Success - Common Cause

Addendum to letter from Common Cause to Attorney
General, June 19th 2010.
Kate Zernike, Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead, New York Times (Oct. 19,
2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/us/politics/20koch.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
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 Reprints
October 19, 2010
Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead
By KATE ZERNIKE
A secretive network of Republican donors is heading to the Palm Springs area for a long weekend in January, but it
will not be to relax after a hard-fought election — it will be to plan for the next one.
Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes from the Cato Institute in Washington to the ballot
initiative that would suspend California‟s landmark law capping greenhouse gases, is planning a confidential meeting
at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, “develop strategies to counter the most severe
threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and
prosperity.”
The invitation, sent to potential new participants, offers a rare peek at the Koch network of the ultrawealthy and the
politically well-connected, its far-reaching agenda to enlist ordinary Americans to its cause, and its desire for the
utmost secrecy.
Koch Industries, a Wichita-based energy and manufacturing conglomerate run by the billionaire brothers Charles and
David Koch, operates a foundation that finances political advocacy groups, but tax law protects those groups from
having to disclose much about what they do and who contributes.
With a personalized letter signed by Charles Koch, the invitation to the four-day Rancho Mirage meeting opens
with a grand call to action: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”
The Koch network meets twice a year to plan and expand its efforts — as the letter says, “to review strategies for
combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it.”
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Those efforts, the letter makes clear, include countering “climate change alarmism and the move to socialized
health care,” as well as “the regulatory assault on energy,” and making donations to higher education and
philanthropic organizations to advance the Koch agenda.
The Kochs also seek to cultivate Americans‟ growing concern about the growth of government: at the most recent
meeting, in Aspen, Colo., in June, some of the wealthiest people in America listened to a presentation on “a vision of
how we can retain the moral high ground and make the new case for liberty and smaller government that appeals to
all Americans, rich and poor.”
The goals for the twice-yearly meetings, the brochure says, include attracting more investors to the cause, but also
building institutions “to identify, educate and mobilize citizens” and “fashioning the message and building the
education channels to re-establish widespread belief in the benefits of a free and prosperous society.”
Charles Koch, whose wealth Forbes magazine calculates at about $21.5 billion, argues in his letter that “prosperity is
under attack by the current administration and many of our elected officials.” He repeatedly warns about the “internal
assault” and “unrelenting attacks” on freedom and prosperity. A brochure with the invitation underscores that to the
Koch network, “freedom” means freedom from taxes and government regulation. Mr. Koch warns of policies that
“threaten to erode our economic freedom and transfer vast sums of money to the state.”
The Kochs insist on strict confidentiality surrounding the California meetings, which are entitled “Understanding and
Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity.” The letter advises participants that it is closed to the
public, including the news media, and admonishes them not to post updates or information about the meeting on the
Web, blogs, social media or traditional media, and to “be mindful of the security and confidentiality of your meeting
notes and materials.”
Invited participants are told they must wear nametags for all meeting functions. And, ensuring that no one tries to
gain access by posing as a participant, the invitation says that reservations will be handled through Koch Industries‟
office in Washington: “Please do not contact the Rancho Las Palmas directly to place a reservation.”
To give prospective participants a sense of what to expect, Mr. Koch‟s letter enclosed a brochure from the group‟s
meeting at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, including a list of the roughly 200 participants — a confab of hedge fund
executives, Republican donors, free-market evangelists and prominent members of the New York social circuit.
They listened to a presentations on “microtargeting” to identify like-minded voters, as well as a discussion about voter
mobilization featuring Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity, the political action group founded by the Kochs in
2004, which campaigned against the health care legislation passed in March and is helping Tea Party groups set up
get-out-the-vote operations.
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Other sessions discussed the opportunities in the presidential election of 2012 to address threats to free enterprise
and “how supporters of economic freedom might start planning today.”
Impressed by the Koch efforts for the midterms, the invitation cover letter says, Aspen participants “committed to an
unprecedented level of support.”
“However,” it adds, “even if these efforts succeed, other serious threats demand action.”
The participants in Aspen dined under the stars at the top of the gondola run on Aspen Mountain, and listened to
Glenn Beck of Fox News in a session titled, “Is America on the Road to Serfdom?” (The title refers to a classic of
Austrian economic thought that informs libertarian ideology, popularized by Mr. Beck on his show.)The participants
included some of the nation‟s wealthiest families and biggest names in finance: private equity and hedge fund
executives like John Childs, Cliff Asness, Steve Schwarzman and Ken Griffin; Phil Anschutz, the entertainment and
media mogul ranked by Forbes as the 34th-richest person in the country; Rich DeVos, the co-founder of Amway;
Steve Bechtel of the giant construction firm; and Kenneth Langone of Home Depot.
The group also included longtime Republican donors and officials, including Foster Friess, Fred Malek and former
Attorney General Edwin Meese III.
Participants listened to presentations from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as people who played leading roles
in John McCain‟s presidential campaign in 2008, like Nancy Pfotenhauer and Annie Dickerson, who also runs a
foundation for Paul Singer, a hedge fund executive who like the Kochs is active in promoting libertarian causes.
To encourage new participants, Mr. Koch offers to waive the $1,500 registration fee. And he notes that previous
guests have included Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, Gov. Haley
Barbour and Gov. Bobby Jindal, Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, and Representatives Mike Pence,
Tom Price and Paul D. Ryan.
Mr. Koch also notes the beautiful setting. But he advises against thinking of this as a vacation.
“Our ultimate goal is not „fun in the sun,‟ ” he concludes. “This is a gathering of doers who are willing to engage in the
hard work necessary to advance our shared principles. Success in this endeavor will require all the help we can
muster.”
Lee Fang, Health Insurance, Banking, Oil Industries Met with Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck
To Plot 2010 Election, Think Progress (Oct. 20, 2010),
http://thinkprogress.org./2010/10/20/beck-koch-chamber-meeting/
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Think Progress
MEMO: Health Insurance, Banking, Oil Industries Met With Koch, Chamber,
Glenn Beck To Plot 2010 Election
By Lee Fang on Oct 20th, 2010 at 9:50 am
In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal‘s Stephen
Moore that he coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political
campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts through a twice annual
meeting of wealthy right-wing donors. He also confided to Moore, who is funded through several
of Koch‘s ventures, that his true goal is to strengthen the ―culture of prosperity‖ by eliminating
―90%‖ of all laws and government regulations. Although it is difficult to quantify the exact
amount Koch alone has funneled to right-wing fronts, some studies have pointed toward $50
million he has given alone to anti-environmental groups. Recently, fronts funded by Charles and
his brother David have received scrutiny because they have played a pivotal role in the
organizing of the anti-Obama Tea Parties and the promotion of virulent far right lawmakers like
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). (David Koch praised DeMint and gave him a ―Washington Award‖
shortly after the senator promised to ―break‖ Obama by making health reform his ―Waterloo.‖)
While the Koch brothers — each worth over $21.5 billion — have certainly underwritten much
of the right, their hidden coordination with other big business money has gone largely unnoticed.
ThinkProgress has obtained a memo outlining the details of the last Koch gathering held in June
of this year. The memo, along with an attendee list of about 210 people, shows the titans of
industry — from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real
estate tycoons — working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives to
plan the 2010 election, as well as ongoing conservative efforts through 2012. According to the
memo, David Chavern, the number two at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Fox News hatetalker Glenn Beck also met with these representatives of the corporate elite. In an election
season with the most undisclosed secret corporate giving since the Watergate-era, the memo
sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between extremely profitable, multi-billion dollar
corporations and much of the conservative infrastructure. The memo describes the prospective
corporate donors as ―investors,‖ and it makes clear that many of the Republican operatives
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managing shadowy, undisclosed fronts running attack ads against Democrats were involved in
the Koch‘s election-planning event:
– Corporate ―investors‖ at the Koch meeting included businesses with a strong
profit motive in rolling back President Obama‘s enacted reforms. Several
companies impacted by health reform, including Allan Hubbard of A & E
Industries, a manufacturer of medical devices and Judson Green, a board
member of health insurance conglomerate Aon, were present at the meeting.
Other businessmen at the meeting, like Omaha Burger King franchiser Mike
Simmonds, are owners of fast food stores which have fought efforts to provide
health insurance to their employees. Many corporate attendees of the meeting
represent the financial industry impacted by Wall Street reform. For instance,
attendee Bill Cooper is the CEO of TCF Financial, a corporation involved in the
mortgage banking industry. Cooper recently filed a lawsuit challenging the
constitutionality of Wall Street reform. Other financial industry players in the
meeting hail from firms ranging from Bank of America, JLM Investment, Allied
Capital Corp, AMG National Trust, the Blackstone Group and Citadel
Investment. Annie Dickerson, a representative of Paul Singer, a powerful hedge
fund manager who also gives tens of millions to Republican causes, was present.
In addition, Koch Industries itself has a hedge fund and other financial derivative
products in its portfolio of interests, which include oil pipelines, coal shipping,
asphalt, refineries, consumer goods, timber, ranching, and chemicals.
– Corporate ―investors‖ at the Koch meeting included businesses with a strong
profit motive in preventing progressive reforms promised by President Obama.
Several executives at the meeting have an incentive to stop Democrats and
President Obama from addressing climate change and enacting clean energy
reform. The meeting included oil executives from Aspect Energy, Murfin
Drilling, Anschutz Company, GeoPark Holdings, Smoky Oil, and several
members of Koch‘s various subsidiaries. The meeting documents explicitly state
that funding efforts to curb ―climate change alarmism‖ were discussed.
– Fred Malek, Karl Rove‘s top fundraiser for his $56 million attack ad campaign
against Democrats, attended the meeting, along with leaders of other secret attack
groups. Heather Higgins, who leads the Independent Women‘s Forum, a shadowy
group that has spent millions of dollars in attack ads on health reform, attended
the meeting. So did Gretchen Hamel, a former Bush flak who now runs an attack
ad group called ―Public Notice,‖ which denounces spending programs.
– Participants collaborated with infamous consultants who specialize in
generating fake grassroots movements, as well as experts on how corporations
should take advantage of Citizens United. One session, about how to ―mobilize
citizens for November,‖ involved a discussion with Republican strategists Tim
Phillips and Sean Noble, anti-union leader Mark Mix, and longtime Koch
operative Karl Crow. Phillips — a veteran astroturf lobbyist who previously
managed a deceptive grassroots lobbying campaign to help the Hong Kong-based
Tan family maintain their forced abortion sweatshops in the Mariana Islands —
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now leads the day-to-day operations of Americans for Prosperity, the group
ThinkProgress first reported to have helped organize many of the initial Tea
Party rallies against Obama. Americans for Prosperity, founded and financed by
David Koch, has a field team of over 80 campaign staffers spread out around the
country, and additionally plans to spend $45 million dollars worth of attack ads
against Democrats. Shortly before the planning meeting, Crow authored a
campaign finance memo explaining that because of the Citizens United Supreme
Court ruling, he advised specifically that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce‘s
501(c)(6) and Americans for Prosperity‘s 501(c)(4) can ―now use general treasury
funds to produce communications materials opposing or supporting specific
candidates‖ and corporations can aggressively pressure their employees to vote a
certain way.
The memo notes that participants in the 2010 election planning meeting ―committed to an
unprecedented level of support.‖
Interestingly, the Koch meetings are managed by Kevin Gentry, an executive who doubles as a
staffer in the Koch Industries lobbying office in Washington and as the key point person who
helps deliver Koch charitable foundation grants. As ThinkProgress has documented, Koch
Industries has dramatically boosted its own profits by using conservative front groups to
manipulate public policy. The fusion between the ―intellectual‖ conservative movement and big
businesses opposed to regulations and accountability has a history in America dating back to the
New Deal. During the thirties, the Du Pont family and other wealthy interests organized an
assortment of ―Liberty League‖ front groups to try to defeat New Deal agenda items and repeal
President Roosevelt‘s Social Security program. Now, corporations fund groups like the Heritage
Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute — both had representatives at the Koch
meeting — to further their lobbying agenda. The American Enterprise Institute even changed its
name from the New Deal-era American Enterprise Association to try to dispel the notion that
they were nothing more than a glorified business trade association.
As the memo states, Beck has addressed this regular gathering of conservative corporate
executives in previous years. Past Koch meetings have included various Republican lawmakers,
including DeMint, and Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia as speakers.
After ThinkProgess published its exclusive investigation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
revealing that the Chamber has been actively fundraising from foreign corporations for its
501(c)(6) account used to run a $75 million attack ad campaign, Chamber lobbyists found
common cause with Beck and many of the conservative talking heads. Shortly after our
investigation, Beck hosted an on-air fundraiser, asking his audience to give to the Chamber.
Casual observers might have been surprised by the Chamber‘s swift alliance with Beck
(Chamber executives appeared on the Beck radio program and sung Beck‘s praises on the
Chamber blog), who has compared Obama to Adolf Hitler and called the President a ―racist‖
who has a ―deep-seated hatred for white people.‖ By telling his listeners to give money to the
Chamber, Beck, who owns a media company worth more than $32 million dollars and an
experimental Mercedes Benz, essentially told his working class viewers to give their wages
back to their employers. However, Beck never disclosed his long working history of discussing
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political strategy with America‘s largest corporations. The Koch memo clearly shows that Beck
has been collaborating with the Chamber, as well as other titans of industry, for years. In his
latest appeal for support to the Chamber‘s foreign-funded trade association, which already counts
JP Morgan and ExxonMobil as dues-paying members, Beck yesterday told his audience that the
Chamber simply ―defends the little guy.‖
Click below to view a letter inviting corporate executives to attend the next Koch meeting in
January, along with a list of the sessions held by Koch for the last meeting in June of 2010. An
attendee list of the June, 2010 meeting is attached at the bottom of the document:
CAPAF interns Salvatore Colleluori, Riley Waggaman, and Ben Kaldunski contributed to
this post.
Some of the donors at the Koch meeting were longtime Bush fundraisers, like Cintas
Corporation CEO Dick Farmer and wholesale executive Art Pope. However, many names appear
to be relatively new to conservative movement ―investment.‖ Click below for a listing of the
attendees
Name(s)
Jack and Rose
Marie Anderson
Industry
Finance
Neil Anderson
and Amy FisherSmith
Notes
Culver Corp, Rose Marie and Jack R. Anderson
Foundation- Financial Advisor
Runs Rose Marie and Jack R. Anderson
Foundation
Phil and Nancy
Anschutz
Investment
Industrialist, Owner, Weekly Standard, Examiner
newspapers
Cliff Asness
Investment
AQR Capital Management
Nate and Lynda
Bachman
Finance
The Bachman Group-Financial Advisor
Whitney Ball
Think Tank
Owner of a firm that helps corporations give
anonymous gifts to front groups
Michael Barone
Media
Fox News
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Frank and Kathy
Banking
Baxter
Ambassador Frank E. Baxter is Chairman
Emeritus of Jefferies and Company, Inc., a global
investment bank focusing on mid-cap companies.
Steve and Betty
Bechtel
Engineering
Owns the Bechtel Group (Corporation), Largest
engineering company in United States
Glenn Beck
Media
Fox News
Bernard and
Margaret
Blasingame
Manufacturing
President and owner of Aqua Dynamics Systems,
Inc
Alan and Lisa
Boeckmann
Oil
CEO Fluor Corporation
Boysie Bollinger Shipping/Commerce
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive
Officer of Bollinger Shipyards
Patrick and Paula
Real Estate
Broe
Founder and CEO of Denver-based real estate
asset management firm, The Broe Group
Arthur Brooks
Think Tank
President, American Enterprise Institute
David and Ann
Brown
Think Tank
Heritage Foundation
Oil
C. Robert Buford has been President and owner of
Zenith Drilling Corporation
Shelby and Nell
Bush
Energy
Vice President, Legal and Administration –
Hillwood Energy
Tim Carney
Media
Political Columnist, Washington Examiner
David Chavern
Lobbyist
Executive Vice President and COO at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce
John Childs
Insurance
Chairman and CEO of J.W. Childs and Associates
John Bryan
Bob and Martha
Buford
Tim Busch
Charlies and
Marla Chandler
Paul and Lea
Clifton
Susie Coelhoe
Runs Robert and Marie Hansen Family Foundation
Media
Bill Cooper and
Finance/Banking
Kristin Tollefson
founder and CEO of Susie Coelho Enterprises Inc.
