WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - Government watchdog groups investigating the roll of dark money in our nation’s elections have uncovered a vast network of nonprofits funded by the Left with billions in largely tax-exempt dollars.
“This is the side of politics that most Americans never hear about, but it’s far bigger than either of the two parties,” said Hayden Ludwig of the Capital Research Center (CRC), which has been investigating the groups. “The Left has a near-bottomless well of money from big foundations and mega-donors to pay for a legion of professional activists working 24/7 to advance their agenda largely outside the public eye.”
The activities of one group, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), has received some media attention for granting millions of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s money (Zuck Bucks) to local election officials in Democratic strongholds, with instructions on how to drive out the vote – including urging the use of mail votes and drop boxes. But CTCL represents only one part of a vast network, CRC and others have found.
“We’re tracking over 150 non-profits on the Left that are flush with billions of dollars,” said Phill Kline, director of the Amistad Project, which has filed numerous lawsuits over CTCL’s role in influencing how elections are managed. “They are so far ahead of the Right on this. It’s become embedded in the process.”
Ludwig said that another group, the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), spent nearly $70 million in Zuck Bucks “to effectively privatize the nation’s elections in many states.”
In Maryland, CEIR helped fund a Democratic consulting group that Ludwig said worked with the Maryland State Board of Elections to turn out voters in Democratic bastions of Baltimore and the counties bordering Washington, D.C.
The group advertises itself as nonpartisan but its founder, David Becker, worked as an activist for the progressive People for the American Way.
He also developed a reputation from his work as a trial attorney in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. In 2005, Becker contacted the city of Boston offering his services to defeat a lawsuit brought by the DOJ for voting rights infractions, according to two former DOJ officials during the Bush Administration. His actions were reported to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).
“It was the most unethical thing I’ve ever seen,” Brad Schlozman, acting head of the Civil Rights Division at the time, told Legal Newsline for an earlier story. “Classic case of someone who should have been disbarred.”
“He’s a hard-core leftist,” Schlozman added. “Couldn’t stand conservatives.”
Other non-profits fall into a network created by Arabella Advisors, which CRC calls a “shadowy consulting firm behind what is arguably the world’s most powerful and influential ‘dark money empire.’”
The firm raised in $1.7 billion in 2020 alone.
The network includes the Trusted Elections Fund, the Center for Secure and Modern Elections and the North Fund. The North Fund, CRC says, could be “the biggest bankroller of left-wing state ballot initiatives you’ve never heard of.”
“This little-known giant is behind the campaign for DC statehood (“51 for 51”), the push for mail-in ballots in key battleground states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania (“Count Every Vote Project”), and a pressure campaign to censor conservatives on Facebook and other platforms (“Accountable Tech”), according to trade names filed with the DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.”
Some of the efforts by CTCL, and the other nonprofits, have been stymied by state’s banning their election officials from accepting private money. But the bans are spotty – CRC is about to update its list – and all the bans are not total. Texas law, for instance, permits using the money if state officials okay it. Some governors, moreover, have vetoed legislation banning the practice. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, was the latest.
Ludwig said it’s unclear how CTCL and the other groups will operate in the 2022 and ‘24 elections but that CRC will continue to track the money flow from the Left, including the Zuck Bucks.
For now, they are putting together a comprehensive map showing where the dark money has flowed over the past two years. Georgia tops the list; it not only had a tight presidential election, but had two runoff elections in January 2021 for the U.S. Senate. CTCL was involved in all three races.