competitive Politics represented David Keating, who now serves as president of the newly renamed Center for Competitive Politics.
Together, the groups questioned whether the federal government had the legal right to make Keating’s SpeechNow.org group register as a political committee — forcing it to adhere to contribution limits for political committees.
The court ruled in SpeechNow.org’s favor, thereby allowing it to raise unlimited amounts of money to independently advocate for or against political candidates. Limits on how much it could receive were found to be in violation of the First Amendment. It was the first time the Citizens United decision was applied in federal courts.
And it gave birth to a kind of political committee that would soon be dubbed a “super PAC.”
Although the Center for Competitive Politics and the Institute for Justice have no formal affiliation, they are “allies in the fight to defend political speech from government regulation,” Sherman said.
Sherman said both organizations have supported each other’s work with amicus briefs, and SpeechNow.org v. FEC was a great match of their strengths.
“CCP’s people had extensive experience with practice before the FEC, and IJ’s people had extensive experience litigating in federal court,” he said. “And we all knew one another. The world of libertarian public-interest lawyers is not huge.”
But the Institute for Justice isn’t always taking up the long, arduous process of going to court. Like other groups that want to provide suggestions and expertise to courts on matters, it has done so through amicus briefs in McConnell, Wisconsin Right to Life, McCutcheon and Citizens United.
The positions that the Institute for Justice has taken on campaign finance issues are made clearer when looking at who funds their endeavors, which include many donor advised funds and conservative-leaning family foundations and charitable groups.
While the Institute for Justice has some history with big money and politics because of its founding relationship with the Kochs, the Center for Competitive Politics can also be counted among the names of Koch beneficiaries.
Center for Competitive Politics
Former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith founded the Center for Competitive Politics in 2005, lamenting the extent of federal regulation on political activity.
The Center for Competitive Politics has waged war against the FEC as litigators, and it has represented others when political free speech is under attack.
David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, said the organization is simply honoring the guarantees of the First Amendment more so than political ideology or deregulation.
The players who have shaped campaign finance »
The Center for Competitive Politics prides itself on being part of changing the scope of campaign finance laws since its founding, while noting that there is still more freedom to be sought, especially when it comes to contribution and disclosure rules.
“Our country didn’t have campaign contribution limits until the 1970s,” he said. “I don’t see there’s any evidence that it’s made people we’re electing better than they were before the 1970s.”
Keating said government should make it easier for average citizens to become politically involved and, therefore, it should rethink contribution laws.
While the Center for Competitive Politics has not objected to disclosure by candidates and PACs, it is not in favor of pushing for more disclosure. Doing so, said Keating, would result in more difficult fundraising for groups and misleading disclosure information.
“Disclosure is where a lot of the action is right now,” he said. “That’s going to be in the courts and we may well be the ones representing the plaintiffs.”
Because the Center for Competitive Politics’ mission is the protection of free political speech, its legal argument in Wisconsin Right to Life, McCutcheon and Citizens United cases are just part of that mission.
The terrain of money and politics has the Center for Competitive Politics’ opponents questioning whether its ideals are truly its own — or if it’s just the mouthpiece for its wealthy benefactors.
Although the Center for Competitive Politics does not disclose the identity of its donors, the Center for Public Integrity’s review of tax and other financial records indicates the group is funded by a bevy of right-leaning organizations.
Since 2006, the Center for Competitive Politics has received more than $5.3 million from Donors Capital Fund, $1.3 million from the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust and $511,000 from the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation — itself funded in full by Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein — and $440,000 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
As far as its Koch alliances? The Charles Koch Institute gave $20,700 from 2014 to 2015, and the Charles Koch Foundation donated over $57,000 from 2012 to 2015, the Center for Public Integrity’s review of tax and other records shows.
A Koch spokeswoman declined to answer specific questions about the brothers’ giving. In a statement, spokeswoman Tonya Mullins said the Charles Koch Foundation “gives to non-profit organizations and more than 300 colleges and universities around the country that are exploring diverse ideas to meet the challenges of our day.”
The majority of the Charles Koch Institute money goes toward a fellowship program between the Center for Competitive Politics and the Charles Koch Institute, in which both organizations split the cost to pay for the fellow’s compensation, Keating said. The fellowship seeks to groom future free enterprise workers. The Charles Koch Institute provides support for internships and job placement for free-market professional hopefuls.
Keating said the Center for Competitive Politics’ donors give because they’re genuinely concerned with protecting free speech and they have a right to maintain their privacy.
If the Institute for Justice and the Center for Competitive Politics are just mere soldiers in an overall battle plan to charge against reform, their success makes them among the most decorated and skilled in the field.
War on disclosure?...
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After bringing someone like Robinson close to victory in 2010, the Mercers’ fresh taste for political power brought them the privileges and lifestyles of the rich & famous. They soon found themselves at a2011 conference of the Club For Growth, a pro-business activist group for the conservative elite, which spent $6m of its own in support of 2010 GOP/Tea Party contenders. The Club is perhaps best known for being sued and fined by the FEC in 2005 for violating fair election laws. Its Executive Director David Keating then formed SpeechNow, a group which sued the FEC and did even more damage to campaign finance regulations via their Ninth Circuit Court victory in the immediate wake of Citizens United v FEC, but right now we’re focused on the Club as the place where Mercer first met Andrew Breitbart.
BREITBART OUT, BANNON & MERCER IN
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David Keating is the executive director of the anti-tax group Club for Growth and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Taxpayers Union.[1]Keating played a key role in the development and passage of Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, a concept advocated by conservative and libertarian groups as a way of limiting the growth of government.[2][3]
Contact
David Keating
Club for Growth
2001 L Street NW, Suite 600 Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-955-5500
References
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Club for Growth About Us: David Keating, accessed October 27, 2010
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ National Taxpayers Union About: David Keating, accessed October 27, 2010
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ Wikipedia Taxpayer Bill of Rights, accessed October 27, 2010
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jim h
Who does David Keating think he's fooling?