CEO of TCF Financial
Dino and Joan
Cortopassi
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Joe Craft
Coal
Joseph W. Craft III is president, chief executive
officer and director of Alliance Resource Partners
LP
Alex Cranberg
Energy
Aspect Holdings, LLC – Chairman
Jeff Crank
Americans For
AFP State Director
Prosperity / Radio Pundit
Karl Crow
Policy Analyst
Capital Research Center
Eric Crown and
Isabella King
Technology Sales
Sell Technology Equipment
Kevin
Crutchfield
Coal
Kevin S. Crutchfield serves as Chief Executive
Officer of Alpha Coal Sales Co., LLC.
Jim and Shirley
Dannenbaum
Engineering
Mr. Dannenbaum, Chairman of Dannenbaum
Engineering Corporation
Veronique de
Rugy
Think Tank
Senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center
Rich and Helen
DeVos
Business
Founder and CEO of Amway
Ravenell and
Beth Curry
Annie Dickerson Business
CBRE analyst
Ned and Nancy
Diefenthal
Jim and Dorothy
Oil
Patterson
Gulf Stream Petroleum
Dan and Kellie
Peters
Non-for Profit
Daniel S. Peters is president of the Ruth and
Lovett Peters Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio
Tom Petrie
Banking
Co-founder of BofA Merrill Lynch Petrie
Divestiture Advisors
Dixon and Carol
Doll
Technology
Co-Founder and General Partner of DCM
Karl and Stevie
Eller
Advertising
Ron and Kris
Erickson
Retail
Ronald A. Erickson is the Chief Executive Officer
and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Holiday
Companies
Melvyn and
Suellen Estrin
Natural Gas
Director of WGL Holdings INC
Dick Farmer
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Peter Farrell
Biomed
Founder of Resmed
Bob Kohlhepp
Manufacturing/Services
Vice Chairman, Cintas Corp.
Charles
Krauthammer
Media
Washington Post
Jim and Zibbie
Ferrell
Fuel Oil
Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. engages in the
distribution and sale of propane and related
equipment primarily in the United States.
Dave Fettig
Natural Gas
Tank Craft, Duracraft Fuel energy
Bob Fettig
Natural Gas
Tank Craft, Duracraft Fuel energy
Steve Fettig
Natural Gas
Tank Craft, Duracraft Fuel energy
Jerry and Nanette
Banking
Finger
Managing Partner, Finger Interests LTD
Richard Fink
Koch Industries
Director of Georgia-Pacific, EVP of Koch
Industries
Budd and Lauri
Florkiewicz
Manufacturing
Foam Fabricators
Charlie and Kaye
Finance
Lynn Fote
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fotec Group
LLC
Randy and Jean
Foutch
Oil
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Laredo
Petroleum, Inc.
Foster Friess
Investment
Mr. Foster Stephen Friess is the Founder and
Chairman of Friess Associates, LLC
Jerry and Leah
Fullinwider
Energy/Petroleum
Vice Chairman, Hillwood International Energy,
L.P.
Richard and
Leslie Gilliam
Coal
Richard Gilliam has been President of Cumberland
Resources Corporation since 1993.
Susan Gore
Think Tank
Founder, Wyoming Liberty Group
Steve and Polly
Friess
Oliver and
Med and Telecom
Carolyn Grace Jr.
President and chief executive officer of Anderson
Group, Inc.,
Judson and Joyce
Energy and Med
Green
Mr. Judson C. Green is the President and Chief
Executive Officer of NAVTEQ Corp.
Ken and Anne
Griffin
Investment Banking
Founder and CEO of Citadel Investment Group
Oil
Mr. Frederic C. Hamilton served as the President,
Gretchen Hamel
Fred and Jane
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Hamilton
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the
Board of BHP Petroleum, Hamilton Oil Company
and various Hamilton Oil Corporation subsidiaries
and affiliates
Bob and Mary
Sue Hawk
Communications
President of Hawk Communications
Dick and Ethie
Haworth
Retail
Head of Haworth Furniture, Multi-national
corporation, 3rd largest corporate furniture
company in US
Robin and
Barbara Hayes
Government
Former NC Congressman
Dan and Carolyn
Manufacturing
Heard
Executive Officer of John H. Carter Co.,
Diane Hendricks Manufacturing
Husband of Ken Hendricks
Steve and Regina
Auto Sales
Hennessy
Auto Sales
James and
Heather Higgins
Think Tank
Independent Women‘s Forum
Paul Hill
Oil
Paul J. Hill serves as the Chief Executive Officer
and has been President of Harvard Developments
Inc. since 1978. Mr. Hill serves as the Chief
Executive Officer and President of The Hill
Companies.
John and Joan
Hotchkis
Education
Board of Directors for Teach for America UC
Berkley
Allan and Kathy
Hubbard
Chemicals and
Manufacturing
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, E & A
Industries, Inc.
Stan and Karen
Hubbard
Communications
Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and
President, Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.
Ethelmae
Humphreys
Think Tank
Cato Institute
Manley and Mary
Political Consultant
Johnson
Merritt Johnson
Gerry and
Priscilla
O‘Shaughnessy
Oil
Gerald Eugene O‘Shaughnessy Co-founded
Geopark Holding Limited in 2002.
Michael
O‘Shaunessy
Technology
Petters Consumer Brands, LLC develops consumer
electronics and appliances.
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Media
Hungry Machine, Inc., doing business as
LivingSocial.com, is a social discovery and
cataloging network.
Mike and Beth
Kasser
Real Estate
President, Holualoa Inc
Ken and Randy
Kendrick
Education/Technology
Chairman, Datatel
Phil and Joanna
Kerpen
Advocacy Group/Think
Tank
VP of Policy, Americans for Prosperity
Gerry and
Kathryn Kingen
Restauranteur
Red Robin, Happy Guests Int‘ll
Tim
O‘Shaughnessy
Marshall Johnson
Kyle and Kirsten
Johnstone
Scott Kirkpatrick Investor
Charles and Liz
Koch
Teton Capital
Koch Industries
Chase and Annie
Koch Industries
Koch
David and Julia
Koch
Koch Industries
Elizabeth Koch
Koch Industries
Bob and Cindy
Koch
Koch Industries
Bob Kohlhepp
Manufacturing/Services
Vice Chairman, Cintas Corp.
Dennis Kuester
Banking
Retired CEO of M&I Bank
Andrew
Kupersmith
Consultant
MD, Cardiology Consultants
Andre Lacy
Investment
Chairman, Lacy Diversified Industries
Ken and Elaine
Langone
Retail
Invemed, Home Depot
Jay and Sally
Lapeyre
Services
Laitram Corp
Ken and Frayda
Levy
Investment
JLM Investment Mgmt
Tom Love
Retail
CEO, President, Love‘s Country Stores
Bob Luddy
Manufacturing
President, Captive Aire Systems
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Fred and Marlene
Investment Management Thayer Capital Partners
Malek
Elaine Marshall
Homemaker
Administrative
Management
MAROPCO
Bill Mayer
Health Care
MD, Mayer & Cope Family Practice
Glen and Diane
Meakem
Business Solutions
CEO, Freemarkets Inc.
Ed Meese
Think Tank
Heritage Foundation
Lew and Suzy
Meibergen
Goods/Services
President, Johnston Enterprises/WG Johnston
Grain Co
Don and Deede
Meyers
Attorney
Self Employed
Pierce Marshall
Preston Marshall
Jerry and
Investment Management CEO/Principal, Milbank Winthrop & Co.
Caroline Milbank
Jack and Goldie
Miller
Retail
CEO/President, Quill Corp.
Mark Mix
Advocacy Group
President, National Right to Work Committee
Joe and Mary
Moeller
Koch Industries
Vice Chairman
Steve Moore
Media
member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board
David Murfin
Energy
President, Murfin Drilling Co.
Larry and Polly
Nichols
Energy
Executive Chairman, Devon Energy Corp
Sean Noble
Front Group
Americans for Prosperity
Tim and Teresa
Oelke
Advocacy
Group/Construction
Teresa – State Director of Americans for
Prosperity, Tim – Crossland Construction Corp
Eric O‘Keefe
Front Group
Sam Adams Alliance
Media
President of MediaSpeak Strategies/former
political commentator on Fox News, CNN and
MSNBC and former Senior Policy Advisor and
National Spokesperson with the 2008 John
McCain presidential campaign
Walter and
Suzette Negley
Mina Nguyen
Kurt and Nancy
Pfotenhauer
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Tim Phillips
Advocacy Group
president, Americans for Prosperity
Ramesh Ponnuru Media
National Review magazine
Art and Kathy
Pope
Goods/Services
Senior Exec, Variety Wholesaler
Russ Roberts
Attorney
Roberts, Ashby & Parrish
Corbin and
Barbara
Robertson
Energy
President, Quintana Minerals Corp
Richard Roder
and Karin Hsu
Construction
Management
CEO, Cmt-Construction Management
Gary and
Kathleen Rogers
Goods
Former CEO, Dreyer‘s Grand Ice Cream
Durk Rorie
Manufacturing
United Air Specialists
Chris Rufer
Goods/Manufacturing
Morningstar Company
Peter Schiff and
Martha O‘Brien
Investor
Schiff: Euro Pacific Capital Inc.,
Steve and
Christine
Schwarzman
Financial Services
CEO/founder, Blackstone Group
Rick and Sherry
Sharp
Retail
Former CEO, Circuit City
Mike and Lin
Simmonds
Services
CEO, Simmonds Restaurant Mgmt
Peter Smith
Services
CEO, Service Group of America
Dick Strong
Investment Services
Strong/Corneliuson Capital Mgmt
Michael Sullivan Investment Services
CR Intrinsic Investors
Ray and Ladeline
Manufacturing
Thompson
President/CEO, Semitool
Lynn Tilton
Investment Management CEO, Patriarch Partners LLC
Dave and
Melanie True
Oil
Partner
Steve Twist
Consultant
Rose & Allyn PR Consultants
Jim and Gayla
Von Ehr
Research/Development
CEO, Zyvex Corp
Rick and Debra
Waller
Manufacturing
Owner, Rollmeister Inc
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Peter Wallison
Think Tank
Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Bill and Sarah
Walton
Real Estate
Allied Capital Corp
Lew and Myra
Ward
Oil
Ward Petroleum Corporation owns and operates
wells. It engages in oil and gas exploration and
production. The company was founded in 1963
and is based in Enid, Oklahoma.
Dick Weekley
Real Estate
Weekley Properties
Fred and Susie
Wehba
Real Estate
Bentley Forbes Real Estate
Nestor Weigand
and Darcy
Buehler
Real Estate
JP Weigand & Sons Real Estate
Dick and Mary
Beth Weiss
Life Insurance
Wells Fargo, Hawthorne Rances
Howard and
Rhonda Wilkins
Insurance
Diversified Insurance
Don and Sue
Wills
Oil
Bob Kohlhepp
Manufacturing/Services
Bob Kohlhepp
Manufacturing/Services
Larry and
Lorraine
Winnerman
Real Estate
Win Win Enterprises
Earl Wright
Finance
AMG Natinal Trust
Karen Wright
and Tom Rastin
Energy/Manufacturing
Tom Rastin, vice president of marketing and
engineering, Ariel Corp – Karen Wright, Ariel
CEO
Cliff and Susan
Yonce
Investment Banking
Goldman Sachs
Services
Diversified Search, LLC provides senior-level
executive and corporate board search services in
the United States and internationally. It provides
recruitment services for various organizations in
consumer and industrial, education, not-for-profit,
arts and culture, financial and professional
Vice Chairman, Cintas Corp.
Vice Chairman, Cintas Corp.
Joe Woodford
Fred and Sandra
Young
15
services, business, healthcare and human services,
life sciences, media and entertainment, sports and
leisure, energy and utilities, private equity, retail,
and technology and communications industries.
16
Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets: Koch Industries,
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00236489 (last visited Jan. 18, 2011)
17
Kate Zernike, Shaping Tea Party Passion Into Campaign Force, New York Times (Aug. 25,
2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/politics/26freedom.html
August 25, 2010
Shaping Tea Party Passion Into Campaign Force
By KATE ZERNIKE
WASHINGTON — On a Saturday in August when most of the political class has escaped this city‟s swelter, 50 Tea
Party leaders have flown in from across the country to jam into a conference room in an office building on
Pennsylvania Avenue, apparently unconcerned that the fancy address does not guarantee air-conditioning on
weekends. They have come to learn how to take over the country, voter by voter.
Look for houses with flags, they are instructed; their residents tend to be patriotic conservatives. Marine flags or
religious symbols, ditto. Take doggie treats with you as you canvass neighborhoods — “Now they are your best friend;
it‟s dog person to dog person.” Don‟t just hand out yard signs and bumper stickers for your candidate — offer to plant
them on the lawn or paste them on the bumper (front driver‟s side works best.) Follow up with thank you notes, the
handwritten kind. Be polite, and don‟t take rejection personally: “Remember, it‟s for freedom!”
This is a three-day “boot camp” at FreedomWorks, the Washington advocacy group that has done more than any
other organization to build the Tea Party movement. For 18 months, the group‟s young staff has been conducting
training sessions like this one across the country, in hotel conference rooms or basements of bars, shaping the
inchoate anger of the Tea Party with its libertarian ideology and leftist organizing tactics.
The goal is to turn local Tea Party groups into a standing get-out-the-vote operation in Congressional districts across
the country. Sarah Palin made community organizing a term of derision during the 2008 presidential campaign;
FreedomWorks has made Tea Party conservatives the surprise community organizing force of the 2010 midterm
elections, showing on-the-ground strength in races like the Republican primary for the Senate in Alaska on Tuesday,
where the upstart Joe Miller was leading Senator Lisa Murkowski in a race that may take weeks to call.
“This movement, if we can turn out hundreds or thousands to the streets to protest and wave signs and yell and make
an impact on public policy debate, then we can make a lot of difference,” Brendan Steinhauser, FreedomWorks‟s chief
organizer for the Tea Party groups, told the leaders gathered here. “But if those same people go and walk
neighborhoods and do all the things we‟re talking about, put up the door-hangers in the final 72 hours and make the
phone calls, we may crush some of these guys.”
18
In recent months, FreedomWorks has teamed up with Glenn Beck, the biggest celebrity of the Tea Party movement to
promote it. This weekend, with many Tea Party supporters descending on Washington for a rally that Mr. Beck is
holding at the Lincoln Memorial, FreedomWorks is staging a convention where Tea Party candidates will address
1,600 activists.
Through its political action committee, FreedomWorks plans to spend $10 million on the midterm elections, on
campaign paraphernalia — signs for candidates like Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida are stacked
around the offices here — voter lists, and a phone system that allows volunteers to make calls for candidates around
the country from their home computers. With “microfinancing” grants, it will steer money from FreedomWorks
donors — the tax code protects their anonymity — to local Tea Parties.
Other groups will spend more. On the left, a coalition of unions plans to spend at least $88 million; on the right,
Americans for Prosperity will spend $45 million.
But FreedomWorks‟s pitch to activists is that the money is not really the point. It is about convincing friends,
neighbors and strangers in Congressional districts where 100 or 1,000 votes can make all the difference. The activists
tend to be a zealous lot to start with; FreedomWorks urges them to channel that energy by becoming precinct
captains, knocking on doors and learning from the way that Barack Obama — not someone Tea Party supporters
generally admire — wrapped up the Democratic nomination for president by organizing the caucus states.
FreedomWorks was founded in 1984 as Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was financed by the Koch Foundation,
the underwriter for many libertarian causes. In 2003, it hired as its chairman Dick Armey, the former Texas
congressman and House majority leader who was a force behind the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.
While Mr. Armey serves as a kind of ambassador for FreedomWorks, the day-to-day task of organizing Tea Party
groups has gone to a staff of about 20 hard-charging conservatives in their 20s and 30s — a striking contrast to a
movement that is made up largely of people twice their age and more. Tea Party leaders at the boot camp gasped
when Mr. Steinhauser emphasized the importance of going after so-called Reagan Democrats and then noted that he
himself was not born until 1981, after Ronald Reagan‟s first inauguration.
