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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 12 22</div><div style="">Conservative donors are directing "tens of millions of dollars" in dark money GUK ] to groups backing Republican lawmakers in favor of a U.S. Supreme Court case that could negatively impact American voter laws.In a new analysis published by The Guardian, reporter Peter Stone offered a breakdown of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/06/supreme-court-voting-rights-moore-v-harper-gerrymander-voter-id" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Moore v Harper</a> and its potential impact. "The donors backed several groups that have filed supreme court amicus briefs in support of North Carolina legislators in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/06/supreme-court-voting-rights-moore-v-harper-gerrymander-voter-id" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Moore v Harper</a>, according to a recent analysis," Stone wrote.He added, "They are pushing for a ruling that would take ultimate decisions about voting rights and congressional gerrymandering away from state courts and hand those powers to state legislatures, of which Republicans now control the majority."READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/this-dark-money-group-has-spent-millions-trying-to-help-republicans-regain-relevance-in-colorado-after-years-of-defeat-report" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">This dark money group has spent millions trying to help GOP regain relevance in Colorado after 'years of defeat': report</a>Further elaborating on the case, Stone wrote:<blockquote style="background: rgb(245, 245, 245); margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-size: 17.5px; line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); width: 602.542px; font-family: Georgia, sans-serif;">"Sparked by a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/northcarolina" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">North Carolina</a> gerrymandering fight, Moore v Harper has attracted strong opposition from many liberal and some conservative legal experts, who call it a partisan attack on voting rights by prominent conservative groups. Opponents of the case say they’re using a discredited legal theory to boost GOP political fortunes in coming elections."</blockquote>He also noted, "Eight conservative groups that submitted amicus briefs in the supreme court case have received close to $90m from dark money donors since 2016, according to Accountable.US, a liberal-leaning watchdog group that tracks government corruption."In the wake of the latest developments, conservative groups have faced criticism for their efforts. "Critics of the right’s drive to push the independent state legislature theory note the strong influence of well-financed conservative groups along with several like-minded justices," he wrote.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/here-are-the-groups-behind-the-funding-of-trump-s-big-lie" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Report untangles the 'sophisticated, well-funded' web of dark money conservative groups pushing Trump's 'Big Lie'</a>Speaking to The Guardian, Thomas Wolf, deputy director at the Brennan Center for Justice, also weighed in with his concerns saying, “The ISLT [independent state legislature theory] has been fueled by several conservative justices’ dissents, and other statements, coupled with amicus briefs and public arguments supporting the theory from think tanks, litigation shops, and partisan political organizations.”READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/mysterious-dark-money-group-got-22-million-to-get-trump-scotus-pick-kavanaugh-confirmed" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mysterious dark money group got $22 million to get Trump SCOTUS pick Kavanaugh confirmed</a>refno lnxconservative donors poured tens of millions of dollars of anonymous “dark money” into groups supporting Republican lawmakers in a supreme court case that could upend American election law.
The donors backed several groups that have filed supreme court amicus briefs in support of North Carolina legislators in Moore v Harper, according to a recent analysis. They are pushing for a ruling that would take ultimate decisions about voting rights and congressional gerrymandering away from state courts and hand those powers to state legislatures, of which Republicans now control the majority.[Could the US supreme court give state legislatures unchecked election powers?Read more]Eight conservative groups that submitted amicus briefs in the supreme court case have received close to $90m from dark money donors since 2016, according to Accountable.US, a liberal leaning watchdog group that tracks government corruption.
Several of these conservative bastions are also champions of restrictive voting laws.
