Investigating Power
The Center for Media and Democracy acquired a fund-raising letter from the State Policy Network (SPN), an alliance of 66 state-based think tanks, describing a campaign with an $80 million annual budget to “defund and defang” unions representing government employees as the first battle in a war against progressive politics.
Though big spenders are increasingly common in other states, too, the 2018 race for governor of Illinois could end up breaking the spending record of $280 million set by California’s 2010 contest between Democrat Jerry Brown and Silicon Valley executive Meg Whitman, said Don Wiener, a contributor at the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit watchdog organization in Madison, Wisconsin.
Whitman personally spent $144 million on her losing bid, but Wiener said the total tab for the top job in Illinois could reach $300 million this year if Rauner and Pritzker end up facing each other in the general election. Spending in the Illinois governor’s campaign could represent about 20 percent or even 30 percent of all the money in 36 governor’s races nationwide this year, he said.
“Except for that rare occasion in California, where you had the CEO of eBay running, you’re busting all records with one-third the voting population of California,” Wiener said.
This lawsuit is part of a coordinated effort from far-right groups supported by funders like the Koch brothers to “defund and defang” US unions. A 10-page fundraising letter from the Koch-backed State Policy Network, obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, says that by undermining unions, they can ensure “the permanent collapse of progressive politics”.
Illinois, as Don Wiener details in a February 19 Center for Media and Democracy article, may see a billionaire vs. billionaire battle for governor in the November election. Bruce Rauner, the Republican incumbent, and Democrat J.B. Pritzker (a Hyatt Hotel heir) will face each other if both emerge as victors in their March primaries. Wiener writes,
“The March 20, 2018 Illinois gubernatorial primary is on track to become the most expensive in Illinois history, thanks to millions being put on the line by three billionaires.
One-sixth of all campaign money raised for all Illinois elections, including city, county, and state, from January 2013 through January 2018 was raised by just three people: Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, his billionaire buddy, hedge fund manager Ken Griffin [a supporter], and Hyatt Hotel heir JB Pritzker, who is running in the Democratic primary.
To kick-off his primary run and re-election, Rauner gave himself $58 million at the very end of 2016. Griffin gave Rauner $20 million in July 2017 and $2.25 million in December 2017. With Pritzker giving himself $49 million for the Democratic primary, this means almost $130 million has already been raised by only three people.”
A pair of resolutions under consideration by the Legislature that lift much of their wording from model bills written by a secretive, corporation-funded group could help lead to a radical rewriting of the U.S. Constitution.
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“These proposals are nakedly political,” said Arn Pearson, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that tracks ALEC. “Republicans are at a high-water mark in their control of state legislatures, and they see this as an opportunity to make sweeping changes in how the government works.”
“The Koch network of funders considers vouchers the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of what can be accomplished in the public policy world,” Mary Bottari, deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy, which studies and reports on the Koch network, told Truthout. “The terrible tragedy is that empirical research is increasingly showing that vouchers are actually harming kids.”
Documents stolen from the foundation in 2016 by international hackers, and released to the public by the Center for Media and Democracy and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, laid bare the organization’s ideological thinking. The documents show that Bradley donated to the National Right to Work Foundation, sponsor of the Janus case, because “Big Labor and trial attorneys are the two principal funding pillars of the left”.
In the past decade, a small group of people working for deep-pocketed corporate interests, conservative think tanks and right-wing foundations have bankrolled a series of lawsuits to end what they call “forced unionization.” They say they fight in the name of “free speech,” “worker rights” and “workplace freedom.” In briefs before the court, they present their public face: carefully selected and appealing plaintiffs like Illinois child-support worker Mark Janus and California schoolteacher Rebecca Friedrichs. The language they use is relentlessly pro-worker.
Behind closed doors, a different face is revealed. Those same people cheer “defunding” and “bankrupting” unions to deal a “mortal blow” to progressive politics in America.
A key director of this charade is the State Policy Network (SPN), whose game plan is revealed in a union-busting toolkit uncovered by the Center for Media and Democracy. …
Here’s what Brooks doesn’t tell you about his friends “in the trust and respect business.” The Institute for American Values was founded in 1987 by money from the conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Harry Bradley was one of the founders of the ultra-right John Birch Society. As Wikipedia puts it, the IAV has “been critical of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth.” The Center for Media and Democracy describes the Bradley Foundation as “one of America’s largest right-wing foundations.”
The Center for Media and Democracy also reported in 2014 that [Wendy] Lowe, a former Peabody Energy lobbyist, gave a presentation titled, “Increasing Travel Reimbursement Income” at an ALEC meeting in Chicago in 2013. But Lowe told DeSmog that, although she attended the Senate hearing on the bill, she did not know about it until it was proposed and is not lobbying for it.