Staff members like to say that they model FreedomWorks on the Grateful Dead or Virgin Atlantic Airways: they want
to build a like-minded community, an endeavor that is as much fun as work.
But they are also deeply ideological; a portrait of Ayn Rand hangs on the office walls along with one of Jerry Garcia.
FreedomWorks was founded to promote the theories of the Austrian economic school, which argues that economic
models are useless because they cannot account for all the variables of human behavior, and that markets must be
unfettered to succeed.
19
New employees receive a required-reading list that includes “Rules for Radicals,” by Saul Alinsky, the father of
modern community organizing, and “A Force More Powerful,” about 20th-century social movements, as well as
Frédéric Bastiat‟s “The Law,” which argues that governments are essentially stealing when they tax their citizens to
spend on welfare, infrastructure or public education. FreedomWorks urges Tea Party groups to read the same works.
(“It‟s better than „Going Rogue,‟ ” said Mr. Steinhauser, referring to Ms. Palin‟s memoir.)
While other conservative groups have tried to mobilize the Tea Party energy, FreedomWorks moved first, and most
aggressively. Hours after Rick Santelli called for “a Chicago tea party” in a widely viewed rant on CNBC in February
2009, it put up a Web site with tips on how to hold a tea party, then a Google map of events. As more people found
the map on Web searches, they e-mailed FreedomWorks information on their own events, ultimately allowing Mr.
Steinhauser to compile a list of thousands of Tea Party contacts across the country.
That list allowed the group to mobilize volunteers to Massachusetts in January to campaign for Scott P. Brown, who
won the United States Senate seat that had been occupied by Edward M. Kennedy for nearly 50 years, and to Utah to
elect Mike Lee as the Republican nominee for Senate after Tea Party groups deposed the three-term incumbent
Robert F. Bennett. About 180,000 people voted in the primary that Mr. Lee won; FreedomWorks says 30,000 had
received a phone call or a visit from its volunteers.
Its candidates are libertarians and economic conservatives, but in the 2010 midterm elections, FreedomWorks is
urging Tea Party groups to work for any Republican, on the theory that a compromised Republican is better than
Democratic control of Congress.
Mr. Steinhauser has traveled to 42 states to train local groups or meet with leaders in races where FreedomWorks
hopes to make a difference. But the Tea Parties like to think of themselves as leaderless organizations, and are
suspicious of attempts to co-opt their energy.
In a swing through New England last month, he met with activists eager to defeat Charlie Bass, a former Republican
congressman from New Hampshire who is running again in the Sept. 14 primary. But they did not want to endorse
either of the Tea Party candidates because they feared their membership would resent anything that looked like topdown control. “You have to endorse,” Mr. Steinhauser told them. “If you don‟t, the bad guys will.” Each group should
endorse separately, he advised, so that the local news media would write a new story each time.
Still, the activists were eager for outside advice.
“If you give us the education, we‟ll do the work,” Robert Horr, the chairman of the Cumberland County Tea Party, in
Maine, told him. “Just aim us.”
20
Mr. Steinhauser encouraged the Maine activists to start getting behind candidates to challenge Senator Olympia J.
Snowe, a Republican up for re-election in 2012.
FreedomWorks is focused particularly on midterm races in Florida, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. For the boot
camp in Washington, it had flown in representatives from those states.
Nan Swift, FreedomWorks‟s campaign manager, encouraged them to stage dramatic events to call attention to their
candidates — “Everyone already thinks we‟re crazy, embrace it!” — and to sign up for their opponents‟ e-mails, then
go to their events and swamp them with signs.
Mr. Steinhauser urged them not to waste their energy on districts so deeply Democratic that they cannot be won.
Still, he did not cut off any opportunity; after all, he noted, no one thought Scott Brown could win. “This year, if
there‟s one message you can take away,” he said, “it‟s that nothing is impossible for us.”
Close
21
Jane Mayer, Covert Operations, The New Yorker (Aug. 30, 2010),
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer.
Subscribe to The New Yorker
A REPORTER AT LARGE
COVERT OPERATIONS
The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
by Jane Mayer AUGUST 30, 2010
David H. Koch in 1996. He and his brother Charles are lifelong libertarians and have quietly given more than a
hundred million dollars to right-wing causes.
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Keywords
Charles Koch;
David Koch;
Koch Industries;
Libertarians;
Tea Party Movement;
Rich People;
Environment
On May 17th, a black-tie audience at the Metropolitan Opera House applauded as a tall, jovial-looking
billionaire took the stage. It was the seventieth annual spring gala of American Ballet Theatre, and David H.
Koch was being celebrated for his generosity as a member of the board of trustees; he had recently donated
$2.5 million toward the company‘s upcoming season, and had given many millions before that. Koch received
an award while flanked by two of the gala‘s co-chairs, Blaine Trump, in a peach-colored gown, and Caroline
Kennedy Schlossberg, in emerald green. Kennedy‘s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had been a patron of
the ballet and, coincidentally, the previous owner of a Fifth Avenue apartment that Koch had bought, in 1995,
and then sold, eleven years later, for thirty-two million dollars, having found it too small.
The gala marked the social ascent of Koch, who, at the age of seventy, has become one of the city‘s most
prominent philanthropists. In 2008, he donated a hundred million dollars to modernize Lincoln Center‘s New
York State Theatre building, which now bears his name. He has given twenty million to the American
Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him. This spring, after noticing the decrepit
state of the fountains outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Koch pledged at least ten million dollars for
their renovation. He is a trustee of the museum, perhaps the most coveted social prize in the city, and serves on
the board of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where, after he donated more than forty million dollars,
an endowed chair and a research center were named for him.
One dignitary was conspicuously absent from the gala: the event‘s third honorary co-chair, Michelle
Obama. Her office said that a scheduling conflict had prevented her from attending. Yet had the First Lady
shared the stage with Koch it might have created an awkward tableau. In Washington, Koch is best known as
part of a family that has repeatedly funded stealth attacks on the federal government, and on the Obama
Administration in particular.
With his brother Charles, who is seventy-four, David Koch owns virtually all of Koch Industries, a
conglomerate, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion
dollars. The company has grown spectacularly since their father, Fred, died, in 1967, and the brothers took
charge. The Kochs operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand
miles of pipeline. Koch Industries owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber,
Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in
the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago,
bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America. Their combined fortune of thirty-five
billion dollars is exceeded only by those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes,
minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental
regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers‘ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the
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University of Massachusetts at Amherst‘s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of
the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a
―kingpin of climate science denial.‖ The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid
ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a
huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded
opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the
economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.
In a statement, Koch Industries said that the Greenpeace report ―distorts the environmental record of our
companies.‖ And David Koch, in a recent, admiring article about him in New York, protested that the ―radical
press‖ had turned his family into ―whipping boys,‖ and had exaggerated its influence on American politics.
But Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, ―The
Kochs are on a whole different level. There‘s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer
dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and
obfuscation. I‘ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I‘ve never seen anything like it. They are the
Standard Oil of our times.‖
A few weeks after the Lincoln Center gala, the advocacy wing of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation—
an organization that David Koch started, in 2004—held a different kind of gathering. Over the July 4th
weekend, a summit called Texas Defending the American Dream took place in a chilly hotel ballroom in
Austin. Though Koch freely promotes his philanthropic ventures, he did not attend the summit, and his name
was not in evidence. And on this occasion the audience was roused not by a dance performance but by a series
of speakers denouncing President Barack Obama. Peggy Venable, the organizer of the summit, warned that
Administration officials ―have a socialist vision for this country.‖
Five hundred people attended the summit, which served, in part, as a training session for Tea Party
activists in Texas. An advertisement cast the event as a populist uprising against vested corporate power.
―Today, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests,‖ it said.
―But you can do something about it.‖ The pitch made no mention of its corporate funders. The White House
has expressed frustration that such sponsors have largely eluded public notice. David Axelrod, Obama‘s senior
adviser, said, ―What they don‘t say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens‘ movement brought to you by a
bunch of oil billionaires.‖
In April, 2009, Melissa Cohlmia, a company spokesperson, denied that the Kochs had direct links to the
Tea Party, saying that Americans for Prosperity is ―an independent organization and Koch companies do not in
any way direct their activities.‖ Later, she issued a statement: ―No funding has been provided by Koch
companies, the Koch foundations, or Charles Koch or David Koch specifically to support the tea parties.‖
David Koch told New York, ―I‘ve never been to a tea-party event. No one representing the tea party has ever
even approached me.‖
At the lectern in Austin, however, Venable—a longtime political operative who draws a salary from
Americans for Prosperity, and who has worked for Koch-funded political groups since 1994—spoke less
warily. ―We love what the Tea Parties are doing, because that‘s how we‘re going to take back America!‖ she
declared, as the crowd cheered. In a subsequent interview, she described herself as an early member of the
movement, joking, ―I was part of the Tea Party before it was cool!‖ She explained that the role of Americans
for Prosperity was to help ―educate‖ Tea Party activists on policy details, and to give them ―next-step training‖
24
after their rallies, so that their political energy could be channelled ―more effectively.‖ And she noted that
Americans for Prosperity had provided Tea Party activists with lists of elected officials to target. She said of
the Kochs, ―They‘re certainly our people. David‘s the chairman of our board. I‘ve certainly met with them, and
I‘m very appreciative of what they do.‖
Venable honored several Tea Party ―citizen leaders‖ at the summit. The Texas branch of Americans for
Prosperity gave its Blogger of the Year Award to a young woman named Sibyl West. On June 14th, West,
writing on her site, described Obama as the ―cokehead in chief.‖ In an online thread, West speculated that the
President was exhibiting symptoms of ―demonic possession (aka schizophrenia, etc.).‖ The summit featured
several paid speakers, including Janine Turner, the actress best known for her role on the television series
―Northern Exposure.‖ She declared, ―They don‘t want our children to know about their rights. They don‘t want
our children to know about a God!‖
During a catered lunch, Venable introduced Ted Cruz, a former solicitor general of Texas, who told the
crowd that Obama was ―the most radical President ever to occupy the Oval Office,‖ and had hidden from
voters a secret agenda—―the government taking over our economy and our lives.‖ Countering Obama, Cruz
proclaimed, was ―the epic fight of our generation!‖ As the crowd rose to its feet and cheered, he quoted the
defiant words of a Texan at the Alamo: ―Victory, or death!‖
Americans for Prosperity has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement‘s inception. In the
weeks before the first Tax Day protests, in April, 2009, Americans for Prosperity hosted a Web site offering
supporters ―Tea Party Talking Points.‖ The Arizona branch urged people to send tea bags to Obama; the
Missouri branch urged members to sign up for ―Taxpayer Tea Party Registration‖ and provided directions to
nine protests. The group continues to stoke the rebellion. The North Carolina branch recently launched a ―Tea
Party Finder‖ Web site, advertised as ―a hub for all the Tea Parties in North Carolina.‖
The anti-government fervor infusing the 2010 elections represents a political triumph for the Kochs. By
giving money to ―educate,‖ fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda
into a mass movement. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and a historian, who once worked at the
National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank that the Kochs fund, said, ―The problem with
the whole libertarian movement is that it‘s been all chiefs and no Indians. There haven‘t been any actual
people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a
movement.‖ With the emergence of the Tea Party, he said, ―everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there
are Indians out there—people who can provide real ideological power.‖ The Kochs, he said, are ―trying to
shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.‖
A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of
the Tea Party, ―The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It‘s like they put the seeds in the ground.
Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they‘re our candidates!‖
The Kochs and their political operatives declined requests for interviews. Instead, a prominent New York
public-relations executive who is close with the Kochs put forward two friends: George Pataki, the former
governor of New York, and Mortimer Zuckerman, the publisher and real-estate magnate. Pataki, a Republican
who received campaign donations from David Koch, called him ―a patriot who cares deeply about his
country.‖ Zuckerman praised David‘s ―gentle decency‖ and the ―range of his public interests.‖
The Republican campaign consultant said of the family‘s political activities, ―To call them under the radar
is an understatement. They are underground!‖ Another former Koch adviser said, ―They‘re smart. This right-
25
wing, redneck stuff works for them. They see this as a way to get things done without getting dirty
themselves.‖ Rob Stein, a Democratic political strategist who has studied the conservative movement‘s
finances, said that the Kochs are ―at the epicenter of the anti-Obama movement. But it‘s not just about Obama.
They would have done the same to Hillary Clinton. They did the same with Bill Clinton. They are out to
destroy progressivism.‖
Oddly enough, the fiercely capitalist Koch family owes part of its fortune to Joseph Stalin. Fred Koch was the
son of a Dutch printer who settled in Texas and ran a weekly newspaper. Fred attended M.I.T., where he
earned a degree in chemical engineering. In 1927, he invented a more efficient process for converting oil into
gasoline, but, according to family lore, America‘s major oil companies regarded him as a threat and shut him
out of the industry. Unable to succeed at home, Koch found work in the Soviet Union. In the nineteen-thirties,
his company trained Bolshevik engineers and helped Stalin‘s regime set up fifteen modern oil refineries. Over
time, however, Stalin brutally purged several of Koch‘s Soviet colleagues. Koch was deeply affected by the
experience, and regretted his collaboration. He returned to the U.S. In the headquarters of his company, Rock
Island Oil & Refining, in Wichita, he kept photographs aimed at proving that some of those Soviet refineries
had been destroyed in the Second World War. Gus diZerega, a former friend of Charles Koch, recalled, ―As
the Soviets became a stronger military power, Fred felt a certain amount of guilt at having helped build them
up. I think it bothered him a lot.‖
In 1958, Fred Koch became one of the original members of the John Birch Society, the arch-conservative
group known, in part, for a highly skeptical view of governance and for spreading fears of a Communist
takeover. Members considered President Dwight D. Eisenhower to be a Communist agent. In a self-published
broadside, Koch claimed that ―the Communists have infiltrated both the Democrat and Republican Parties.‖ He
wrote admiringly of Benito Mussolini‘s suppression of Communists in Italy, and disparagingly of the
American civil-rights movement. ―The colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America,‖
he warned. Welfare was a secret plot to attract rural blacks to cities, where they would foment ―a vicious race
war.‖ In a 1963 speech that prefigures the Tea Party‘s talk of a secret socialist plot, Koch predicted that
Communists would ―infiltrate the highest offices of government in the U.S. until the President is a Communist,
unknown to the rest of us.‖
Koch married Mary Robinson, the daughter of a Missouri physician, and they had four sons: Freddie,
Charles, and twins, David and William. John Damgard, the president of the Futures Industry Association, was
David‘s schoolmate and friend. He recalled that Fred Koch was ―a real John Wayne type.‖ Koch emphasized
rugged pursuits, taking his sons big-game hunting in Africa, and requiring them to do farm labor at the family
ranch. The Kochs lived in a stone mansion on a large compound across from Wichita‘s country club; in the
summer, the boys could hear their friends splashing in the pool, but they were not allowed to join them. ―By
instilling a work ethic in me at an early age, my father did me a big favor, although it didn‘t seem like a favor
back then,‖ Charles has written. ―By the time I was eight, he made sure work occupied most of my spare
time.‖ David Koch recalled that his father also indoctrinated the boys politically. ―He was constantly speaking
to us children about what was wrong with government,‖ he told Brian Doherty, an editor of the libertarian
magazine Reason, and the author of ―Radicals for Capitalism,‖ a 2007 history of the libertarian movement.
―It‘s something I grew up with—a fundamental point of view that big government was bad, and imposition of
government controls on our lives and economic fortunes was not good.‖
26
David attended Deerfield Academy, in Massachusetts, and Charles was sent to military school. Charles,
David, and William all earned engineering degrees at their father‘s alma mater, M.I.T., and later joined the
family company. Charles eventually assumed control, with David as his deputy; William‘s career at the
company was less successful. Freddie went to Harvard and studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.
His father reportedly disapproved of him, and punished him financially. (Freddie, through a spokesperson,
denied this.)
