Donors’ Names Kept Secret as They Influence the Midterms

[onehandle]

Source: New York Times

Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies would certainly seem to the casual observer to be a political organization: Karl Rove, a political adviser to President George W. Bush, helped raise money for it; the group is run by a cadre of experienced political hands; it has spent millions of dollars on television commercials attacking Democrats in key Senate races across the country. Yet the Republican operatives who created the group earlier this year set it up as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, so its primary purpose, by law, is not supposed to be political.

The rule of thumb, in fact, is that more than 50 percent of a 501(c)(4)’s activities cannot be political. But that has not stopped Crossroads and a raft of other nonprofit advocacy groups like it — mostly on the Republican side, so far — from becoming some of the biggest players in this year’s midterm elections, in part because of the anonymity they afford donors, prompting outcries from campaign finance watchdogs.

The chances, however, that the flotilla of groups will draw much legal scrutiny for their campaign activities seem slim, because the organizations, which have been growing in popularity as conduits for large, unrestricted donations among both Republicans and Democrats since the 2006 election, fall into something of a regulatory netherworld.

Neither the Internal Revenue Service, which has jurisdiction over nonprofits, nor the Federal Election Commission, which regulates the financing of federal races, appears likely to examine them closely, according to campaign finance watchdogs, lawyers who specialize in the field and current and former federal officials.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/us/politics/21money.html

[Skink]

1. It's not enough that you can give any amount. Tax exempt even.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

2. Why won't fucking Democrats use this in their commercials or go all over the networks to talk about

it?

[SpiralHawk]

3. Republicons doing their OCCULTISM thingy

as usual.

Their activities cannot stand the light of day, so they go all occult ... as usual...

[OnyxCollie]

4. K&R. nt

[w4rma]

5. Where is the Department of Justice? (nt)

[valerief]

6. Out buying jets, since they're bought and paid for, too. nt

[Blue_Tires]

7. maybe in the future we'll just vote directly for our favorite corporations

or industry lobbies....

would take a lot of the theater out of the process...

[gratuitous]

8. So stuff that monster

"My opponent is being supported by Americans for Better Everything, a shadowy group that won't divulge their donor list. Go to my website, and you can see everyone - ordinary citizens concerned for our future - who supports me. But who's pulling my opponent's strings? Who is he beholden to? What sort of deals is he cutting, right this very second, that will sell you out in favor of some corporate interest?"

Your opponent's choices are to come clean or obfuscate. Let your opponent know that if he thinks these innuendos are dark now, you have some pitch black shit to sling at him in the weeks to come.