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11/7/14, "Democracy Alliance Network Behind a Third of 2014 Super PAC Spending," Washington Free Beacon, Lachlan Markay
"The network of political and policy groups backed by the shadowy
liberal donor club the Democracy Alliance was responsible for more than
one of every three dollars spent by super PACs during the 2014 election
cycle, public records show.
Members of the Democracy Alliance network that disclose political
spending dropped more than $250 million on the midterms, according to
data reported to the Federal Election Commission.
That included more than $180 million in expenditures by super PACs,
more than a third of the $515 million spent by all such groups during
the 2014 election cycle.
The groups’ extensive involvement in Democrats’ political efforts
undercuts common media characterizations of the Democracy Alliance,
which generally present
the array of groups it supports as less involved in electioneering than
those of similar collaborative donor networks on the right.
Such reports frequently downplay the scale of the Democracy Alliance
network, commonly reported as consisting of fewer than two dozen
organizations.
While DA’s 21 “aligned network” and “dynamic investment” groups form
the core of its collaborative fundraising efforts, the Alliance in fact
backs a far larger array of liberal political and policy groups.
As Democracy Alliance president Gara LaMarche told attendees
of its April 2014 conference in Chicago, DA now encourages its donors
to support groups on its “Progressive Infrastructure Map,” which,
LaMarche said has “now grown to 180 organizations,” in addition to its
21 primary beneficiaries.
Progressive infrastructure map organizations include some of the
wealthiest and most active super PACs of the 2014 election cycle, such
as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D., Nev.) Senate Majority PAC
and Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action.
Seventeen of the groups that DA recommends for support by its wealthy
liberal donors are super PACs that made independent expenditures during
the 2014 cycle.
However, DA network involvement in this year’s elections went beyond
just super PACs. It included traditional
527 political action
committees,
for-profit political vendors, and
officially nonpartisan
501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.
The more than a quarter of a billion dollars that such groups spent
on federal elections this cycle include disbursements through
mid-October. Committees will not be required to report spending in the
final weeks of the campaign until December.
The total also does not include undisclosed spending by “dark money”
groups that are not forced to report most of their expenditures to the
FEC.
Some of the most prominent recipients of DA support—aligned network
groups such as ProgressNow and progressive infrastructure map groups
like the 350.org Action Fund—are 501(c)(4) nonprofits,
which are not
required to disclose their donors or
most of their spending on political
advocacy.
Some of those groups have been active in federal elections. Others,
such as Organizing for Action, President Barack Obama’s revamped
reelection campaign and a DA “dynamic investment,” spend millions
promoting the Democratic positions on issues that were central to the
campaigns of many federal candidates.
Politico reported in June that the Democracy Alliance’s 21 core organizations planned to spend $374 million this cycle.
The lack of disclosure from many groups in the network and
not-yet-reported disbursements during the last two weeks of the campaign
make it difficult to know whether the DA network achieved that goal.
Total election-related spending by the Democracy Alliance
network—which excludes transfers between its various groups—rivals, and
could even exceed, political expenditures by the network of groups
supported by libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch....
LaMarche previously touted
campaign finance reform as a means to kneecap the political opposition
and make it easier to advance the Democracy Alliance’s policy goals.
While it is not clear what percentage of the Koch Network’s funds
came from Charles and David Koch themselves, reported fundraising totals
by that network are only slightly larger than the partial spending
totals reported by DA network groups to the FEC.
Donors to the Koch Network planned to raise $290 million for its portfolio organizations during the 2014 cycle, according to a Daily Beast report in June.
Recipients of that money included independent expenditure political
groups and nonprofits that, like DA’s (c)(4) beneficiaries, disclose
little about their donors or their expenditures.
Unlike those “dark money” groups, Super PACs are permitted by law to
engage in “express advocacy,” meaning they can explicitly ask voters to
support or oppose a candidate.
Among those groups, Democracy Alliance spending dwarfs that of the
Koch Network, which primarily finances nonprofits such as Americans for
Prosperity that are not as explicitly partisan.
The leading super PAC supported by the Kochs, the Freedom Partners
Action Fund, spent just $15.5 million in the 2014 cycle, about 27% of
NextGen’s federal disbursements." via Lucianne
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