In 1967, after Fred Koch died, of a heart attack, Charles renamed the business Koch Industries, in honor of
his father. Fred Koch‘s will made his sons extraordinarily wealthy. David Koch joked about his good fortune
in a 2003 speech to alumni at Deerfield, where, after pledging twenty-five million dollars, he was made the
school‘s sole ―lifetime trustee.‖ He said, ―You might ask: How does David Koch happen to have the wealth to
be so generous? Well, let me tell you a story. It all started when I was a little boy. One day, my father gave me
an apple. I soon sold it for five dollars and bought two apples and sold them for ten. Then I bought four apples
and sold them for twenty. Well, this went on day after day, week after week, month after month, year after
year, until my father died and left me three hundred million dollars!‖
David and Charles had absorbed their father‘s conservative politics, but they did not share all his views,
according to diZerega, who befriended Charles in the mid-sixties, after meeting him while browsing in a John
Birch Society bookstore in Wichita. Charles eventually invited him to the Kochs‘ mansion, to participate in an
informal political-discussion group. ―It was pretty clear that Charles thought some of the Birch Society was
bullshit,‖ diZerega recalled.
DiZerega, who has lost touch with Charles, eventually abandoned right-wing views, and became a
political-science professor. He credits Charles with opening his mind to political philosophy, which set him on
the path to academia; Charles is one of three people to whom he dedicated his first book. But diZerega believes
that the Koch brothers have followed a wayward intellectual trajectory, transferring their father‘s paranoia
about Soviet Communism to a distrust of the U.S. government, and seeing its expansion, beginning with the
New Deal, as a tyrannical threat to freedom. In an essay, posted on Beliefnet, diZerega writes, ―As state
socialism failed . . . the target for many within these organizations shifted to any kind of regulation at all.
‗Socialism‘ kept being defined downwards.‖
Members of the John Birch Society developed an interest in a school of Austrian economists who
promoted free-market ideals. Charles and David Koch were particularly influenced by the work of Friedrich
von Hayek, the author of ―The Road to Serfdom‖ (1944), which argued that centralized government planning
led, inexorably, to totalitarianism. Hayek‘s belief in unfettered capitalism has proved inspirational to many
conservatives, and to anti-Soviet dissidents; lately, Tea Party supporters have championed his work. In June,
the talk-radio host Glenn Beck, who has supported the Tea Party rebellion, promoted ―The Road to Serfdom‖
on his show; the paperback soon became a No. 1 best-seller on Amazon. (Beck appears to be a fan of the
Kochs; in the midst of a recent on-air parody of Al Gore, Beck said, without explanation, ―I want to thank
Charles Koch for this information.‖ Beck declined to elaborate on the relationship.)
Charles and David also became devotees of a more radical thinker, Robert LeFevre, who favored the
abolition of the state but didn‘t like the label ―anarchist‖; he called himself an ―autarchist.‖ LeFevre liked to
say that ―government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.‖ In 1956, he opened an institution called the
Freedom School, in Colorado Springs. Brian Doherty, of Reason, told me that ―LeFevre was an anarchist
figure who won Charles‘s heart,‖ and that the school was ―a tiny world of people who thought the New Deal
27
was a horrible mistake.‖ According to diZerega, Charles supported the school financially, and even gave him
money to take classes there.
Throughout the seventies, Charles and David continued to build Koch Industries. In 1980, William, with
assistance from Freddie, attempted to take over the company from Charles, who, they felt, had assumed
autocratic control. In retaliation, the company‘s board, which answered to Charles, fired William. (―Charles
runs it all with an iron hand,‖ Bruce Bartlett, the economist, told me.) Lawsuits were filed, with William and
Freddie on one side and Charles and David on the other. In 1983, Charles and David bought out their brothers‘
share in the company for nearly a billion dollars. But the antagonism remained, and litigation continued for
seventeen more years, with the brothers hiring rival private investigators; in 1990, they walked past one
another with stony expressions at their mother‘s funeral. Eventually, Freddie moved to Monaco, which has no
income tax. He bought historic estates in France, Austria, and elsewhere, filling them with art, antiques, opera
scores, and literary manuscripts. William founded his own energy company, Oxbow, and turned to yachting;
he spent an estimated sixty-five million dollars to win the America‘s Cup, in 1992.
With Charles as the undisputed chairman and C.E.O., Koch Industries expanded rapidly. Roger Altman,
who heads the investment-banking firm Evercore, told me that the company‘s performance has been ―beyond
phenomenal.‖ Charles remained in Wichita, with his wife and two children, guarding his privacy while
supporting community charities. David moved to New York City, where he is an executive vice-president of
the company and the C.E.O. of its Chemical Technology Group. A financial expert who knows Koch
Industries well told me, ―Charles is the company. Charles runs it.‖ David, described by associates as ―affable‖
and ―a bit of a lunk,‖ enjoyed for years the life of a wealthy bachelor. He rented a yacht in the South of France
and bought a waterfront home in Southampton, where he threw parties that the Web site New York Social
Diary likened to an ―East Coast version of Hugh Hefner‘s soirées.‖ In 1996, he married Julia Flesher, a fashion
assistant. They live in a nine-thousand-square-foot duplex at 740 Park Avenue, with their three children.
Though David‘s manner is more cosmopolitan, and more genial, than that of Charles, Brian Doherty, who has
interviewed both brothers, couldn‘t think of a single issue on which the brothers disagreed.
As their fortunes grew, Charles and David Koch became the primary underwriters of hard-line libertarian
politics in America. Charles‘s goal, as Doherty described it, was to tear the government ―out at the root.‖ The
brothers‘ first major public step came in 1979, when Charles persuaded David, then thirty-nine, to run for
public office. They had become supporters of the Libertarian Party, and were backing its Presidential
candidate, Ed Clark, who was running against Ronald Reagan from the right. Frustrated by the legal limits on
campaign donations, they contrived to place David on the ticket, in the Vice-Presidential slot; upon becoming
a candidate, he could lavish as much of his personal fortune as he wished on the campaign. The ticket‘s slogan
was ―The Libertarian Party has only one source of funds: You.‖ In fact, its primary source of funds was David
Koch, who spent more than two million dollars on the effort.
Many of the ideas propounded in the 1980 campaign presaged the Tea Party movement. Ed Clark told The
Nation that libertarians were getting ready to stage ―a very big tea party,‖ because people were ―sick to death‖
of taxes. The Libertarian Party platform called for the abolition of the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., as well as of
federal regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Energy.
The Party wanted to end Social Security, minimum-wage laws, gun control, and all personal and corporate
income taxes; it proposed the legalization of prostitution, recreational drugs, and suicide. Government should
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be reduced to only one function: the protection of individual rights. William F. Buckley, Jr., a more traditional
conservative, called the movement ―Anarcho-Totalitarianism.‖
That November, the Libertarian ticket received only one per cent of the vote. The brothers realized that
their brand of politics didn‘t sell at the ballot box. Charles Koch became openly scornful of conventional
politics. ―It tends to be a nasty, corrupting business,‖ he told a reporter at the time. ―I‘m interested in
advancing libertarian ideas.‖ According to Doherty‘s book, the Kochs came to regard elected politicians as
merely ―actors playing out a script.‖ A longtime confidant of the Kochs told Doherty that the brothers wanted
to ―supply the themes and words for the scripts.‖ In order to alter the direction of America, they had to
―influence the areas where policy ideas percolate from: academia and think tanks.‖
After the 1980 election, Charles and David Koch receded from the public arena. But they poured more than a
hundred million dollars into dozens of seemingly independent organizations. Tax records indicate that in 2008
the three main Koch family foundations gave money to thirty-four political and policy organizations, three of
which they founded, and several of which they direct. The Kochs and their company have given additional
millions to political campaigns, advocacy groups, and lobbyists. The family‘s subterranean financial role has
fuelled suspicion on the left; Lee Fang, of the liberal blog ThinkProgress, has called the Kochs ―the billionaires
behind the hate.‖
Only the Kochs know precisely how much they have spent on politics. Public tax records show that
between 1998 and 2008 the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation spent more than forty-eight million
dollars. The Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is controlled by Charles Koch and his wife, along
with two company employees and an accountant, spent more than twenty-eight million. The David H. Koch
Charitable Foundation spent more than a hundred and twenty million. Meanwhile, since 1998 Koch Industries
has spent more than fifty million dollars on lobbying. Separately, the company‘s political-action committee,
KochPAC, has donated some eight million dollars to political campaigns, more than eighty per cent of it to
Republicans. So far in 2010, Koch Industries leads all other energy companies in political contributions, as it
has since 2006. In addition, during the past dozen years the Kochs and other family members have personally
spent more than two million dollars on political contributions. In the second quarter of 2010, David Koch was
the biggest individual contributor to the Republican Governors Association, with a million-dollar donation.
Other gifts by the Kochs may be untraceable; federal tax law permits anonymous personal donations to
politically active nonprofit groups.
In recent decades, members of several industrial dynasties have spent parts of their fortunes on a
conservative agenda. In the nineteen-eighties, the Olin family, which owns a chemicals-and-manufacturing
conglomerate, became known for funding right-leaning thinking in academia, particularly in law schools. And
during the nineties Richard Mellon Scaife, a descendant of Andrew Mellon, spent millions attempting to
discredit President Bill Clinton. Ari Rabin-Havt, a vice-president at the Democratic-leaning Web site Media
Matters, said that the Kochs‘ effort is unusual, in its marshalling of corporate and personal funds: ―Their role,
in terms of financial commitments, is staggering.‖
Of course, Democrats give money, too. Their most prominent donor, the financier George Soros, runs a
foundation, the Open Society Institute, that has spent as much as a hundred million dollars a year in America.
Soros has also made generous private contributions to various Democratic campaigns, including Obama‘s. But
Michael Vachon, his spokesman, argued that Soros‘s giving is transparent, and that ―none of his contributions
are in the service of his own economic interests.‖ The Kochs have given millions of dollars to nonprofit groups
29
that criticize environmental regulation and support lower taxes for industry. Gus diZerega, the former friend,
suggested that the Kochs‘ youthful idealism about libertarianism had largely devolved into a rationale for
corporate self-interest. He said of Charles, ―Perhaps he has confused making money with freedom.‖
Some critics have suggested that the Kochs‘ approach has subverted the purpose of tax-exempt giving. By
law, charitable foundations must conduct exclusively nonpartisan activities that promote the public welfare. A
2004 report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group, described the Kochs‘
foundations as being self-serving, concluding, ―These foundations give money to nonprofit organizations that
do research and advocacy on issues that impact the profit margin of Koch Industries.‖
The Kochs have gone well beyond their immediate self-interest, however, funding organizations that aim
to push the country in a libertarian direction. Among the institutions that they have subsidized are the Institute
for Justice, which files lawsuits opposing state and federal regulations; the Institute for Humane Studies, which
underwrites libertarian academics; and the Bill of Rights Institute, which promotes a conservative slant on the
Constitution. Many of the organizations funded by the Kochs employ specialists who write position papers that
are subsequently quoted by politicians and pundits. David Koch has acknowledged that the family exerts tight
ideological control. ―If we‘re going to give a lot of money, we‘ll make darn sure they spend it in a way that
goes along with our intent,‖ he told Doherty. ―And if they make a wrong turn and start doing things we don‘t
agree with, we withdraw funding.‖
The Kochs‘ subsidization of a pro-corporate movement fulfills, in many ways, the vision laid out in a secret
1971 memo that Lewis Powell, then a Virginia attorney, wrote two months before he was nominated to the
Supreme Court. The antiwar movement had turned its anger on defense contractors, such as Dow Chemical,
and Ralph Nader was leading a public-interest crusade against corporations. Powell, writing a report for the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urged American companies to fight back. The greatest threat to free enterprise,
he warned, was not Communism or the New Left but, rather, ―respectable elements of society‖—intellectuals,
journalists, and scientists. To defeat them, he wrote, business leaders needed to wage a long-term, unified
campaign to change public opinion.
Charles Koch seems to have approached both business and politics with the deliberation of an engineer.
―To bring about social change,‖ he told Doherty, requires ―a strategy‖ that is ―vertically and horizontally
integrated,‖ spanning ―from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to
lobbying to litigation to political action.‖ The project, he admitted, was extremely ambitious. ―We have a
radical philosophy,‖ he said.
In 1977, the Kochs provided the funds to launch the nation‘s first libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, between 1986 and 1993 the Koch family gave eleven million
dollars to the institute. Today, Cato has more than a hundred full-time employees, and its experts and policy
papers are widely quoted and respected by the mainstream media. It describes itself as nonpartisan, and its
scholars have at times been critical of both parties. But it has consistently pushed for corporate tax cuts,
reductions in social services, and laissez-faire environmental policies.
When President Obama, in a 2008 speech, described the science on global warming as ―beyond dispute,‖
the Cato Institute took out a full-page ad in the Times to contradict him. Cato‘s resident scholars have
relentlessly criticized political attempts to stop global warming as expensive, ineffective, and unnecessary. Ed
Crane, the Cato Institute‘s founder and president, told me that ―global-warming theories give the government
more control of the economy.‖
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Cato scholars have been particularly energetic in promoting the Climategate scandal. Last year, private emails of climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, in England, were mysteriously leaked, and their
exchanges appeared to suggest a willingness to falsify data in order to buttress the idea that global warming is
real. In the two weeks after the e-mails went public, one Cato scholar gave more than twenty media interviews
trumpeting the alleged scandal. But five independent inquiries have since exonerated the researchers, and
nothing was found in their e-mails or data to discredit the scientific consensus on global warming.
Nevertheless, the controversy succeeded in spreading skepticism about climate change. Even though the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently issued a report concluding that the evidence for
global warming is unequivocal, more Americans are convinced than at any time since 1997 that scientists have
exaggerated the seriousness of global warming. The Kochs promote this statistic on their company‘s Web site
but do not mention the role that their funding has played in fostering such doubt.
In a 2002 memo, the Republican political consultant Frank Luntz wrote that so long as ―voters believe
there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community‖ the status quo would prevail. The
key for opponents of environmental reform, he said, was to question the science—a public-relations strategy
that the tobacco industry used effectively for years to forestall regulation. The Kochs have funded many
sources of environmental skepticism, such as the Heritage Foundation, which has argued that ―scientific facts
gathered in the past 10 years do not support the notion of catastrophic human-made warming.‖ The brothers
have given money to more obscure groups, too, such as the Independent Women‘s Forum, which opposes the
presentation of global warming as a scientific fact in American public schools. Until 2008, the group was run
by Nancy Pfotenhauer, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. Mary Beth Jarvis, a vice-president of a Koch
subsidiary, is on the group‘s board.
Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California, San Diego, is the
co-author of ―Merchants of Doubt,‖ a new book that chronicles various attempts by American industry to
manipulate public opinion on science. She noted that the Kochs, as the heads of ―a company with refineries
and pipelines,‖ have ―a lot at stake.‖ She added, ―If the answer is to phase out fossil fuels, a different group of
people are going to be making money, so we shouldn‘t be surprised that they‘re fighting tooth and nail.‖
David Koch told New York that he was unconvinced that global warming has been caused by human
activity. Even if it has been, he said, the heating of the planet will be beneficial, resulting in longer growing
seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. ―The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because far
greater land area will be available to produce food,‖ he said.
In the mid-eighties, the Kochs provided millions of dollars to George Mason University, in Arlington,
Virginia, to set up another think tank. Now known as the Mercatus Center, it promotes itself as ―the world‘s
premier university source for market-oriented ideas—bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world
problems.‖ Financial records show that the Koch family foundations have contributed more than thirty million
dollars to George Mason, much of which has gone to the Mercatus Center, a nonprofit organization. ―It‘s
ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington,‖ Rob Stein, the Democratic strategist, said. It is an unusual
arrangement. ―George Mason is a public university, and receives public funds,‖ Stein noted. ―Virginia is
hosting an institution that the Kochs practically control.‖
The founder of the Mercatus Center is Richard Fink, formerly an economist. Fink heads Koch Industries‘
lobbying operation in Washington. In addition, he is the president of the Charles G. Koch Charitable
Foundation, the president of the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, a director of the Fred C. and Mary
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R. Koch Foundation, and a director and co-founder, with David Koch, of the Americans for Prosperity
Foundation.
