Spotlight on ‘dark money’

Want to know just how dark “dark money” can be? Consider the $11 million in mystery money spent to defeat Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax measure, Proposition 30, and to support the anti-union Proposition 32.

The first we knew of this money was when we learned a shadowy Arizona-based nonprofit called Americans for Responsible Leadership had funneled it to another nonprofit, the Small Business Action Committee, that was running campaigns against Prop. 30 and for Prop. 32. But who was funding ARL? The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission filed suit to find out, only to be told that ARL’s money came from another pair of nonprofits, beginning with Americans for Job Security, based in Alexandria, Va., and then being passed on to the Center to Protect Patient Rights, based in Phoenix.

Americans for Job Security was founded in 1997 by two Republican strategists who formed Crossroads Media, which handles advertising for American Crossroads, Karl Rove’s super PAC. And the Center to Protect Patient Rights is run by Sean Noble, an operative of the billionaire far-right Koch brothers.

California is not the only state where these outfits operate. But it’s the first state to force these kinds of revelations. Although we still don’t know who the individual donors are, we do know that the CPPR has admitted to channeling campaign cash into the state, which is illegal. As Ann Ravel, chairwoman of the FPPC, said, “They admitted to money laundering.”

This is what the U.S. Supreme Court has wrought with its Citizens United decision—super-rich donors like the Koch brothers operating outside public view by using shadowy nonprofit advocacy groups to channel dark money to be used to attack their political enemies.

The good news is that California—credit the FPPC and Attorney General Kamala Harris, in particular—is fighting back. We’d like to see criminal charges brought against the money launderers. That would make these dark donors think twice before sending more mystery money to our state.