Then we'd better deal first and foremost
with this:
New Telemarketing Ploy Steers Voters on Republican Path
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
An automated voice at the other end of the telephone line asks whether you believe that judges who "push homosexual marriage and create new rights like abortion and sodomy" should be controlled. If your reply is "yes," the voice lets you know that the Democratic candidate in the Senate race in Montana, Jon Tester, is not your man.
In Maryland, a similar question-and-answer sequence suggests that only the Republican Senate candidate would keep the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. In Tennessee, another paints the Democrat as wanting to give foreign terrorists "the same legal rights and privileges" as Americans.
...
But Harold E. Swift, one of the organizers of the Ohio group, said he viewed the move beyond phone banks or simple taped attack messages as a "very sophisticated approach to voter education." The goal, he said, is to "make people aware of the candidate's stand on the issues that are important to them."
Mr. Swift said his group, Common Sense Ohio, is a nonprofit advocacy organization and is financed by wealthy Republican donors. A sister organization, Common Sense 2006, has received a donation from the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, an affiliate of the Republican Governors Association. Under federal law, the groups are not required to disclose their donors publicly or reveal how much money they have raised
While non-profit (501(c)3s do not have to currently disclose their donors, they do have to register with the IRS, and file annual reports, including total income and expenses. This is to make sure non-profits follow strict lobbying and campaign rules, which state only a certain relatively small portion of their budget can go to lobbying and other "political" activies (NB: the larger the group, the more money they can spend, as it's a percentage, not a fixed number.)
So now, using Common Sense Ohio's website, just try and find their IRS registration and annual reports. I've already tried searcing by their name, address, name of the treasurer, business address, without success. See if you have any better luck.
This is not unusual. Grover Norquist made an art of setting up "non-profit" front groups, either never filing their information, or filing under completely unconnected names, e.g., the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) filed initially under "Save Our Urban Centers". CREA went on to launder over a half-million in unreported contributions from Jack Abramoff clients, money which was used to undermine the environmental record of John Kerry.
For a short time last Spring, Congress made a few weak moves towards addressing these front groups with the the Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act (S. 2128), but was quickly shut down by the efforts of a coalition of rightwing "non-profit" advocacy groups called LobbySense (I wrote about them here at the time.) The LobbySense.com website currently (surprisingly?) provides no indication of its member organizations, but thankfully, there's Google cache.
Kerri Houston, Frontiers of Freedom
Jason Wright, Institute for Liberty
Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform
Daniel Clifton, American Shareholders Association
Richard W. Rahn, Ph.D., Center for Global Economic Growth
Larry Cirignano, CatholicVote.org
Gary Bauer, American Values
Chuck Muth, Citizen Outreach
Kay Daly, Coalition for a Fair Judiciary
Tom McClusky, Family Research Council
Paul M. Weyrich, Coalitions for America
Michael D. Ostrolenk, Liberty Coalition
Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America
Tom Readmond, Media Freedom Project
Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum
Kenneth Boehm, National Legal and Policy Center
Andrea Lafferty, Traditional Values Coalition
George Landrith, Frontiers of Freedom
Christopher L. Carmouche, GrassTopsUSA
Ann Stone, Republicans for Choice
William Greene, RightMarch.com
Alex St. James, African-American Republican Leadership Council
Tom Schatz, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
Thomas Shields, Coalition for Marriage and Family
Dan Perrin, American Taxpayers Alliance
Italia Federici, Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy
Mary M. Martin, The Seniors Coalition
Alan Keyes, Declaration Foundation
Mike Hardiman, American Land Rights Association
This is the sordid underbelly of the rightwing "grassroots". They, like Common Sense Ohio, act with complete impunity, as no one, not even the IRS, holds them accountable: It's now two years since Italia Federici and CREA were outted for accepting, but not reporting, over a half million in contributions, and the IRS has done nothing. Grover Norquist and his ATR were getting kickbacks of $25K from Abramoff for each meeting with Bush he organized, and he's still a free man. Is it necessary to note that Norquist claimed last summer that he's spent more time in the White House (with Karl Rove) in the past few weeks than he had in the last few years? Rove understands the power and utility of these nefarious groups, and it's pretty clear that they're on the frontline of this year's GOP voter-suppression drive.
So if Speaker Pelosi and the 110th Congress actually want to change the political landscape, then they need to address, not in the first hundred days or first hundred hours, but the first hundred minutes, legislation to both hold these groups and their anti-Democratic tactics accountable, and allow sunlight to shine on their donor lists.
(NB: The original sponsor of S. 2128 was John McCain. His interest in the subject derived not from any kind of love for Democracy, but because he's been the target of attacks by a significant number of Norquist's front groups, and he saw this as 1) his opportunity for revenge, and 2) as a pre-emptive strike in the run-up to his 2008 campaign. McCain understands the power of these groups; Al Gore and John Kerry do; perhaps even sleazy Joe Lieberman, who pushed a very harsh amendment further curtailing front-group activities, does. I hope we're at least as smart as the first and last of those four.)