Wednesday, August 18, 2010

J. Art Pope, the rightwing sugar daddy for the John Locke Foundation and big donor to Americans for Prosperity, is using a 527 committee to funnel his corporation’s money into political ads aimed at discrediting Democratic candidates for the NC General Assembly in this fall’s election. Pope has done this before with six-figure donations from Variety Wholesalers, owners of Rose’s, Maxway, Super Dollar and other retail stores. (Yes, he uses revenues from his low/moderate-income customers to promote his anti-government agenda!) The first ad doesn’t mention candidates by name, but the 527 committee (Real Jobs NC) has already filed a disclosure report announcing that it’s going after Democratic incumbents Alice Underhill and Hugh Holliman. Other donors of Real Jobs NC including the Republican State Leadership Committee and RightChange.com which includes Republican state legislators Fletcher Hartsell and Jeff Barnhart as officers. Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity announced it is launching a $4.1 million dollar ad campaign in 11 states to influence the outcome in 24 Congressional elections. AFP is taking advantage of the new Citizens United ruling that allows it to use corporate money for electioneering without setting up a PAC or 527 committee; and because Congress has not enacted the DISCLOSE Act, the donors will remain a mystery. The founding chairman and major patron of AFP is David Koch of Koch Industries, a notoriously secretive conglomerate and exporter of jobs. Thanks to a new law adopted this year in North Carolina, it would be harder for AFP to keep its donors hidden if it financed a similar series of ads attacking state (rather than federal) candidates. The use of mystery corporate money to corrupt elections with Supreme Court protection continues to rankle sensible people and merit state and national media attention.