Conservatives want the supreme court to adopt the independent state legislature theory, a once fringe idea now promoted by a coterie of conservative groups that filed amicus briefs, including the Honest Elections Project, the Claremont Institute, and the Public Interest Legal Foundation. The groups boast strong ties to rightwing lawyers Leonard Leo, John Eastman and Cleta Mitchell respectively. Eastman and Mitchell were allies in Donald Trump’s baseless crusade to overturn the 2020 election.Sparked by a North Carolina gerrymandering fight, Moore v Harper has attracted strong opposition from many liberal and some conservative legal experts, who call it a partisan attack on voting rights by prominent conservative groups. Opponents of the case say they’re using a discredited legal theory to boost GOP political fortunes in coming elections.The leading dark money financier of the conservative groups that filed amicus briefs was DonorsTrust, which contributed a whopping $70.5m, Accountable data shows.Other top dark money donors to groups that filed amicus briefs include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and America First Works, which, respectively, gave $6.1m and $4.8m to outfits that supported the independent state legislature theory. The long time conservative Bradley Foundation boasts Mitchell on its board, while the non-profit America First Works has been allied with Trump since its founding in 2016 under another name.The dark money routed to some of these groups took circuitous routes. For instance, America First Works gave $4.8m to DonorsTrust that was earmarked for the Honest Elections Project, according to Accountable.The Honest Elections Project, which has been a leading advocate for tougher voting laws in recent years, was founded by Leo, a legendary fundraiser, lawyer and co-chairman of the powerful Federalist Society. Leo was instrumental in advising Trump on his three conservative supreme court nominees.DonorsTrust, known as the ATM of the right, has been very generous with other projects Leo has helped spearhead. In 2021, for example, Leo’s 85 Fund – a dark money conduit for conservative legal campaigns and other priorities – received its largest single grant of $17.1m from DonorsTrust, which doled out close to $190m that year.US Supreme Court hears case pitting free speech versus same-sex marriage rights
epa10350705 The United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC, USA, 05 December 2022. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case pitting freedom of speech against LBGTQ rights. The plaintiff in the case, a Colorado web designer, has refused to work for same-sex marriage couples, which Colorado contends is a violation of state law. EPA/MICHAEL REYNOLDSUS supreme court hears case that could radically reshape electionsRead moreCritics of the right’s drive to push the independent state legislature theory note the strong influence of well-financed conservative groups along with several like-minded justices.“The ISLT [independent state legislature theory] has been fueled by several conservative justices’ dissents, and other statements, coupled with amicus briefs and public arguments supporting the theory from think tanks, litigation shops, and partisan political organizations,” Thomas Wolf, the deputy director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Guardian.Two key Democrats in Congress, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Hank Johnson, submitted an amicus brief arguing forcefully against the independent state legislature theory, highlighting the role of conservative groups funded by dark money who have supported voter suppression efforts.“Many of the petitioners’ amici actually attempted to undermine the 2020 election by relying on this theory,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote. “Other amici share connections with groups and individuals who played a role in those attempts. Still others are presently engaged in voter-suppression and election-subversion efforts.“Rarely has such a noxious assemblage of amici appeared before this court, and their secrecy about their funders and connections does this court a grave disservice,” they added.The high stakes for democracy behind Moore v Harper and other recent supreme court cases involving dark money funded groups trouble Whitehouse, he said.In tandem with Johnson, Whitehouse has introduced legislation that would require amicus filers to disclose funders who donated $100,000, or more than 3% of their gross revenues.In an interview, Whitehouse said his proposed bill coincides with other efforts he has made to have the supreme court change its reporting rules for amicus filers backed by dark money.“I’ve been pushing the supreme court to update their reporting requirements,” he said about the dark money behind several high-stakes cases, but to date the court has “shown no interest”.The independent state legislature theory played a key role in Trump’s failed crusade to get states to invalidate the 2020 election results and was the handiwork of Eastman, who filed the amicus brief for the Claremont Institute, a conservative California based thinktank, that made a similar argument.Eastman’s involvement with Trump’s baseless drive to overturn the 2020 election results, which included promoting an alternative elector scheme to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s as president, could lead the January 6 panel investigating the Capitol insurrection to file a criminal referral to the justice department for him, as well as Trump and others, according to a recent CNN report.On a related legal front, Eastman’s refusal to turn over 101 documents to the House panel led federal judge David Carter to rule this year that there was substantial evidence Eastman had conspired with Trump to block Congress from certifying the 2020 election results. The “illegality of the plan was obvious”, Carter wrote.Just how much the amicus briefs from Claremont and other conservative outfits backed by dark money will influence the supreme court’s ruling on the independent state legislature theory is hard to discern.Oral arguments in Moore v Harper were heard by the supreme court on 7 December. The court’s three liberal-leaning justices expressed their strong opposition to North Carolina lawmakers’ position, and some conservative justices including Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh also indicated their skepticism about some maximalist versions of the theory.