.
South Carolina Republicans don't bother to have their own primary, ie, democrats can vote in the GOP primary, so it's a complete waste of time to complain about Lindsey Graham. If it's "too expensive" to have a separate primary, don't have one at all.
1/29/15, "Groups With Liberal Ties Tapped To Re-Elect The GOP Establishment," Huffington Post, Paul Blumenthal
"Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) got a boost in the last election from a little-known nonprofit called Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. The group calls itself conservative, but its support for greater federal funding of alternative energy drew the attention of Tennessee tea party groups, who decried what they saw as its liberal agenda.
Tea
party activists were further agitated by the scant information
available about Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. It pushed for
increased public and private investment in alternative energy. It ran an issue ad praising Alexander’s "bold" energy plan in 2013. But whose money was funding that message?
If the tea party groups had known the full story, they might have gone ballistic.
A Huffington Post examination of tax records, accessed on CitizenAudit.org,
found that in its first year of operations, Citizens for Responsible
Energy Solutions was funded with $1 million in seed money from two
nonprofits often linked to liberal causes. From June 2012 through June
2013, the group received $500,000 each from the Advocacy Fund and the Trust for Energy Innovation.
The
Advocacy Fund, formerly the Tides Advocacy Fund, is a key backer of
liberal nonprofits across the country, distributing $11.8 million in
grants in 2013. It currently funds groups engaged in promoting
immigration reform, increasing worker protections, reforming chemical
safety laws and increasing investment in the solar energy industry. The
Advocacy Fund did not respond to a request for comment.
The newer
Trust for Energy Innovation, which also did not respond to a request for
comment, sent out $12 million from its inception in 2011 through May
2013, and its recipients included such traditionally Democratic
environmental groups as the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra
Club. The trust has also made grants to conservative organizations like YG Network, a nonprofit closely connected to former House Majority
Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
.
The Advocacy Fund and the Trust for
Energy Innovation are both 501(c)(4) nonprofits, like Citizens for
Responsible Energy Solutions, and similarly do not disclose the actual
humans or corporations funding them.
James Dozier, president of
Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, said in a statement to
HuffPost that his group has received funding from 800 donors and backing
from more than 5,000 "conservative activists."
"CRES was founded
with a commitment to conservative, free market solutions to America's
energy challenges and we will continue to advance that mission," Dozier
said.
In last year's elections, Citizens for Responsible Energy
Solutions wound up spending $1.5 million on direct electoral efforts to
support three establishment Republicans -- Alexander, Sen. Lindsey
Graham (S.C.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (Idaho) --against tea party primary
challengers and five others -- Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), Rep. Joe
Heck (Nev.) and House candidates Barbara Comstock (Va.), Carlos Curbelo
(Fla.) and Richard Tisei (Mass.) -- in general election races against
Democrats. Except for Tisei, all these candidates won in November.
The
grants by the Advocacy Fund and the Trust for Energy Innovation to
affect GOP primary politics highlight the way that outside interest
groups can influence elections with little disclosure before voters go
to the ballot box.
"This perfectly illustrates the problem that
you have an organization that is running ads in a campaign and voters
don’t know who is behind it," said Bill Allison, editorial director for
the Sunlight Foundation, a pro-transparency nonprofit that tracks
nonprofit political spending.
Equally important, the blurring of
liberal-conservative lines is a reminder of how American business
pursues its ends all along the political spectrum.
Dozier, the
Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions president, did not respond to
questions regarding a previous statement by the nonprofit that it
received no funding from donors involved in the energy industry.
In August 2014, group spokesman Christopher Maloney had told The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tennessee, that the nonprofit "has no connections, formally or informally, with any specific energy industry."
But
the board of the Trust for Energy Innovation includes Reuben Munger.
Munger, who is also a board member at the League of Conservation Voters,
leads Vision Ridge Partners, a venture capital fund directly invested
in alternative energy companies that gain from federal support -- of the
kind backed by Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions.
Vision Ridge Partners holds investments
in solar companies like Sungevity, Mercatus and GSSG Energy, which
benefit from federal tax credits; transportation companies like the
battery-powered bus maker Proterra, which receive federal grants from
the Federal Transit Administration; and energy-efficient product
companies like Indo Windows, whose business is boosted by federal tax
credits for the installation of energy-efficient windows and other
materials. Calls to Vision Ridge Partners were not answered.
Citizens
for Responsible Energy Solutions has chosen to support environmentally
aware Republican senators. Alexander, Graham and Collins were among just
five GOP senators backing a measure that would have acknowledged that
human activity is causing global climate change.
Those three
senators also received support from more well-established environmental
groups like the League of Conservation Voters, which backed Collins’
campaign, and the Environmental Defense Action Fund, which spent nearly
$250,000 to help Alexander. Graham was one of the few Republicans involved in talks over cap-and-trade legislation to control greenhouse gas emissions.
Even
so, Alexander, Collins and Graham have also called for more oil and gas
drilling and support construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The same
is true of the four Republican House candidates that Citizens for
Responsible Energy Solutions helped elect in 2014.
Aside from
intervening in elections to push establishment Republicans, Citizens for
Responsible Energy Solutions has also registered to lobby on energy
issues, using lobbyists from McDonald Hopkins and Crossroads Strategies.
In 2013, that effort included McDonald Hopkins’ Jennifer LaTourette,
wife of former Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio), a central player in the
anti-tea party effort from his position as head of the moderate
conservative Main Street Partnership.
Earlier in 2014, Sen. Rob
Portman (R-Ohio) gave opening remarks at a panel discussion hosted by
Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. Following the election, the
group presented Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Rep. Chris Gibson
(R-N.Y.)
talking about the need for free market solutions to advancing
alternative energy. Both Ayotte and Portman are up for re-election in
2016.
Ayotte's remarks at the latter event have already been turned into an issue ad promoting her position on "American energy independence.""
.
=================================
Comment: Republicans in Mississippi don't have their own primary either. The winner of the 2014 Mississippi
GOP "open" primary received large donations from NY liberal
billionaires such as Mike Bloomberg. Democrat voters decided the winner in the June 2014 Mississippi GOP runoff. The above
article says "tea party activists" decried a liberal group's
involvement. So what? No one is afraid of "tea party activists," whether the fake hustlers or the real ones. Don't mess with the hustlers, by the way, they're vicious. I equate them with the Orson Welles character in the movie The Third Man. He sold watered down vaccines for babies to hospitals.
===================
Added: All this time I thought League of Conservation Voters board members were just interested in saving the planet:
"But
the board of the Trust for Energy Innovation includes Reuben Munger.
Munger, who is also a board member at the League of Conservation Voters,
leads Vision Ridge Partners, a venture capital fund directly invested
in alternative energy companies that gain from federal support -- of the
kind backed by Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions.
Vision Ridge Partners holds investments
in solar companies like Sungevity, Mercatus and GSSG Energy, which
benefit from federal tax credits; transportation companies like the
battery-powered bus maker Proterra, which receive federal grants from
the Federal Transit Administration; and energy-efficient product
companies like Indo Windows, whose business is boosted by federal tax
credits for the installation of energy-efficient windows and other
materials. Calls to Vision Ridge Partners were not answered."...
.
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