He heads an obscure, corporate-funded group pushing to wipe out the few remaining limits on the special interests that put extremely big bucks into political campaigns. It's only fair to turn the fat-cat donors loose, he explains, because an unlimited infusion of cash (from, say, the Koch brothers) would instantly make an unknown candidate competitive. After all, Keating adds, "Most start-up operations need an angel investor: Someone who believes in the project... and puts money in to make it viable."
Ah, yes, a devilish new twist on the old cash-and-carry business model – our cash can carry you into office to help us! But a run for public office should not be thought of as a corporate "start-up" and ought to made "viable" not by the special-interest money it attracts, but by the ability of its ideas and principles to draw public support. Also, while a corporate campaign donor clearly does see itself as an "investor" hoping to profit from the "project," there's nothing angelic about it.
Acknowledging that presidential, congressional, and many gubernatorial campaigns are now financed and even run by a small band of deep-pocketed elites, Keating says ordinary folks needn't worry, for this top-heavy system really doesn't mean that the officials it elects will put their patron's interests over the public's. Really? Well, he admits, while those who paid for the election will naturally get their phone calls returned by officials they put in office, "I don't think it's going to drive policy.
This is Jim Hightower saying... Really? Golly, Little Nellie Sunshine, then why do you think the moneyed interests would bother calling – just to chat with a corruptible politico... or to collect on their investment? They're not buying a phone call, they're buying public policy. Really.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Competitive_Politics
A Wealthy Few Lead in Giving To Campaigns," New York Times, August 2, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/small-pool-of-rich-donors-dominates-election-giving.html?_r=0
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David Keating current relationships:
Center for Competitive Politics - president
David Keating past relationships:
Americans for Fair Taxation - executive director
Club for Growth - executive director
National Taxpayers Union - president, EVP
http://www.muckety.com/David-Keating/213354.muckety
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SpeechNow.Org is a front group founded by Club for Growth Executive Director David Keating. SpeechNow presents itself as a concerned group of average Americans, but is actually a front group for extreme anti-tax right wingers.
Contents
SpeechNow's Formation
Club For Growth was sued by the FEC in 2005 and fined for violating the fair election laws enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal. In turn, Club For Growth’s Keating formed SpeechNow as a front group to challenge these fair election laws, suing the FEC in 2008 with high powered right-wing attorneys.
Speech Now Website Misleads
SpeechNow’s website piously states that the group receives no corporate donations, but taking such a pledge requires no sacrifice when it is supported by DC’s Club for Growth, which receives funding from the Wall Street special interests and secret corporate dollars that have been corrupting this election. The site also states that Speech Now is "an all volunteer group, with a tiny overhead;" however, the group is allowed to be "all volunteer" because its leaders are bankrolled by Club For Growth's big corporate spenders. [1] SpeechNow’s David Keating is paid almost $200,000 a year in his role as Club For Growth’s Executive Director. (Club for Growth, which wants to put the social security trust funds into Wall Street’s hands, has been criticized as so out of step on economic policy by conservative presidential candidate Mike Huckabee (and FOX News commentator) that he dubbed it “Club of Greed.”)
According to its website, “Keating formed SpeechNow.org to give Americans who support free speech a way to join together, pool their resources, and advocate for federal candidates who agree with them—and work to defeat those who do not.” [2]
Apparently, though, there are only three “Americans who support free speech:” the $125,000 SpeechNow is spending on Russ Feingold attack ads came from only three donors— $100,000 from Young Radiators heir Fred Young, $5,210 from Keating himself, and $10,000 from Jim Gilmore of San Francisco. [3]
Despite the group presenting itself as being terribly concerned with "free speech," the Feingold ad makes only a passing mention of free speech, instead claiming Feingold votes along party lines.
FEC v SpeechNow.Org
In early 2010, just after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on SpeechNow’s case, applying Citizens United for the first time and considerably expanding the reach of that decision. While Citizens United permitted corporations and outside interest groups (like Club For Growth) to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, the Ninth Circuit’s SpeechNow.org v FEC case lifted restrictions on the amount of money that can flow into these groups.
The SpeechNow.org v. FEC decision made it possible for corporations to obfuscate their political spending by funneling their money through the cleverly-named outside interest groups that have populated the 2010 election landscape, such as the “American Action Network” and “American Crossroads.” Thanks to SpeechNow.org v. FEC, corporations have been allowed to hide behind these groups rather than directly and transparently spending money on campaign advertising. To a certain extent, this contradicts the right-wing Supreme Court justices who held that a major justification in Citizens United for treating corporate political spending as "speech" was the belief that shareholders could monitor where CEOs were directing a corporation's political expenditures.
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U.S. Supreme Court Denies Speech Now's Appeal of a Sub-Part of the Decision
Despite its 9th Circuit victory, Speech Now took issue with the ruling that it would still have to comply with the disclosure requirements that apply to 527 Political Action Committees (527 PACs must disclose their donors, unlike groups formed under the 501(c) section of the tax code). Speech Now appealed this sub-part of the decision, but the Supreme Court denied cert.
Contact
SpeechNow.org
P.O. Box 18773
Washington, D.C. 20036
David@speechnow.org
References
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ "donate" page, SpeechNow.Org website, accessed October 19, 2010.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ About Us, SpeechNow.Org website, accessed October 19, 2010.
- :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important;-webkit-user-select:none"):}:↑ SpeechNow FEC Filing, Oct 15, 2010, available from FEC website.
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