[Billions in ‘dark money’ is influencing US politics. We need disclosure lawsDavid Sirota Read more]The genesis of the Moore v Harper case was a ruling by the North Carolina state supreme court in early 2022 that invalidated districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature on the grounds they were an “egregious and intentional partisan gerrymander”, unfairly favoring the GOP.North Carolina legislator Timothy Moore appealed the state supreme court ruling, and a voter named Rebecca Harper was a named plaintiff in a challenge to the state’s gerrymandered maps.Significantly, North Carolina is one of six states where state courts have ruled in recent years that partisan redistricting plans for Congress violated state constitutions.Moore v Harper has also sparked significant legal blowback from some prominent lawyers with conservative pedigrees including J Michael Luttig, a former appeals court judge who is a co-counsel for litigants opposing the independent state legislature theory.“This case swarms with amicus briefs supporting petitioners that elide a salient fact: the doctrine they encourage this Court to adopt – the ‘independent state legislature’ theory – is one of the fringe legal theories deployed in a failed legal plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote in their brief.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/dark-money/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/dark-money/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">salon</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div>More than a decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic ruling in <a href="https://www.fec.gov/legal-resources/court-cases/citizens-united-v-fec/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Citizens United v. FEC</a>, opening the door for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political causes (although not directly to political candidates). As corrosive as that decision was to democracy, it came with a slight proviso. As Justice Anthony Kennedy <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-court-poised-gut-campaign-finance-laws-over-donor-privacy-ncna1265423" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wrote</a>: while "the Government may not suppress [corporate] speech altogether," it may "regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements." Citizens United found, in other words, that corporations could spend without limit, but government had a right to force public disclosure that spending to the public.Since then, it's become abundantly clear that money in politics takes numerous forms, far beyond the obvious subterfuge of a corporation donating to a political action committee that then funds a political candidate. In the nonprofit world, big-money donors pump hundreds of millions into politically-motivated 501(c) organizations, which are not required to disclose their donors. Those groups then funnel this money into <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">patently political ventures</a>, even though they are technically forbidden from engaging in significant lobbying. That two-step process describes the phenomenon known as "dark money," which allows wealthy individuals and corporations to exert enormous influence on the political system behind a veil of anonymity.Last year alone, more than <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/03/one-billion-dark-money-2020-electioncycle/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$1 billion in dark money</a> was spent in the 2020 election, a record high. Contrary to some people's assumptions, "both sides" actually do it — dark money flows to and from Democrats as well as Republicans. In truth, anonymous money has been part of America's political bloodstream for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v.Valeo" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">decades now</a>, but not until relatively recently has the debate around it rose to a national level. Last month, in the firs major case of its kind since Citizens United, the issue of nonprofit donor disclosure returned to the highest court in the land.In this case, <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/americans-for-prosperity-foundation-v-becerra/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta</a> (consolidated with another, functionally identical case, <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/thomas-more-law-center-v-becerra/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Thomas More Law Center v. Bonta</a>) the Supreme Court will decide whether political nonprofits can be compelled to disclose who their largest donors are. This case in question specifically concerns donor disclosure rules in California, but its implications are unmistakably nationwide. And while the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and the Christian-oriented Thomas More Center are distinctly right-wing in ideological terms, they have some surprising allies before the high court.As things work now, the IRS annually collects from every nonprofit a form called Schedule B, which lists the personal information of each nonprofit's largest donors. The stated legal purpose is to regulate or prevent various financial crimes like fraud and money laundering. California is unique in requiring nonprofits to submit their Schedule B forms to the state attorney general's office — if they want to keep on raising tax-deductible donations.To be clear, California collects the information, but does not release it to the public. But this seemingly innocuous bureaucratic regulation has sent shockwaves throughout the conservative nonprofit world — not to mention a number of liberal-leaning or civil-libertarian nonprofits as well, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-251/170467/20210301143138352_19-251%20Americans%20for%20Prosperity%20v%20Becerra%20Amici%20Curiae%20Brief.