The Big Money Twenty–CMR on the Roster

Dear Group,

McMorris Rodgers just received a new distinction: End Citizens United just added her to their Big Money 20, the Congresspeople most owned by corporate and mega-wealthy interests. Click the link, scroll to McMorris Rodgers photo at the bottom of the list. Click the photo there and you will find a trove of very specific information with solid links to texts of bills and voting records. 

Having just concluded a three part examination of McMorris Rodgers campaign committees called “Cathy’s Coffers,” the End Citizens United Big Money 20 designation couldn’t have been more timely. 

Today I want to look at just one of McMorris Rodgers’ votes brought up by End Citizens United,

H.R.5053 – Preventing IRS Abuse and Protecting Free Speech Act of 2016. In my view there is no better example of her commitment to big money.

Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (2016) lays out in excruciating, densely referenced detail the forty year effort of the Charles and David Koch to bend the Republican party to their Libertarian, Ayn Rand-ian view of the world and how it should operate. They and their donor group systematically established a network of non-profit “think” tanks aimed and steering the political mindset of the electorate toward their own. 

The use of non-profit organizations was, of course, the stuff of evil genius. Non-profits in general don’t have to disclose their donors publicly, hence the designation “dark money,” [Take note we are now talking about the “Non-profits” circle in the Roadmap below. We are STILL not discussing SuperPACs.] 

However, and this is key, although not necessarily publicly available, since 1988 the IRS has required non-profits to disclose donors of more than $5000 to the IRS. It should be no surprise that the Koch brothers and their donor group are anxious to rid themselves of this encumbrance to their efforts fund their “think” tanks with untraceable dollars. 

So what better method than a bill named H.R.5053 – Preventing IRS Abuse and Protecting Free Speech Act of 2016? What would better protect “Free Speech” than the ability to disguise your contribution to, for example, Americans For Prosperity. If you cannot anonymously contribute mega-dollars to an organization that advocates free market economics then you’re not free, right? Poor dears, I guess their “free speech” requires them to be able to operate in the dark. Will their next effort be to take down the Federal Elections Commission website?

You only need to get past the title of the Act to read what it intends to do. It is written in plain, bald-faced english:

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from requiring that the identity of contributors to 501(c) organizations be included in annual returns.

On June 14, 2016, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, 238 other Republicans and 1 Democrat voted in favor of this travesty and passed it out of the House. I guess they assumed that voters would only read the Title H.R. 5053 and not make to the first sentence and understand the meaning. How do they justify this? It made no news I was aware of at the time. Was it marketed as part of their “roll back regulation” agenda?

I have thought for some time that the history of campaign finance in the last hundred years has been by and large the history of Democrats and some old-school Republicans puts sensible rules in place and more recent Republican/Libertarian efforts to tear down or circumvent those rules. This is a good example. 

If I didn’t already believe that McMorris Rodgers is in the pocket of the Koch brothers and the mega-wealthy, her vote on  H.R.5053 – Preventing IRS Abuse and Protecting Free Speech Act of 2016 would be incontrovertible proof.

(That said, I doubt she admits this truth even to herself.)

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

A Roadmap for understanding campaign finance