Fink, with his many titles, has become the central nervous system of the Kochtopus. He appears to have
supplanted Ed Crane, the head of the Cato Institute, as the brothers‘ main political lieutenant. Though David
remains on the board at Cato, Charles Koch has fallen out with Crane. Associates suggested to me that Crane
had been insufficiently respectful of Charles‘s management philosophy, which he distilled into a book called
―The Science of Success,‖ and trademarked under the name Market-Based Management, or M.B.M. In the
book, Charles recommends instilling a company‘s corporate culture with the competitiveness of the
marketplace. Koch describes M.B.M. as a ―holistic system‖ containing ―five dimensions: vision, virtue and
talents, knowledge processes, decision rights and incentives.‖ A top Cato Institute official told me that Charles
―thinks he‘s a genius. He‘s the emperor, and he‘s convinced he‘s wearing clothes.‖ Fink, by contrast, has been
far more embracing of Charles‘s ideas. (Fink, like the Kochs, declined to be interviewed.)
At a 1995 conference for philanthropists, Fink adopted the language of economics when speaking about
the Mercatus Center‘s purpose. He said that grant-makers should use think tanks and political-action groups to
convert intellectual raw materials into policy ―products.‖
The Wall Street Journal has called the Mercatus Center ―the most important think tank you‘ve never heard
of,‖ and noted that fourteen of the twenty-three regulations that President George W. Bush placed on a ―hit
list‖ had been suggested first by Mercatus scholars. Fink told the paper that the Kochs have ―other means of
fighting [their] battles,‖ and that the Mercatus Center does not actively promote the company‘s private
interests. But Thomas McGarity, a law professor at the University of Texas, who specializes in environmental
issues, told me that ―Koch has been constantly in trouble with the E.P.A., and Mercatus has constantly
hammered on the agency.‖ An environmental lawyer who has clashed with the Mercatus Center called it ―a
means of laundering economic aims.‖ The lawyer explained the strategy: ―You take corporate money and give
it to a neutral-sounding think tank,‖ which ―hires people with pedigrees and academic degrees who put out
credible-seeming studies. But they all coincide perfectly with the economic interests of their funders.‖
In 1997, for instance, the E.P.A. moved to reduce surface ozone, a form of pollution caused, in part, by
emissions from oil refineries. Susan Dudley, an economist who became a top official at the Mercatus Center,
criticized the proposed rule. The E.P.A., she argued, had not taken into account that smog-free skies would
result in more cases of skin cancer. She projected that if pollution were controlled it would cause up to eleven
thousand additional cases of skin cancer each year.
In 1999, the District of Columbia Circuit Court took up Dudley‘s smog argument. Evaluating the E.P.A.
rule, the court found that the E.P.A. had ―explicitly disregarded‖ the ―possible health benefits of ozone.‖ In
another part of the opinion, the court ruled, 2-1, that the E.P.A. had overstepped its authority in calibrating
standards for ozone emissions. As the Constitutional Accountability Center, a think tank, revealed, the judges
in the majority had previously attended legal junkets, on a Montana ranch, that were arranged by the
Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment—a group funded by Koch family foundations.
The judges have claimed that the ruling was unaffected by their attendance.
―Ideas don‘t happen on their own,‖ Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, a Tea Party advocacy group,
told me. ―Throughout history, ideas need patrons.‖ The Koch brothers, after helping to create Cato and
Mercatus, concluded that think tanks alone were not enough to effect change. They needed a mechanism to
deliver those ideas to the street, and to attract the public‘s support. In 1984, David Koch and Richard Fink
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created yet another organization, and Kibbe joined them. The group, Citizens for a Sound Economy, seemed
like a grassroots movement, but according to the Center for Public Integrity it was sponsored principally by the
Kochs, who provided $7.9 million between 1986 and 1993. Its mission, Kibbe said, ―was to take these heavy
ideas and translate them for mass America. . . . We read the same literature Obama did about nonviolent
revolutions—Saul Alinsky, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. We studied the idea of the Boston Tea Party as an
example of nonviolent social change. We learned we needed boots on the ground to sell ideas, not candidates.‖
Within a few years, the group had mobilized fifty paid field workers, in twenty-six states, to rally voters
behind the Kochs‘ agenda. David and Charles, according to one participant, were ―very controlling, very top
down. You can‘t build an organization with them. They run it.‖
Around this time, the brothers faced a political crisis. In 1989, the Senate Select Committee on Indian
Affairs investigated their business and released a scathing report accusing Koch Oil of ―a widespread and
sophisticated scheme to steal crude oil from Indians and others through fraudulent mismeasuring.‖ The Kochs
admitted that they had improperly taken thirty-one million dollars‘ worth of crude oil, but said that it had been
accidental. Charles Koch told committee investigators that oil measurement is ―a very uncertain art.‖
To defend its reputation, Koch Industries hired Robert Strauss, then a premier Washington lobbyist; the
company soon opened an office in the city. A grand jury was convened to investigate the allegations, but it
eventually disbanded, without issuing criminal charges. According to the Senate report, after the committee
hearings Koch operatives delved into the personal lives of committee staffers, even questioning an ex-wife.
Senate investigators were upset by the Kochs‘ tactics. Kenneth Ballen, the counsel to the Senate committee,
said, ―These people have amassed such unaccountable power!‖
By 1993, when Bill Clinton became President, Citizens for a Sound Economy had become a prototype for
the kind of corporate-backed opposition campaigns that have proliferated during the Obama era. The group
waged a successful assault on Clinton‘s proposed B.T.U. tax on energy, for instance, running advertisements,
staging media events, and targeting opponents. And it mobilized anti-tax rallies outside the Capitol—rallies
that NPR described as ―designed to strike fear into the hearts of wavering Democrats.‖ Dan Glickman, a
former Democratic congressman from Wichita, who supported the B.T.U. tax, recalled, ―I‘d been in Congress
eighteen years. The Kochs actually engaged against me and funded my opponent. They used a lot of resources
and effort—their employees, too.‖ Glickman suffered a surprise defeat. ―I can‘t prove it, but I think I was
probably their victim,‖ he said.
The Kochs continued to disperse their money, creating slippery organizations with generic-sounding
names, and this made it difficult to ascertain the extent of their influence in Washington. In 1990, Citizens for
a Sound Economy created a spinoff group, Citizens for the Environment, which called acid rain and other
environmental problems ―myths.‖ When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette investigated the matter, it discovered that
the spinoff group had ―no citizen membership of its own.‖
In 1997, another Senate investigation began looking into what a minority report called ―an audacious plan
to pour millions of dollars in contributions into Republican campaigns nationwide without disclosing the
amount or source,‖ in order to evade campaign-finance laws. A shell corporation, Triad Management, had paid
more than three million dollars for attack ads in twenty-six House races and three Senate races. More than half
of the advertising money came from an obscure nonprofit group, the Economic Education Trust. The Senate
committee‘s minority report suggested that ―the trust was financed in whole or in part by Charles and David
Koch of Wichita, Kansas.‖ The brothers were suspected of having secretly paid for the attack ads, most of
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which aired in states where Koch Industries did business. In Kansas, where Triad Management was especially
active, the funds may have played a decisive role in four of six federal races. The Kochs, when asked by
reporters if they had given the money, refused to comment. In 1998, however, the Wall Street Journal
confirmed that a consultant on the Kochs‘ payroll had been involved in the scheme. Charles Lewis, of the
Center for Public Integrity, described the scandal as ―historic. Triad was the first time a major corporation used
a cutout‖—a front operation—―in a threatening way. Koch Industries was the poster child of a company run
amok.‖
During the Clinton Administration, the energy industry faced increased scrutiny and regulation. In the midnineties, the Justice Department filed two lawsuits against Koch Industries, claiming that it was responsible for
more than three hundred oil spills, which had released an estimated three million gallons of oil into lakes and
rivers. The penalty was potentially as high as two hundred and fourteen million dollars. In a settlement, Koch
Industries paid a record thirty-million-dollar civil fine, and agreed to spend five million dollars on
environmental projects.
In 1999, a jury found Koch Industries guilty of negligence and malice in the deaths of two Texas teenagers in an explosion that resulted from a leaky underground butane pipeline. (In 2001, the company paid an
undisclosed settlement.) And in the final months of the Clinton Presidency the Justice Department levelled a
ninety-seven-count indictment against the company, for covering up the discharge of ninety-one tons of
benzene, a carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. The company was liable for three hundred
and fifty million dollars in fines, and four Koch employees faced up to thirty-five years in prison. The Koch
Petroleum Group eventually pleaded guilty to one criminal charge of covering up environmental violations,
including the falsification of documents, and paid a twenty-million-dollar fine. David Uhlmann, a career
prosecutor who, at the time, headed the environmental-crimes section at the Justice Department, described the
suit as ―one of the most significant cases ever brought under the Clean Air Act.‖ He added, ―Environmental
crimes are almost always motivated by economics and arrogance, and in the Koch case there was a healthy
dose of both.‖
During the 2000 election campaign, Koch Industries spent some nine hundred thousand dollars to support
the candidacies of George W. Bush and other Republicans. During the Bush years, Koch Industries and other
fossil-fuel companies enjoyed remarkable prosperity. The 2005 energy bill, which Hillary Clinton dubbed the
Dick Cheney Lobbyist Energy Bill, offered enormous subsidies and tax breaks for energy companies. The
Kochs have cast themselves as deficit hawks, but, according to a study by Media Matters, their companies
have benefitted from nearly a hundred million dollars in government contracts since 2000.
In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy was accused of illegitimately throwing its weight behind Bush‘s
reëlection. The group‘s Oregon branch had attempted to get Ralph Nader on the Presidential ballot, in order to
dilute Democratic support for John Kerry. Critics argued that it was illegal for a tax-exempt nonprofit
organization to donate its services for partisan political purposes. (A complaint was filed with the Federal
Election Commission; it was dismissed.)
That year, internal rivalries at Citizens for a Sound Economy caused the organization to split apart. David
Koch and Fink started a new group, Americans for Prosperity, and they hired Tim Phillips to run it. Phillips
was a political veteran who had worked with Ralph Reed, the evangelical leader and Republican activist, cofounding Century Strategies, a campaign-consulting company that became notorious for its ties to the
disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Phillips‘s online biography describes him as an expert in ―grasstops‖ and
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―grassroots‖ political organizing. The Kochs‘ choice of Phillips signalled an even greater toughness. The
conservative operative Grover Norquist, who is known for praising ―throat slitters‖ in politics, called Phillips
―a grownup who can make things happen.‖
Last year, Phillips told the Financial Times that Americans for Prosperity had only eight thousand
registered members. Currently, its Web site claims that the group has ―1.2 million activists.‖ Whatever its size,
the Kochs‘ political involvement has been intense; a former employee of the Cato Institute told me that
Americans for Prosperity ―was micromanaged by the Kochs.‖ And the brothers‘ investment may well have
paid off: Americans for Prosperity, in concert with the family‘s other organizations, has been instrumental in
disrupting the Obama Presidency.
In January, 2008, Charles Koch wrote in his company newsletter that America could be on the verge of
―the greatest loss of liberty and prosperity since the 1930s.‖ That October, Americans for Prosperity held a
conference of conservative operatives at a Marriott hotel outside Washington. Erick Erickson, the editor-inchief of the conservative blog RedState.com, took the lectern, thanked David Koch, and vowed to ―unite and
fight . . . the armies of the left!‖ Soon after Obama assumed office, Americans for Prosperity launched
―Porkulus‖ rallies against Obama‘s stimulus-spending measures. Then the Mercatus Center released a report
claiming that stimulus funds had been directed disproportionately toward Democratic districts; eventually, the
author was forced to correct the report, but not before Rush Limbaugh, citing the paper, had labelled Obama‘s
program ―a slush fund,‖ and Fox News and other conservative outlets had echoed the sentiment. (Phil Kerpen,
the vice-president for policy at Americans for Prosperity, is a contributor to the Fox News Web site. Another
officer at Americans for Prosperity, Walter Williams, often guest-hosts for Limbaugh.)
Americans for Prosperity also created an offshoot, Patients United Now, which organized what Phillips
has estimated to be more than three hundred rallies against health-care reform. At one rally, an effigy of a
Democratic congressman was hung; at another, protesters unfurled a banner depicting corpses from Dachau.
The group also helped organize the ―Kill the Bill‖ protests outside the Capitol, in March, where Democratic
supporters of health-care reform alleged that they were spat on and cursed at. Phillips was a featured speaker.
Americans for Prosperity has held at least eighty events targeting cap-and-trade legislation, which is aimed
at making industries pay for the air pollution that they create. Speakers for the group claimed, with
exaggeration, that even back-yard barbecues and kitchen stoves would be taxed. The group was also involved
in the attacks on Obama‘s ―green jobs‖ czar, Van Jones, and waged a crusade against international climate
talks. Casting his group as a champion of ordinary workers who would be hurt by environmentalists, Phillips
went to Copenhagen last year and staged a protest outside the United Nations conference on climate change,
declaring, ―We‘re a grassroots organization. . . . I think it‘s unfortunate when wealthy children of wealthy
families . . . want to send unemployment rates in the United States up to twenty per cent.‖
Grover Norquist, who holds a weekly meeting for conservative leaders in Washington, including
representatives from Americans for Prosperity, told me that last summer‘s raucous rallies were pivotal in
undermining Obama‘s agenda. The Republican leadership in Congress, he said, ―couldn‘t have done it without
August, when people went out on the streets. It discouraged deal-makers‖—Republicans who might otherwise
have worked constructively with Obama. Moreover, the appearance of growing public opposition to Obama
affected corporate donors on K Street. ―K Street is a three-billion-dollar weathervane,‖ Norquist said. ―When
Obama was strong, the Chamber of Commerce said, ‗We can work with the Obama Administration.‘ But that
35
changed when thousands of people went into the street and ‗terrorized‘ congressmen. August is what changed
it. Now that Obama is weak, people are getting tough.‖
As the first anniversary of Obama‘s election approached, David Koch came to the Washington area to
attend a triumphant Americans for Prosperity gathering. Obama‘s poll numbers were falling fast. Not a single
Republican senator was working with the Administration on health care, or much else. Pundits were writing
about Obama‘s political ineptitude, and Tea Party groups were accusing the President of initiating ―a
government takeover.‖ In a speech, Koch said, ―Days like today bring to reality the vision of our board of
directors when we started this organization, five years ago.‖ He went on, ―We envisioned a mass movement, a
state-based one, but national in scope, of hundreds of thousands of American citizens from all walks of life
standing up and fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in
history. . . . Thankfully, the stirrings from California to Virginia, and from Texas to Michigan, show that more
and more of our fellow-citizens are beginning to see the same truths as we do.‖
While Koch didn‘t explicitly embrace the Tea Party movement that day, more recently he has come close
to doing so, praising it for demonstrating the ―powerful visceral hostility in the body politic against the
massive increase in government power, the massive efforts to socialize this country.‖ Charles Koch, in a
newsletter sent to his seventy thousand employees, compared the Obama Administration to the regime of the
Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez. The Kochs‘ sense of imperilment is somewhat puzzling. Income
inequality in America is greater than it has been since the nineteen-twenties, and since the seventies the tax
rates of the wealthiest have fallen more than those of the middle class. Yet the brothers‘ message has evidently
resonated with voters: a recent poll found that fifty-five per cent of Americans agreed that Obama is a socialist.
Americans for Prosperity, meanwhile, has announced that it will spend an additional forty-five million
dollars before the midterm elections, in November. Although the group is legally prohibited from directly
endorsing candidates, it nonetheless plans to target some fifty House races and half a dozen Senate races,
staging rallies, organizing door-to-door canvassing, and running ads aimed at ―educating voters about where
candidates stand.‖
Though the Kochs have slowed Obama‘s momentum, their larger political battle is far from won. Richard
Fink, interviewed by FrumForum.com this spring, said, ―If you look at where we‘ve gone from the year 2000
to now, with the expansion of government spending and a debt burden that threatens to bankrupt the country, it
doesn‘t look very good at all.‖ He went on, ―It looks like the infrastructure that was built and nurtured has not
carried the day.‖ He suggested that the Kochs needed ―to get more into the practical, day-to-day issues of
governing.‖
In 1991, David Koch was badly injured in a plane crash in Los Angeles. He was the sole passenger in first
class to survive. As he was recovering, a routine physical exam led to the discovery of prostate cancer. Koch
received treatment, settled down, started a family, and reconsidered his life. As he told Portfolio, ―When
you‘re the only one who survived in the front of the plane and everyone else died—yeah, you think, ‗My God,
the good Lord spared me for some greater purpose.‘ My joke is that I‘ve been busy ever since, doing all the
good work I can think of, so He can have confidence in me.‖
Koch began giving spectacularly large donations to the arts and sciences. And he became a patron of
cancer research, focussing on prostate cancer. In addition to his gifts to Sloan-Kettering, he gave fifteen
million dollars to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, a hundred and twenty-five million to M.I.T. for cancer
research, twenty million to Johns Hopkins University, and twenty-five million to the M. D. Anderson Cancer
36
Center, in Houston. In response to his generosity, Sloan-Kettering gave Koch its Excellence in Corporate
Leadership Award. In 2004, President Bush named him to the National Cancer Advisory Board, which guides
the National Cancer Institute.