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">including</a> the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the ACLU and the Human Rights Campaign.Broadly speaking, the strange coalition of plaintiffs in the Americans for Prosperity argue that the state's interest in collecting Schedule B's — which, once again, would not be made publicly accessible — does not outweigh the burden that the law would impose upon them. They further argue that this burden may be acute for nonprofits that advocate for or against controversial causes, like abortion. Furthermore, the plaintiffs have argued that if their donors are unmasked — by means of a hack or leak, for instance — these donors could be at risk of severe reprisal, causing a chilling effect on future donations.John Bursch, vice president of appellate advocacy at Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative-libertarian group, told Salon in an interview he sees this as "a free association problem.""Whether it's a conservative organization or a liberal or progressive organization," Bursch said, "they all recognize that publicly exposing donors to groups that engage in public advocacy risks chilling — causing people to not donate, or to donate below thresholds where they won't appear on a Schedule B."Bursch currently represents the Thomas More Law Center, a Christian conservative legal nonprofit that briefly embraced Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the presidential election and is now battling on behalf of donor privacy. He alleges that there have been several cases when donors have felt threatened because of their connections to Americans for Prosperity Foundation or Thomas More. <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-255/101836/20190603170926449_Application%20for%20Extension%20of%20Time.Final.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Court documents</a> detail purported instances of doxing, death threats and even assassination attempts. It's worth noting that the plaintiffs also fear "economic reprisal," such as boycotts or criticism of their businesses, activities that are clearly <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/is-there-a-constitutional-right-to-boycott/552077/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">legal and constitutionally protected</a> expressions of free speech.To make their case, the plaintiffs draw upon an unlikely parallel: the Supreme Court's seminal 1958 ruling in <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/68/naacp-v-alabama" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">NAACP v. Alabama</a>, where the justices found that Alabama officials could not force the NAACP to turn over its membership list due to the possibility of violent public retaliation against its members.At the time of that decision, Justice John Marshall Harlan <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/4/17/22384256/supreme-court-citizens-united-disclosure-americans-for-prosperity-rodriquez-thomas-more" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wrote</a> that the NAACP had made "an uncontroverted showing" that the "revelation of the identity of its rank-and-file members has exposed these members to economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility." Alabama's effort to expose NAACP members was largely understood by racial justice advocates as a clear attempt to dismantle the civil-rights group through the use of racial terror.Bursch acknowledged that the historical circumstances around NAACP do not resemble those of the current case, but insisted, "To think that [Thomas More] donors might not face life or death is not really accurate."Unsurprisingly, many critics of the corrosive force of money in politics reject any comparison between the cases. In a statement to Salon, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., drily observed "an enormous gap between the Supreme Court case cited by petitioners — a civil rights-era decision where NAACP members had reason to fear state-sanctioned bombings, assassinations and other violence — and the problem of billionaires secretly running dark-money-funded political covert ops in our country."Daniel Weiner, deputy director of the Brennan Center's Election Reform Program, echoed that analysis in an interview with Salon: "I always pause at any contemporary actor analogizing themselves to the NAACP in the South in 1958. And that includes folks on the right and left. AFP, whether or not it is right on the merits, represents some of the most powerful interests in the country. This is not comparable to the NAACP in the South prior to the civil rights movement."There's another important difference between the two cases: While the plaintiffs in the Americans for Prosperity case are alleging a largely hypothetical risk of reprisal, they are demanding a result that in goes further than in the NAACP decision. As Vox's Ian Millhiser <a href="https://www.vox.com/22404001/supreme-court-cancel-culture-americans-for-prosperity-bonta-california-alito-thomas-gorsuch" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">explained</a>, "the plaintiffs insist that they are entitled to facial relief — meaning that the state's disclosure rule must be tossed out for all nonprofits, regardless of whether donors to those nonprofits face harassment, or even if they want to keep their donations