INDIVISIBLE Lambertville NJ / New Hope PA

Category: Funding/Finance

  • Just the Facts: Dark Money

    Contributed by Olga Vanucci.

    What is dark money?  It’s political spending meant to influence the decision of a voter, where the donor is not disclosed and the source of the money is unknown.

    Sources of dark money include:

    501(c)(4):  “social welfare” organizations such as the NRA, Sierra Club, Indivisible

    501(c)(5):  labor unions

    501(c)(6):  business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce

    Shell companies set up as LLCs can collect unlimited money from unreported sources.

    The 501(c)s can collect unlimited donations from unreported donors, though a recent Supreme Court decision is changing that: donations over $200 will have to be reported. On the flip side, they cannot engage solely in politics and can only coordinate on a limited basis with campaigns.

    Super PACs are not dark money in that they have to report their donors. They can collect unlimited money and can be 100% political, but cannot coordinate with political campaigns.

    However, 501(c)s and shell LLCs can donate money, which they collected from unreported donors to Super PACs, turning Super PACs into dark money.

    Candidate committees, political parties, and traditional Political Action Committees (PACs) are not dark money. Their donors must be disclosed, contribution limits apply and organizations are allowed to coordinate their efforts to help elect a candidate.

    Dark money spending in the first year of the 2016 election cycle was 10 times more than it was at the same point in 2012. Dark money spending in 2012 was three times more than it was in 2008, and dark money spending in 2008 was 17 times more than it was in 2004.

    Dark money has been almost entirely spent to favor Republican candidates.  For example, by October 2015, $4.88 million in dark money had already been spent for the 2016 election cycle. The money was spent by six groups – five conservative groups (including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent $3 million, and Americans for Prosperity, which spent $1.5 million) and one liberal group (Planned Parenthood, which spent just under $75,000).

    Sources:
    https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money/

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/supreme-court-lets-stand-a-decision-requiring-dark-money-disclosure/570670/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money

    https://ballotpedia.org/501(c)(4)

  • H.R.1 – The Opening Act for the 2019 House of Representatives

    Contributed by Hui Chen.

    The first act of the newly Democrat-controlled House is to give power back to the people and bring ethics back into our government. H.R. 1 – the For the People Act – covers three main areas of reform:

    • Campaign Finance: requiring disclosure of information such as “dark money” and super PAC political donors, of political spending by those who do business with the federal government, of sources for political ads on Facebook and Twitter. It would also provide a matching-fund program for House candidates who agree to raise only small-dollar contributions.
    • Ethics: requiring disclosure of tax returns for candidates for president and vice president – and current holder of those offices; enhance oversight and enforcement power of the Office of Government Ethics; strengthen ethics in the legislative branch by prohibiting members of Congress from using taxpayer money to settle harassment and discrimination cases, and in the judicial branch by creating a new code of ethics for the United States Supreme Court.
    • Voting Rights: creating an automatic voter registration system to change voting from an opt in to an opt out process, promoting early voting, same-day, same-day voter registration, and online voter registration.  It would enhance election security against foreign interference, and end gerrymandering by moving the Congressional districting power from state legislature to independent commissions.


    How would these proposed measures help our democracy?
    Campaign finance reforms helps make our elected officials answer to us as much as they answer to big money. Running for office is a very expensive endeavor. Everything from signs to brochures to television ads and campaign events costs. It’s a reality that creates continuous pressure for those in office to feel beholden to their financiers. The disclosures proposed by H.R.1 would give us transparency to those relationships so that our officials know we would be watching them. The public matching fund for small donations will also shift more power to individual donors like us.

    Government ethics fights corruption and makes sure no one is above the law. Federal government workers, like all other professionals, must abide by strict ethics rules. These rules are there to ensure they conduct government business without the conflict of interest: that laws and regulations are enforced, and contracts and projects awarded, not for their personal benefits or pleasure, but in the interest of the public. The proposed measures under H.R.1 would apply at least some of these rules to elected officials, and to Supreme Court justices.
    Voting rights helps every voter be counted. Our entire democracy is premised on people’s ability to vote. Over the last election, we worked hard for every vote. The proposed measures under H.R. are to make sure every voter gets the best chance to exercise that vote, and that when those votes are counted, they are free from manipulation.


    Call to Action: What can you do to support H.R.1?
    H.R.1 is a large package, and pieces of it are now going into various House committees for deliberation. Find the topics that speaks to you and which committees will be addressing them. Learn the issues, talk to your network, and express your support on social media, in public, and to your representatives. Remember, the overall message of this bill is about democracy and ethics.

    Hui Chen is a member of ILNH and a former prosecutor and expert consultant with the US Department of Justice who publicly resigned due to concerns about ethics in the Trump Administration. As an expert in organizational ethics, she is a regular columnist in Bloomberg Law and commentator on MSNBC. Twitter @HuiChenEthics.