Last week Channel 5 WCVB reporter Karen Andersen did a very good report on “grey money” and Governor Baker’s campaign. (Trigger warning: I’m interviewed in the piece). Between dark money and grey money, figuring out who gives to sustain Governor Baker and his pet causes may be the most difficult job in politics.
“Grey money” is money that is technically traceable but it is nearly impossible to make any sense of it. Ms. Anderson’s reporting focused on a SuperPAC that supports Governor Baker, the Commonwealth Future Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee. An IEPAC can raise unlimited sums from corporations, individuals, unions, or other associations to oppose or support a candidate, so long as it is independent and does not coordinate with the candidate. Ms Anderson reported that Governor Baker’s campaign had raised $3.9 million but Commonwealth Future had already spent $6.6 million, mostly on television advertisements.
But where does Commonwealth Future get its money? It receives almost all its donations from the Republican Governor’s Association. And where does the RGA get its money? RGA is a 527 committee regulated by the Internal Revenue Service and it has to report its contributors but reviewing its filings will leave you in the deep grey about why they give. In 2014 before he became governor, Baker, Mitt Romney, and Chris Christie tapped 20 individuals to raise about $1 million for the RGA in Boston. But Governor Baker told Ms. Anderson that he has had no contact with the RGA this year.
Then there is the Massachusetts Victory Fund recently reported on by Gabrielle Gurley of American Prospect in Charlie Baker Can’t Have It Both Ways. The Massachusetts Victory Fund is a remarkably innovative money raising tool that allows individuals to contribute up to $43,400 each year, instead of the state limits of $1,000 per candidate and $5,000 to the state committee. For the details of this Rube Goldberg operation consult the Boston Globe report by Frank Phillips, Fund-raising Loophole Fills Mass. GOP Coffers. Contributors and expenditures are reported to the Federal Election Commission so you can read them here and try to make any useful sense of them.
When I wrote the original Governor of Dark Money I also relied on a story written by Frank Phillips, Baker Taps Wealthy Donors in Bid to Shape Mass. GOP which reported that the governor “hit up wealthy donors” for about $300,000 to fund his campaign to gain control of the Republican State Committee. State law did not require disclosure and the donors remain a mystery. I also mentioned in Governor of Dark Money that the governor’s number one policy priority, the charter schools ballot initiative, was being funded by dark money.
Was I right on that one! The Question 2 campaign of 2016, which included television advertisements featuring the governor, had two of its donors adjudicated as being in violation of true source donor disclosure laws by the Office of Campaign and Political Finance: Families for Excellent Schools and Strong Economy for Growth. They totaled over $16 million in dark money. Both were required by OCPF to disband operations and to disclose their true donors who turned out to be a handful of Massachusetts oligarchs. FES later collapsed in corruption. Strong Economy for Growth was also cited by OCPF for donating to Governor Baker’s second 2016 ballot priority, a No vote on Question 4 legalizing marijuana.
Returning to 2018 there is another committee supporting Governor Baker, called the Patients for Affordable Drugs Action Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee. But there are no patients! This SuperPAC has received one donation, $510,000 from John and Laura Arnold of Dallas, Texas. (For the unusual activities of the PAC nationally, read here). Bruce Mohl of CommonwealthMagazine recently reported Baker planning pharmacy pricing legislation.
Sometimes stuff just happens.
Do the Arnolds care about drug pricing? Who knows? In the world of dark and grey money things are rarely what they seem. The Arnolds also contributed $250,000 to Question 2 of 2016 on charters, I suspect in support of the issue the Arnolds care about above all others: weakening unions in order to eliminate state worker pensions.
That reminds me to offer my congratulations to Maria Rodriguez, lunch monitor at Boston’s Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School, who was recently awarded a Henry L. Shattuck Public Service Awards. (My mother was a school matron, meaning a female custodian, and she also presided over many a school lunch). As Kathleen McKiernan reported in the Boston Herald, Ms. Rodriguez was recognized for her “constant support of students” and because “In her quiet, but loving way, Maria is a role model.” And it’s too bad but if the Arnolds of Texas have their way there goes Ms. Rodriguez’s pension!
Sometimes stuff just happens.
The Washington Post recently adopted a new slogan: “Democracy dies in darkness.” I agree.
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money (and other things). I don’t write about education policy.]