secret."Weiner said that a universal ban on mandatory donor disclosures is not warranted, arguing that the plaintiffs' case goes no further than claiming "that the law should not be applied to them. It's hard to see how all this adds up to 'the law is facially invalid,' which is a really sweeping position to take in light of a couple incidents."Bursch responded that Americans for Prosperity "is precisely the type of case where a facial ruling would be appropriate," saying, "It's almost nonsensical to suggest that thousands of charities should have to individually sue California to keep their donor information confidential."Even though California has no plans to release "dark money" donors' names, Bursch argues there is still likely to be a chilling effect, claiming that the state does not maintain a secure record-keeping system and leaves an "<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-255/101836/20190603170926449_Application%20for%20Extension%20of%20Time.Final.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">open door</a>" for hackers. It's true that in 2012, a Schedule B for Planned Parenthood was leaked in California, potentially revealing hundreds of donors' names and addresses. But such occurrences have been rare.As mentioned above, nonprofit donor disclosure is a particularly hot topic when it comes to dark money, which typically moves through 501(c)(4) nonprofits, or "social welfare organizations," which collect money from anonymous donors and then spend it on campaigns or candidates on said donors' behalf.Americans for Prosperity Foundation, however, is a (501)(c)(3), meaning that in order to preserve its tax-exempt status, it's supposed to designate its funds for "charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals," according to <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exempt-purposes-internal-revenue-code-section-501c3#:_{:text=The%20exempt%20purposes%20set%20forth,cruelty%20to%20children%20or%20animals.}" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">IRS rules</a>. However, Americans for Prosperity, the group's sister organization, is a 501(c)(4), meaning that it can more significantly engage in political advocacy and lobbying — largely in favor of reduced taxes, deregulation and other business-friendly policies — and has done so <a href="https://americansforprosperity.org/afp-statement-on-the-senate-confirmation-of-justice-amy-coney-barrett/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">vigorously</a>.Bursch claimed earnestly that dark money has "nothing" to do with the current Supreme Court case, reminding this reporter that 501(c)(3) charities like AFPF are barred by federal law "from participating in any political advocacy, which is where the dark money issue arises." Explaining the relationship between Americans for Prosperity and its affiliated foundation, he said, "My understanding is that the 501(c)(3) can't fund the 501(c)(4). So, although they share a name and perhaps some common goals, the work they engage in is completely different. You can't cross those lines."AFP did not respond to Salon's request to comment on its relationship with AFPF, which has been known to cross some lines. In 2010, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/us/politics/28irs.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">accused</a> AFPF of financing blatantly political commercials that criticized the Obama administration, alleging that the ads "made the Americans for Prosperity Foundation a de facto political action group in violation of the federal tax code," according to the New York Times.Bursch said that he believed or understood that AFP and AFPF had a "different office, different directors, different employees and different purposes." In fact, a comparison of <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/753148958/06_2020_prefixes_75-82%2F753148958_201812_990O_2020060917183216" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">AFP</a> and <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/521527294/02_2020_prefixes_47-52%2F521527294_201812_990_2020021417150111" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">AFPF's</a> 2018 tax filings shows that a significant number of officers, directors, trustees and key employees work at both entities, including Nancy Pfotenhauer, Mark Holden, Robert Heaton, Emily Seidel, Slade O'Brien and various others.Supplemental information on AFPF's filings also states that "certain employees of Americans for Prosperity Foundation may perform services for Americans for Prosperity, a related organization, through a service contract between the organizations." (This relationship also goes the other way.) AFPF is additionally listed as AFP's "direct controlling entity," a designation whose legal meaning is not entirely clear but certainly suggests an intimate relationship.Not all contributors to political nonprofits count as "dark money donors," to be sure. Some are ordinary citizens, no doubt, genuinely interested in contributing to what they believe are nonpartisan endeavors. But it's precisely the lack of donor disclosure that makes the whole process opaque.Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., a staunch critic of money in politics, affirmed the need for more effective disclosure in light of the AFP and AFPF's purposefully mysterious relationship. "Because we're dealing with dark money, we don't really know the relationship between AFPF and AFP," he said. "When a 501(c)(3) gives money to a 501(c)(4) to engage in electioneering activities, that's what dark money is all about." (Salon could not find clear evidence that money has flowed from AFPF to AFP, let alone how it might have been used.)"The Federalist Society and the Federalist Society Foundation both share the same goals and aspirations," Johnson expressed. "People are trying to exert influence. 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