Koch‘s corporate and political roles, however, may pose conflicts of interest. For example, at the same
time that David Koch has been casting himself as a champion in the fight against cancer, Koch Industries has
been lobbying to prevent the E.P.A. from classifying formaldehyde, which the company produces in great
quantities, as a ―known carcinogen‖ in humans.
Scientists have long known that formaldehyde causes cancer in rats, and several major scientific studies
have concluded that formaldehyde causes cancer in human beings—including one published last year by the
National Cancer Institute, on whose advisory board Koch sits. The study tracked twenty-five thousand patients
for an average of forty years; subjects exposed to higher amounts of formaldehyde had significantly higher
rates of leukemia. These results helped lead an expert panel within the National Institutes of Health to
conclude that formaldehyde should be categorized as a known carcinogen, and be strictly controlled by the
government. Corporations have resisted regulations on formaldehyde for decades, however, and Koch
Industries has been a large funder of members of Congress who have stymied the E.P.A., requiring it to defer
new regulations until more studies are completed.
Koch Industries became a major producer of the chemical in 2005, after it bought Georgia-Pacific, the
paper and wood-products company, for twenty-one billion dollars. Georgia-Pacific manufactures
formaldehyde in its chemical division, and uses it to produce various wood products, such as plywood and
laminates. Its annual production capacity for formaldehyde is 2.2 billion pounds. Last December, Traylor
Champion, Georgia-Pacific‘s vice-president of environmental affairs, sent a formal letter of protest to federal
health authorities. He wrote that the company ―strongly disagrees‖ with the N.I.H. panel‘s conclusion that
formaldehyde should be treated as a known human carcinogen. David Koch did not recuse himself from the
National Cancer Advisory Board, or divest himself of company stock, while his company was directly
lobbying the government to keep formaldehyde on the market. (A board spokesperson said that the issue of
formaldehyde had not come up.)
James Huff, an associate director at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, a division of
the N.I.H., told me that it was ―disgusting‖ for Koch to be serving on the National Cancer Advisory Board:
―It‘s just not good for public health. Vested interests should not be on the board.‖ He went on, ―Those boards
are very important. They‘re very influential as to whether N.C.I. goes into formaldehyde or not. Billions of
dollars are involved in formaldehyde.‖
Harold Varmus, the director of the National Cancer Institute, knows David Koch from Memorial SloanKettering, which he used to run. He said that, at Sloan-Kettering, ―a lot of people who gave to us had large
business interests. The one thing we wouldn‘t tolerate in our board members is tobacco.‖ When told of Koch
Industries‘ stance on formaldehyde, Varmus said that he was ―surprised.‖
The David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, at the Smithsonian‘s National Museum of Natural History, is a
multimedia exploration of the theory that mankind evolved in response to climate change. At the main
entrance, viewers are confronted with a giant graph charting the Earth‘s temperature over the past ten million
years, which notes that it is far cooler now than it was ten thousand years ago. Overhead, the text reads,
―HUMANS EVOLVED IN RESPONSE TO A CHANGING WORLD.‖ The message, as amplified by the exhibit‘s Web
site, is that ―key human adaptations evolved in response to environmental instability.‖ Only at the end of the
37
exhibit, under the headline ―OUR SURVIVAL CHALLENGE,‖ is it noted that levels of carbon dioxide are higher
now than they have ever been, and that they are projected to increase dramatically in the next century. No
cause is given for this development; no mention is made of any possible role played by fossil fuels. The exhibit
makes it seem part of a natural continuum. The accompanying text says, ―During the period in which humans
evolved, Earth‘s temperature and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fluctuated together.‖ An
interactive game in the exhibit suggests that humans will continue to adapt to climate change in the future.
People may build ―underground cities,‖ developing ―short, compact bodies‖ or ―curved spines,‖ so that
―moving around in tight spaces will be no problem.‖
Such ideas uncannily echo the Koch message. The company‘s January newsletter to employees, for
instance, argues that ―fluctuations in the earth‘s climate predate humanity,‖ and concludes, ―Since we can‘t
control Mother Nature, let‘s figure out how to get along with her changes.‖ Joseph Romm, a physicist who
runs the Web site ClimateProgress.org, is infuriated by the Smithsonian‘s presentation. ―The whole exhibit
whitewashes the modern climate issue,‖ he said. ―I think the Kochs wanted to be seen as some sort of highminded company, associated with the greatest natural-history and science museum in the country. But the truth
is, the exhibit is underwritten by big-time polluters, who are underground funders of action to stop efforts to
deal with this threat to humanity. I think the Smithsonian should have drawn the line.‖
Cristián Samper, the museum‘s director, said that the exhibit is not about climate change, and described
Koch as ―one of the best donors we‘ve had, in my tenure here, because he‘s very interested in the content, but
completely hands off.‖ He noted, ―I don‘t know all the details of his involvement in other issues.‖
The Kochs have long depended on the public‘s not knowing all the details about them. They have been
content to operate what David Koch has called ―the largest company that you‘ve never heard of.‖ But with the
growing prominence of the Tea Party, and with increased awareness of the Kochs‘ ties to the movement, the
brothers may find it harder to deflect scrutiny. Recently, President Obama took aim at the Kochs‘ political
network. Speaking at a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser, in Austin, he warned supporters that the
Supreme Court‘s recent ruling in the Citizens United case—which struck down laws prohibiting direct
corporate spending on campaigns—had made it even easier for big companies to hide behind ―groups with
harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity.‖ Obama said, ―They don‘t have to say who, exactly,
Americans for Prosperity are. You don‘t know if it‘s a foreign-controlled corporation‖—or even, he added, ―a
big oil company.‖ ♦
PHOTOGRAPH: RICHARD SCHULMAN/CORBIS
CATO Institute, CATO Celebrates It’s 25th Anniversary, (May 2002),
http://www.cato.org/25th/
38
Cato on Facebook
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Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
Phone (202) 842 0200
Fax (202) 842 3490
Contact Us
Cato Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary
Watch Cato's 25th Annviersary Video, May 2002. [Real Media]
The Cato Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary May 2002, marking a quarter century of promoting individual liberty,
limited government and free markets. We held a number of events to honor this occasion.
On Thursday evening, May 9, the Institute held a gala banquet in Washington as part of a three-day celebration
marking Cato's quarter century defense of liberty. At the dinner, the Institute presented the first Milton Friedman Prize
for Advancing Liberty posthumously, to distinguished British economist Peter Bauer, a professor emeritus at the
London School of Economics who authored ground-breaking work on development economics. Dinner speakers
included P. J. O'Rourke, author and Cato Institute H. L. Mencken Research Fellow, and John Stossel of ABC News
"20/20."
To mark the anniversary, several special publications were released. Cato executive vice president David Boaz
edited Toward Liberty: The Idea That Is Changing the World, a collection of Cato's essays over the past 25 years.
Cato Clippings reprints some of the Cato staff's best op-eds. Cato also published a special 25-year Annual Report
with highlights of its work.
For an overview of Cato's first twenty-five years, visit the About Us page. The Institute was founded in 1977 by
Edward H. Crane and Charles G. Koch in San Francisco. As the New York Times pointed out during Cato's 10th
anniversary in 1987, "Cato has managed to generate more activity and interest across a wider political spectrum than
some of its more sedate competitors with much larger budgets." Last year, FAIR reported that in a review of the top
25 think tanks that the Cato Institute had the second most major media mentions.
While many avoided Social Security as the "Third Rail," the Cato Institute, in its inaugural edition of Cato Policy
Report in 1979 argued that privatization of the system should be considered. The following year Cato published Peter
Ferrara's 500-page Social Security: The Inherent Contradiction, which makes the case for privatization of Social
Security. In 1995, on the 60th anniversary of the creation of the government-run Social Security program, the Cato
Institute established the Project on Social Security Choice.
39
The Cato Institute has hosted conferences around the world, including a 1988 conference in Shanghai that was the
first free-market conference held in mainland China since its communist takeover. In 1990 Cato hosted a week-long
conference in Moscow titled "Transition to Freedom: The New Soviet Challenge."
The Institute has continued its work in all these areas. In 2001, the President's Commission to Strengthen Social
Security drew heavily on the work and personnel of the Cato Institute. Also in 2001, Cato held its fourth conference in
China. Cato's 19th Annual Monetary Conference was held in Mexico City. And at the beginning of 2002 Cato
launched the Center for Educational Freedom.
Institute for Justice, IJ Thanks Its Cornerstone Supporters: Charles & David Koch,
(November 2001),
http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1750&Itemid=245
Search
Donate | Contact Us | Home
P
Publications
November 2001
IJ Thanks Its
Cornerstone Supporters:
Charles & David Koch
IJ presented its Cornerstone Award to Charles and
David Koch for their uniquely important role in
funding the Institute. Charles Koch provided the
initial seed funding that made it possible to launch
the Institute in 1991. David Koch has been a
generous benefactor each year of IJ‘s first decade.
We are deeply grateful for their support and the
commitment to liberty it represents.
Thank you, Charles
and David!
Source Watch, Koch Family Foundations.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Koch_Family_Foundations
40
41
42
43
44
Zachary Roth, Group That May Bring Health-Care Lawsuit id Back By Big-Name
Conservative Funders, TPMMuckracker, (April 7, 2010),
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/group_that_may_bring_healthcare_lawsuit_is_backed.php
TPMMuckraker
Group That May Bring Health-Care Lawsuit
Is Backed By Big-Name Conservative
Funders
Zachary Roth | April 7, 2010, 11:14AM
Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ)
Read More
American Enterprise Institute, Americans For Prosperity, Astroturf, Barry Goldwater, Cato Institute, DCI Group, Dan Quayle,
Dick Armey, Federalist Society, FreedomWorks, Global Warming, Goldwater Institute, Health Care Reform, Heritage
Foundation, Jan Brewer, Koch Industries, Terry Goddard
Share
A conservative think tank that's funded by several prominent backers of right-wing causes may
bring a lawsuit over health-care reform on behalf of the governor of Arizona.
45
The Goldwater Institute has offered to bring the suit for free, and Gov. Jan Brewer is considering
the offer, a spokeswoman for the institute told TPMmuckraker.
Brewer, a Republican, has been looking for ways to bring the suit, after the state's attorney
general, Democrat Terry Goddard, declined to do so. Fourteen other state attorneys general are
suing over the law, which they argue -- despite the weight of expert opinion -- is
unconstitutional.
The Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute is committed to "expanding free enterprise and liberty,"
according to its website, and was founded in 1988 "with Barry Goldwater's blessing." Its legal
arm has brought cases on a range of issues including charter schools, eminent domain, and what
it calls "entrepreneurial freedom."
According to the institute's 2006 annual report, it has received significant funding from several
prominent backers of conservative and pro-business causes, including the Charles G. Koch
Charitable Foundation. The Koch family, and its company, Koch Industries, has been a major
funder of efforts to deny global warming, as well as of Americans For Prosperity (AFP), which
ran an aggressive camapign against health-care reform.
The institute has received funding from the Bradley Foundation. That's another backer of AFP,
as well as of Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise
Institute, and the Federalist Society, among other big-name conservative institutions.
Other Goldwater sponsors include the DCI Group, the notorious Washington-based astroturf
lobbying firm which is run by GOP consultants with ties to Karl Rove and has worked for the
Burmese Junta; Greenberg Traurig, the law and lobbying firm out of which Jack Abramoff ran
his operation; and Dan and Marilyn Quayle.
46
Media Matters, Conservative Transparency: Goldwater Institute,
http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/organization/Goldwater_Institute/funders (last
visited Jan. 19, 2010)
RECIPIENTS »
SHARE
Goldwater Institute
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/
All Years
VIEW
FUNDER : PURPOSE
AMOUNT
Brady Education Foundation
$1,000
Castle Rock Foundation
$127,500
DATE
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $75,000
Earhart Foundation
$20,000
JM Foundation
$125,000
Jaquelin Hume Foundation
$344,971
John M. Olin Foundation
$75,000
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
$25,000
Rodney Fund
$136,750
Roe Foundation
$167,500
Ruth and Lovett Peters Foundation
$232,473
Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation
$13,000
State Policy Network
$31,549
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
$7,500
Walton Family Foundation
$155,000
William E. Simon Foundation
$2,500
William H. Donner Foundation
$100,000
All
People
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Recipients
Person or Organization's Name
Year
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Select Field
greater than
$
47
Jackie Calmes, Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues, New York Times (Oct.
8, 2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/politics/09thomas.html.
 Reprints
October 8, 2010
Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial
Issues
By JACKIE CALMES
RICHMOND, Va. — As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party
event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative
principles.
For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before
she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged
in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty
Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats
in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.
It is the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation‟s highest court, and Mrs. Thomas is just getting
started. “Liberty Central will be bigger than the Tea Party movement,” she told Fox News in April, at a Tea Party rally
in Atlanta.
But to some people who study judicial ethics, Mrs. Thomas‟s activism is raising knotty questions, in particular about
her acceptance of large, unidentified contributions for Liberty Central. She began the group in late 2009 with two gifts
of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the
federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors. Such tax-exempt groups are supposed to
make sure that less than half of their activities are political.
Mrs. Thomas, known as Ginni, declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed without an agreement not to
discuss her husband. In written responses to questions, Sarah Field, Liberty Central‟s chief operating officer and
general counsel, said that Mrs. Thomas is paid by Liberty Central, with the compensation set by the group‟s board,
and that the group has “internal reviews and protections to ensure that no donor causes a conflict of interest for either
Ginni or her husband.”
48
Nonprofit groups with political agendas like Liberty Central are operating in this election cycle under evolving legal
and regulatory standards, most notably the ruling last January by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case,
which eased restrictions on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. In that case, Justice
Thomas, long an advocate of dismantling campaign finance restrictions, was in the 5-to-4 majority. Wealthy
individuals and some corporations, emboldened by the ruling, are giving to such groups to influence the election but
still hide their tracks.
Unlike many other conservative nonprofit groups that are pouring donations into television advertising to benefit
Republican candidates, Liberty Central has not done so, and it is not clear whether it will.
This month, Liberty Central began what it called its first ad campaign, but the ads were limited to Web sites for the
conservative talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin — suggesting an effort to build membership for
Liberty Central, not elect candidates. The ads link to Liberty Central‟s Web site and a video of Mrs. Thomas soliciting
100,000 signatures against the “Obama tax increase” — referring to the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts
on Dec. 31.
The bigger question for many is how she is financing these activities. Liberty Central reported the initial $550,000 on
its 2009 tax return, though the identities of the two donors are redacted.
A federal law requires justices to recuse themselves in a number of circumstances where real or perceived conflicts of
interest could arise, including in cases where their spouses could have a financial interest. But the decision to step
aside is up to each justice; there is no appeal from the nation‟s highest court.
“It‟s shocking that you would have a Supreme Court justice sitting on a case that might implicate in a very
fundamental way the interests of someone who might have contributed to his wife‟s organization,” said Deborah L.
Rhode, a law professor and director of the Stanford University Center on the Legal Profession.
“The fact that we can‟t find that out is the first problem,” she said, adding, “And how can the public form a judgment
about propriety if it doesn‟t have the basic underlying facts?”
Steven Lubet, who teaches legal ethics at Northwestern Law School, said Mrs. Thomas‟s solicitation of big
contributions raised potential recusal issues for her husband. But he added, “There‟s no reason to think that Justice
Thomas would be anything other than extremely careful about it.”
“I think this is the world we live in, where two-career families are the norm and there are no constraints on the
political activities of judicial spouses,” Mr. Lubet said.
Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said: “There‟s nothing to stop Ginni Thomas from being
politically active. She‟s a private citizen and she has all of her constitutional rights.”
49
But as for the big donors, Mr. Gillers, citing a 1988 Supreme Court decision, said, “She has to tell him because the
public is going to assume he knows,” and, Mr. Gillers said, fair-minded citizens could question Justice Thomas‟s
objectivity as a result.
The Supreme Court‟s public information office said Mrs. Thomas had told court officials of her plans but it declined to
provide any more information.
“Around the time of the launch of Liberty Central, Mrs. Thomas reviewed her involvement with the Supreme Court
legal office. Discussions with the legal office that are part of efforts to obtain legal and ethics advice are not made
public,” Kathy Arberg, the court‟s information officer, wrote in an e-mail.
In past interviews, Mrs. Thomas has suggested she is being singled out unfairly; other spouses of judges are politically
active, she has argued, usually mentioning Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who is married to
a judge on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Mr. Rendell has to disclose direct contributions to his
campaigns. And parties can appeal to the Supreme Court should his wife not recuse herself when her impartiality is
questioned.
Mrs. Thomas‟s political work has drawn criticism before from Democrats. In the weeks before a 5-to-4 majority of the
Supreme Court, including her husband, decided the 2000 election for George W. Bush over Al Gore, Mrs. Thomas
was compiling résumés for potential appointees to a Bush administration from her job at the Heritage Foundation,
a conservative, Republican-leaning research group.
Mrs. Thomas‟s supporters said she plays an important role as a bridge between grass-roots Tea Party activists and
establishment Republicans in Washington. Ryan Hecker, a lawyer in Houston and a prominent Tea Party activist, said
he had heard that Liberty Central was “doing a big get-out-the-vote effort” in some Congressional races. Despite the
suspicion of many in the Tea Party that Republicans in Washington are trying to co-opt the movement, Mr. Hecker
said the “charismatic and very genuine” Mrs. Thomas is not seen that way among activists.
“She‟s been there for a long time, but she hasn‟t been corrupted by it,” Mr. Hecker said. So she can be “a medium” to
get the grass-roots‟ views “to the people that matter.”
Kitty Bennett contributed reporting.
50
Liberty Central, Liberty Central’s Target Races, http://www.libertycentral.org/liberty-centralstop-races-2010-10 (last visited Jan. 18, 2011)
- Liberty Central: Equipping Citizens to Lobby for Liberty http://www.libertycentral.org Liberty Central’s Target Races
Posted By Lillian Vogl On October 19, 2010 @ 7:49 am In News |
Battleground Target Races
The election this November will be a historic one. And the left is working hard to
maintain its lock on power in Washington, with the help of union allies, and groups
like Organizing for America, MoveOn.org, and others. Liberty Central is working
to retire those in Congress who support this big government agenda, while
simultaneously helping return our country to a more pro-liberty Congress.
To do this, we are focusing on our ―Top Target Races‖ for November – the most
important elections that will determine if our next Congress respects its role.
We call this Impact 2010.
Publishing our Congressional Scorecards [1] was our first step in determining
which Congressional races are the most important for Liberty Central to focus on
in November. These scorecards analyzed how Members of Congress voted on
legislation such as cap and trade, ObamaCare, and the Dodd Frank Financial
Overhaul. Click here [1]to see [1] how your Member of Congress voted during the
111th Congress.
Other criteria for choosing our battleground target races included: talking with
grassroots citizens in each state, talking with allies in the conservative movement,
assessing the likelihood of success by a challenger, and evaluating the results from
the Candidate Surveys (go here to [2] see [2] if your favorite candidate returned our
survey).
Our goal is to nationalize these races because of what we witnessed last January:
many inside, and outside, the state lines of Massachusetts understood the
tremendous opportunity to bring national attention to Massachusetts and elect a
more conservative alternative to be the 40th vote against ObamaCare. What
happened then needs to happen now on a bigger scale. Friends called friends,
volunteers swarmed, and small to large donations crossed state lines, all in an
effort to stop the hard left agenda.
51
This can happen again with your help.
Liberty Central believes in equipping citizen leaders to lobby for liberty, but there
are times when we can go to the next step: ensure that certain elected officials get
an early retirement because of their refusal to listen to their constituents. With
information about how these Members of Congress voted [1], plus Liberty Central‘s
new focus on key races, you can play a larger part in helping to restore America‘s
founding principles!
Please join us in Impact 2010.
We recommend you print this updated list and pass it around to your family,
friends and colleagues as well!
Race
Pro-Liberty Candidate
Alabama-02 [3]
Martha Roby [4]
[6]
Alabama-05
Mo Brooks [7]
[9]
Alaska-SEN
Joe Miller [10]
[12]
Arizona-01
Paul Gosar [13]
[15]
Arizona-03
Ben Quayle [16]
Arizona-05 [18]
Dave Schweikert [19]
[21]
Arizona-07
Ruth McClung [22]
[24]
Arizona-08
Jesse Kelly [25]
[27]
Arkansas-01
Rick Crawford [28]
[30]
Arkansas-02
Tim Griffin [31]
[33]
Arkansas-04
Beth Ann Rankin [34]
[36]
Arkansas-SEN
John Boozman [37]
[39]
California-11
David Harmer [40]
[42]
California-18
Mike Berryhill [43]
[45]
California-20
Andy Vidak [46]
[48]
California-37
Star Parker [49]
[51]
California-47
Van Tran [52]
California-SEN
Carly Fiorina [55]
Incumbent (Liberty Central Grade)
Bobby Bright (B) [5]
Open [8]
Lisa Murkowski (C) [11]
Ann Kirkpatrick (F) [14]
Open [17]
Harry Mitchell (F) [20]
Raul Grijalva (F) [23]
Gabrielle Giffords (F) [26]
Open [29]
Open [32]
Mike Ross (D) [35]
Blanche Lincoln (F) [38]
Jerry McNerney (F) [41]
Dennis Cardoza (F) [44]
Jim Costa (F) [47]
Laura Richardson (F) [50]
Loretta Sanchez (F) [53]
Barbara Boxer (F) [56]
Colorado-03 [57]
Colorado-04 [60]
Colorado-07 [63]
Colorado-SEN [66]
Connecticut-03
Scott Tipton [58]
Cory Gardner [61]
Ryan Frazier [64]
Ken Buck [67]
Jerry Labriola [70]
John Salazar (F) [59]
Betsey Markey (F) [62]
Ed Perlmutter (F) [65]
Michael Bennet (F) [68]
Rosa DeLauro (F) [71]
Connecticut-04
Dan Debicella
Connecticut-05
Sam Caligiuri
[54]
[69]
[72]
[75]
[73]
Jim Himes (F)
[76]
Connecticut-SEN Linda McMahon
Chris Murphy (F)
[79]
[78]
Delaware-AL [81] Glen Urquhart [82]
Delaware-SEN
Christine O’Donnell
[85]
[84]
Florida-02
[87]
Steve Southerland
[74]
[88]
Open
[80]
Open
Open
[83]
[77]
[86]
Allen Boyd (D)
52
[89]
Florida-08 [90]
Florida-12 [93]
Florida-22 [96]
Florida-24 [99]
Florida-SEN [102]
Georgia-02 [105]
Georgia-08 [108]
Idaho-1 [111]
Illinois-08 [114]
Illinois-11 [117]
Illinois-14 [120]
Illinois-17 [123]
Indiana-02 [126]
Indiana-03 [129]
Indiana-08 [132]
Indiana-09 [135]
Indiana-SEN [138]
Iowa-01 [141]
Iowa-02 [144]
Daniel Webster [91]
Dennis Ross [94]
Allen West [97]
Sandy Adams [100]
Marco Rubio [103]
Mike Keown [106]
Austin Scott [109]
Raul Labrador [112]
Joe Walsh [115]
Adam Kinzinger [118]
Randy Hultgren [121]
Bobby Schilling [124]
Jackie Walorski [127]
Marlin Stutzman [130]
Larry Bucshon [133]
Todd Young [136]
Dan Coats [139]
Ben Lange [142]
Mariannette MillerMeeks [145]
Brad Zaun [148]
Kevin Yoder [151]
Mike Pompeo [154]
Jerry Moran [157]
Andy Barr [160]
Rand Paul [163]
Alan Grayson (F) [92]
Open [95]
Ron Klein (F) [98]
Suzanne Kosmas (F) [101]
Open [104]
Sanford Bishop (F) [107]
Jim Marshall (D) [110]
Walt Minnick (D) [113]
Melissa Bean (F) [116]
Debbie Halvorson (F) [119]
Bill Foster (F) [122]
Phil Hare (F) [125]
Joe Donnelly (D) [128]
Open [131]
Open [134]
Baron Hill (F) [137]
Open [140]
Bruce Braley (F) [143]
David Loebsack (F) [146]
Louisiana-03 [165]
Maine-2 [168]
Maryland-01 [171]
Maryland-05 [174]
Massachusetts04 [177]
Massachusetts05 [180]
Massachusetts06 [183]
Massachusetts10 [186]
Michigan-01 [189]
Michigan-02 [192]
Michigan-03 [195]
Michigan-07 [198]
Michigan-09 [201]
Michigan-15 [204]
Minnesota-01
Jeff Landry [166]
Jason Levesque [169]
Andy Harris [172]
Charles Lollar [175]
Sean Bielat [178]
Open [167]
Mike Michaud (F) [170]
Frank Kratovil (F) [173]
Steny Hoyer (F) [176]
Barney Frank (F) [179]
Minnesota-05
Joel Demos
Minnesota-08
Chip Cravaack
Mississippi-01
Alan Nunnelee
Mississippi-02
Bill Marcy
Mississippi-04
Steven Palazzo
Iowa-03 [147]
Kansas-03 [150]
Kansas-04 [153]
Kansas-SEN [156]
Kentucky-06 [159]
Kentucky-SEN
[162]
[207]
[210]
[213]
[216]
[219]
Jonathan Golnik
Bill Hudak
Jeff Perry
[181]
[184]
[187]
Leonard Boswell (F) [149]
Open [152]
Open [155]
Open [158]
Ben Chandler (F) [161]
Open [164]
Niki Tsongas (F)
[182]
John Tierney (F)
[185]
Open
[188]
Dan Benishek [190]
Open [191]
[193]
Bill Huizenga
Open [194]
[196]
Justin Amash
Open [197]
[199]
Tim Walberg
Mark Schauer (F) [200]
[202]
Rocky Raczkowski
Gary Peters (F) [203]
Rob Steele [205]
John Dingell (F) [206]
[208]
Randy Demmer
Tim Walz (F) [209]
[211]
Keith Ellison (F)
[214]
[217]
[220]
Jim Oberstar
[212]
[215]
Travis Childers (C )
[218]
Bennie Thompson (F)
[222]
Gene Taylor (C )
53
[223]
[221]
[216]
Missouri-03 [224] Ed Martin [225]
Missouri-04 [227] Vicky Hartzler [228]
Missouri-SEN [230] Roy Blunt [231]
Nevada-03 [233]
Joe Heck [234]
[236]
Nevada-SEN
Sharron Angle [237]
New Hampshire- Frank Guinta [240]
01 [239]
New Hampshire- Kelly Ayotte [243]
SEN [242]
New Jersey-03 Jon Runyan [246]
[245]
[249]
New Jersey-06
Anna Little
New Mexico-01
Jon Barela
New Mexico-02
Steve Pearce
New Mexico-03
Tom Mullins
[248]
[251]
[254]
[257]
New
New
New
New
New
New
New
New
[281]
Russ Carnahan (F) [226]
Ike Skelton (F) [229]
Open [232]
Dina Titus (F) [235]
Harry Reid (F) [238]
Carol Shea-Porter (F) [241]
Open
[244]
John Adler (F)
[247]
[250]
Frank Pallone (F)
[252]
Martin Heinrich (F)
[255]
[258]
[253]
[256]
Harry Teague (F)
Ben Ray Lujan (F)
[259]
York-13 [260] Michael Grimm [261]
Michael McMahon (F) [262]
[263]
[264]
York-15
Michel Faulkner
Charles Rangel (F) [265]
[266]
[267]
York-19
Nan Hayworth
John Hall (F) [268]
[269]
[270]
York-20
Chris Gibson
Scott Murphy (F*) [271]
[272]
[273]
York-22
George Phillips
Maurice Hinchey (F) [274]
[275]
[276]
York-25
Ann Marie Buerkle
Dan Maffei (F) [277]
[278]
[279]
York-29
Tom Reed
Open [280]
[282]
York-SEN
Joe DioGuardi
Kirsten Gillibrand (F) [283]
North Carolina02 [284]
North Carolina04 [287]
North Carolina07 [290]
North Carolina08 [293]
North Carolina11 [296]
North Dakota-AL
Renee Ellmers
North DakotaSEN [302]
Ohio-01 [305]
Ohio-06 [308]
Ohio-13 [311]
Ohio-15 [314]
Ohio-16 [317]
Ohio-18 [320]
Ohio-SEN [323]
Oklahoma-5 [326]
Oregon-01 [329]
Oregon-04 [332]
Oregon-05 [335]
Oregon-SEN [338]
Pennsylvania-03
John Hoeven
[299]
[285]
William Lawson
Ilario Pantano
[291]
Harold Johnson
Jeff Miller
Rick Berg
[288]
[294]
[297]
[300]
[303]
Steve Chabot [306]
Bill Johnson [309]
Tom Ganley [312]
Steve Stivers [315]
Jim Renacci [318]
Bob Gibbs [321]
Rob Portman [324]
James Lankford [327]
Rob Cornilles [330]
Art Robinson [333]
Scott Bruun [336]
Jim Huffman [339]
Mike Kelly [342]
Bob Etheridge (F)
David Price (F)
[286]
[289]
Mike McIntyre (C )
Larry Kissell (F)
[292]
[295]
Heath Shuler (D)
[298]
Earl Pomeroy (F)
[301]
Open
[304]
Steve Driehaus (F) [307]
Charles Wilson (F) [310]
Betty Sutton (F) [313]
Mary Jo Kilroy (F) [316]
John Boccieri (F) [319]
Zachary Space (F) [322]
Open [325]
Open [328]
David Wu (F) [331]
Peter DeFazio (F) [334]
Kurt Schrader (F) [337]
Ron Wyden (F) [340]
Kathy Dahlkemper (F) [343]
54
[341]
Pennsylvania-04 Keith Rothfus
[345]
[344]
Pennsylvania-07 Patrick Meehan
[348]
[347]
Pennsylvania-08 Michael Fitzpatrick
[350]
[351]
[354]
Pennsylvania-10 Tom Marino
[357]
[360]
[349]
Patrick Murphy (F)
[363]
Tim Holden (F)
[362]
PennsylvaniaPat Toomey [366]
[365]
SEN
Rhode Island-01 John Loughlin [369]
[368]
[372]
Open
[367]
Open
[370]
Open
[373]
[352]
[355]
[358]
[361]
Mark Critz (A*)
[359]
Pennsylvania-17 Dave Argall
[346]
Paul Kanjorski (F)
[356]
Pennsylvania-12 Tim Burns
Open
Chris Carney (D)
[353]
Pennsylvania-11 Lou Barletta
Jason Altmire (F)
[364]
South Carolina01 [371]
South Carolina03 [374]
South Carolina04 [377]
South Carolina05 [380]
South Dakota-AL
Tim Scott
Tennessee-03
Chuck Fleischmann
Tennessee-04
Scott DesJarlais
Tennessee-05
David Hall
Tennessee-06
Diane Black
Tennessee-08
Stephen Fincher
Texas-17 [401]
Texas-23 [404]
Texas-25 [407]
Texas-30 [410]
Utah-02 [413]
Utah-SEN [416]
Vermont-SEN
Bill Flores [402]
Quico Canseco [405]
Donna Campbell [408]
Stephen Broden [411]
Morgan Philpot [414]
Mike Lee [417]
Len Britton [420]
Chet Edwards (D) [403]
Ciro Rodriguez (F) [406]
Lloyd Doggett (F) [409]
Eddie Bernice Johnson (F)
Jim Matheson (F) [415]
Open [418]
Patrick Leahy (F) [421]
Virginia-02 [422]
Virginia-05 [425]
Virginia-09 [428]
Virginia-11 [431]
Washington-02
Scott Rigell [423]
Robert Hurt [426]
Morgan Griffith [429]
Keith Fimian [432]
John Koster [435]
Glenn Nye (F) [424]
Tom Periello (F) [427]
Rick Boucher (D) [430]
Gerry Connolly (F) [433]
Rick Larsen (F) [436]
Washington-03
Jaime Herrera
Washington-09
Dick Muri
[383]
[386]
[389]
[392]
[395]
[398]
[419]
[434]
[437]
Jeff Duncan
[375]
Open
[376]
Trey Gowdy
[378]
Open
[379]
Mick Mulvaney
Kristi Noem
[381]
[384]
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (C)
[387]
[390]
[393]
Open
[388]
Lincoln Davis (C)
Jim Cooper (F)
[396]
[441]
[382]
John Spratt (F)
[399]
[438]
Open
[397]
Open
[400]
Open
[391]
[394]
[439]
Adam Smith (F)
55
[442]
[412]
[385]
[440]
Washington-SEN Dino Rossi
[444]
Patty Murray (F)
[443]
West Virginia-01 David McKinley
[447]
[446]
[450]
West VirginiaSEN [449]
Wisconsin-03
John Raese
Wisconsin-07
Sean Duffy
Wisconsin-08
Reid Ribble
Wisconsin-SEN
Ron Johnson
[452]
[455]
[458]
[461]
Dan Kapanke
[453]
[456]
[459]
[462]
Open
[448]
Open
[451]
Ron Kind (F)
Open
[445]
[454]
[457]
Steve Kagen (F)
[460]
Russ Feingold (F)
[463]
Article printed from Liberty Central: Equipping Citizens to Lobby for Liberty:
http://www.libertycentral.org
URL to article: http://www.libertycentral.org/liberty-centrals-top-races2010-10
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2010 Liberty Central. All rights reserved.
56
Kathleen Hennessey, Justice’s wife launches ‘tea party’ group, Los Angeles Times (Mar. 14,
2010), http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/14/nation/la-na-thomas14-2010mar14
← Back to Original Article
Justice's wife launches 'tea party'
group
The nonprofit run by Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,
is likely to test notions of political impartiality for the court.
March 14, 2010|By Kathleen Hennessey
Reporting from Washington — As Virginia Thomas tells it in her soft-spoken,
Midwestern cadence, the story of her involvement in the "tea party" movement is the
tale of an average citizen in action.
"I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Neb., who just may have the chance to preserve
liberty along with you and other people like you," she said at a recent panel discussion
with tea party leaders in Washington. Thomas went on to count herself among those
energized into action by President Obama's "hard-left agenda."
But Thomas is no ordinary activist.
She is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and she has launched a teaparty-linked group that could test the traditional notions of political impartiality for the
court.
In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group
whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative "core principles," she
said.
The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the
November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept
donations from various sources -- including corporations -- as allowed under campaign
finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.
"I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across this country," Thomas, who
goes by Ginni, said on the panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "I have
felt called to the front lines with you, with my fellow citizens, to preserve what made
America great."
The move by Virginia Thomas, 52, into the front lines of politics stands in marked
contrast to the rarefied culture of the nation's highest court, which normally prizes the
appearance of nonpartisanship and a distance from the fisticuffs of the politics of the
day.
Justice Thomas, 61, recently expressed sensitivity to such concerns, telling law students
in Florida that he doesn't attend the State of the Union because it is "so partisan."
57
Thomas, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush, has been a reliable
conservative vote since he joined the court in 1991.
Experts say Virginia Thomas' work doesn't violate ethical rules for judges. But Liberty
Central could give rise to conflicts of interest for her husband, they said, as it tests the
norms for judicial spouses. The couple have been married since 1987.
"I think the American public expects the justices to be out of politics," said University of
Texas law school professor Lucas A. "Scot" Powe, a court historian.
He said the expectations for spouses are far less clear. "I really don't know because we've
never seen it," Powe said.
Under judicial rules, judges must curb political activity, but a spouse is free to engage.
"We expect the justice to make decisions uninfluenced by the political or legal
preferences of his or her spouse," said New York University law professor Stephen
Gillers, an expert on legal ethics.
Virginia Thomas declined to comment in detail about her plans for LibertyCentral.org,
which she said would fully launch in May. In a brief phone interview, she did not
directly answer questions about whether she and her husband had discussed the effects
her role might have on perceptions of his impartiality.
"I don't involve myself in litigation. Are you asking that because there's a different
standard for conservatives? Did you ask Ed Rendell that question?" she said, referring to
the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, who is married to a federal appellate court
judge.
Virginia Thomas has long been a passionate voice for conservative views. She has
worked for former Republican Rep. Dick Armey of Texas and for the Heritage
Foundation, a conservative think tank with strong ties to the GOP.
In 2000, while at the Heritage Foundation, she was recruiting staff for a possible George
W. Bush administration as her husband was hearing the case that would decide the
election. When journalists reported her work, Thomas said she saw no conflict of
interest and that she rarely discussed court matters with her husband.
"We have our separate professional lives," she said at the time.
In fall 2008, when Thomas joined Hillsdale College as an administrator, she called the
school's Washington campus "the safest place for me to be when it comes to conflicts."
Her new endeavor could signal a return from that shelter.
Although Liberty Central is a nonpartisan group, its website shows an affinity for
conservative principles. Her biography notes that Thomas is a fan of Rush Limbaugh
and Mark Levin, author of "Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying
America."
"She is intrigued by Glenn Beck and listening carefully," the bio says.
As in her appearance at the panel discussion, the website does not mention Clarence
Thomas.
The judicial code of conduct does require judges to separate themselves from their
spouses' political activity. As a result, Marjorie Rendell, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals, has stayed away from political events, campaign rallies and debates in
Pennsylvania. Her husband discussed such issues in his first campaign for governor.
Since then, Judge Rendell has sought the opinion of the judiciary's Committee on Codes
of Conduct when a case presents a possible conflict of interest involving her husband's
political office, she said.
58
Law professor Gillers said that Justice Thomas, too, should be on alert for possible
conflicts, particularly those involving donors to his wife's nonprofit.
"There is opportunity for mischief if a company with a case before the court, or which it
wants the court to accept, makes a substantial contribution to Liberty Central in the
interim," he said.
Justice Thomas would be required to be aware of such contributions, Gillers said,
adding that he believes Thomas should then disclose those facts and allow parties in the
case to argue for recusal.
But it would be up to Justice Thomas to decide whether to recuse himself. He could not
be reached for comment.
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Liberty Central can raise unlimited amounts of corporate
money and largely avoid disclosing its donors.
Because of a recent Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Election
Commission, the group may also spend corporate money freely to advocate for or
against candidates for office.
Justice Thomas was part of the 5-4 majority in that case.
khennessey@tribune.com
Copyright 2011 Los Angeles Times
59
Cove Stragegies, Team, http://www.covestrategies.com/team.html. (last visited Jan. 18, 2011)
team
Matthew A. Schlapp
Principal
Matt Schlapp has nearly twenty years of government and corporate experience. Most recently, he
served as Vice President of Federal Affairs at Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC where he
directed the major federal strategies for it and its subsidiaries with a focus on environmental and
energy policies, financial markets, legal reform, and international and domestic tax issues. Prior to
joining Koch, Schlapp was the Deputy Assistant to the President and the President’s Political
Director. During his tenure at the White House, Schlapp advised the President, Vice President, the
Cabinet, and senior advisors on domestic and political issues. Schlapp served as a Regional Political Director during
the 2000 presidential campaign and was Chief of Staff for Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.). While Schlapp worked with the
Congressman, Tiahrt held seats on the Appropriations, Armed Services, and Transportation and Infrastructure
Committees.
Matt grew up in Wichita, Kansas. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s
degree in public policy from Wichita State University. Matt’s held a board position for the National Association of
Manufacturers and currently serves on the boards for the American Conservative Union, St. John Vianney
Theological Seminary in Denver, Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Administration at Wichita State University,
and the University of Kansas Washington Intern Program. Matt and his wife, Mercy, met while working at the White
House, where she served as the Director of Specialty Media. Matt and Mercy have four young daughters.
Mercedes Viana Schlapp
Principal
Mercedes Viana Schlapp is co-founder of Cove Strategies, a governmental and public affairs firm
based in Alexandria, Virginia. She works as a consultant for clients from Fortune 500 corporations
and nonprofit organizations. Mercedes serves as the interface between the clients and Spanishlanguage media outlets, develops media strategy including message development and
implementation plans and works on Hispanic coalition-building efforts. She identifies the most
effective ways to reach targeted audiences nationally and/or locally.
With more than 10 years of experience, Mercedes has developed strong regional, national and international
relationships with reporters in the Spanish press. Mercedes served in the White House for President George W. Bush
as a spokesperson for Spanish-language media outlets in the United States, Spain and Latin America as well as
worked with other specialty media outlets including religious press.
In 2006 Mercedes hosted the Republican National Committee’s cutting-edge web show, In the Know, where she
delivered current Republican news and interviewed Republican political leaders and policy makers for both Spanish
and English audiences. In addition, Mercedes serves as a media surrogate and political commentator on the radio
and recently appeared on Univision and Hannity’s America on FOX News.
Paul B. Dyck
Paul Dyck is a consultant specializing in public affairs and international business diplomacy. Most
recently, Paul served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department
of Commerce, where he directed the Department’s efforts to open markets and ensure fair treatment
for American investors and exporters in more than 50 countries, including all of Europe, Russia, and
60
Eurasia. During his tenure, Paul successfully advocated billions of dollars of commercial projects for multinationals,
including twenty Fortune 50 companies, and helped resolve market disputes worth more than one billion dollars for
American companies. Paul was also responsible for helping develop U.S. energy policy and formulating strategies to
promote commercial energy opportunities and strengthen U.S. global interests.
Before joining the Department of Commerce, Paul served at the U.S. Department of State as senior advisor to
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In this position, he helped coordinate the Secretary’s strategic planning, policy
agenda and outreach to think tanks, business leaders and other domestic and international interest groups. Paul
also served in the White House under President George W. Bush as Associate Political Director, where he managed
the President’s domestic political and policy priorities for the southern states. Prior to working on the 2000 BushCheney campaign in Texas, Paul worked at the Texas Workforce Commission, where he focused on state and
federal budgetary and legislative issues, and as legislative director in the Texas House of Representatives.
Paul received a master’s degree from the University of London and a bachelor’s degree from Austin College in
Sherman, Texas. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, and their young son.
Frank F. Sadler
Frank Sadler has worked both in the private and public sectors for almost a decade. Most recently,
Frank was engaged as a strategic advisor for a 501(C)4 organization. As a strategic advisor, Frank
made decisions on how to best utilize and allocate the organization's national budget to better
educate voters through a variety of media including direct mail, and radio and television
advertisements. He also created metrics to measure the impact of those efforts and has been in
charge of constructing an implementing voter turn-out projects. Frank has also worked as a senior
development associate at Koch Industries, both fundraising for and providing strategic guidance at
non-profits aligned with free market ideals. Prior to Koch, Frank worked for United States Senator George Allen in a
multitude of roles to eventually become his deputy national finance director. Frank is a graduate of Hamilton College
in upstate New York and is getting his masters degree in economics from American University.
© 2009 Cove Strategies / about | team| public policy | advocacy services | contact us
61
Clerk of the House of Representatives, Matt Schlapp: Lobby Contribution Report, ( July, 25,
2008), http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=getFilingDetails&filingID=13f00549-54734073-8cd1-d11ad0d7d286
62
63
Federal Election Commission, Campaign Finance Reports and Data,
http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?10930593442 (last visited Jan. 18, 2011).
64
Liberty Central, About Us, http://www.libertycentral.org/about, (last visited Jan. 18, 2011
- Liberty Central: Equipping Citizens to Lobby for Liberty http://www.libertycentral.org About Us
Posted By LC On April 5, 2010 @ 3:08 pm In |
Liberty Central – America’s Public Square. We Listen. We Inspire.
We Activate…to secure the blessings of liberty.
History:
In November of 2009, Virginia ‗Ginni‘ Thomas founded Liberty Central, a
501(c)4 organization whose primary objective is to harness the power of
citizen voices, inform everyday Americans with knowledge, and activate
them to preserve liberty. Ginni recognized the need for our country to
bridge the gap between our nation‘s citizens and its Capitol and return to a
government that adheres to our core Founding Principles – limited
government, personal responsibility, individual liberty, free enterprise, and
national security. Working alongside like-minded organizations and
individuals, Liberty Central assists new citizen-activists in their search for
educational resources and for tangible ways to impact our current political
environment.
Mission:
Who are we?
Liberty Central is a non-partisan, 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization located
near Washington, D.C., staffed and managed by seasoned patriotic activists
who have enjoyed a huge track-record of success. We owe no party our
allegiance, and recognize the value of working within a two-party system.
Each of us is a lifelong champion of liberty, with insistence on limited
government. Ginni Thomas and Gary Aldrich have spoken truth to power
and have not only survived, but have prospered and now encourage and
inspire others to do the same.
In a nutshell: passion and courage coupled with action.
Liberty Central connects the grassroots of America with Washington, D.C.
politicians and staffers. We serve both through our unique Lobbying for
65
Liberty initiative, where we bring the grassroots concerns to the Washington,
D.C. establishment, and the way in which we bring understanding of
political posturing to the grassroots. We are different from other likeminded organizations because we have strong relationships with local
activists, as well as federal-level politicians and staffers, and we have the
passion and courage, coupled with action, to protect liberty for all
Americans.
What do we do?
Millions of our friends and fellow Americans are yearning to be free, looking
to exercise their right to a government of limited, enumerated powers. We
help them do just that. The unique organization built by Ginni and her
creative team of grassroots activists uses the most effective ways to connect
the Grassroots to the political class.
We also mainstream grassroots leadership, those who follow state and local
community leaders, with established conservatives who are good friends of
ours.
We help encourage and fund state and local events, offer organizational
advice, make connections, establish link-ups, liaison with other like-minded
D.C. Organizations, start new organizations, and find new members to join
us. We appear on TV, Talk radio, write opinion pieces and articles, and
otherwise maintain a high public profile for the cause of Liberty.
And now we do much more. Liberty Central 2.0 has a new President and
CEO, Gary Aldrich, a former FBI Agent and bestselling author. Gary is
leading Liberty Central toward a second path – the establishment of local,
state, and regional chapters nationwide that will interface from the local
district all the way up to the top!
We have members to visit and contact Members of Congress in their home
district offices, and also an experienced staff to maintain a strong presence
in the corridors of power, including the hallways of Capitol Hill and in the
Executive Branch.
What makes us different from other such groups?
Liberty Central is of, by, and for grassroots activists. Our agenda is set by a
network of citizens across the country, with our National Coordinator, Lynne
Holicky, and Citizen Leaders Council President, Billie Tucker, providing a
daily conduit for the vision and needs of citizen activists.
66
Liberty Central‘s President, Gary Aldrich spent nearly two years on Capitol
Hill and five years in the White House. Ginni Thomas has had similar
experiences. Gary Aldrich and Ginni Thomas cannot be intimidated or rolled
by the so-called high and mighty political class.
They have seen it all, and they still prefer their liberty – and they only
associate with others who believe the same way.
Liberty Central goes over, under, and around political establishment to reach
our goals which are the same goals of the majority of the newly established
Tea Party Movement.
We have always been conservatives – have never wavered in our positions –
and never will. If asked to describe Liberty Central, Ginni Thomas, Gary
Aldrich, and our associates would say in two words or less, ―absolutely
independent.‖
In summary, what makes us different from other Tea Party-styled
associations:

We have not been elected, we will never run for office, and we have always managed to
get along well with others.

We never air our disagreements in public, nor do we attack our friends for their
shortcomings or human failures. All are welcome but must behave in a civil manner.

The Constitution offers the tools we need to fix what is broken with America.

We are battle-tested and ready and you can always count on our love of country and our
honest, ethical approach to problem solving.
Values Statement:
Liberty Central is led by a principled and dedicated team that actively listens
to others and creatively shares our passion for Liberty. We operate in a funloving environment that produces informative, inspirational, responsive, and
timely resources to make a positive impact in our country. While we are
non-partisan, we are constitutionally-minded and will always refer to this
Values Statement while working with and for each other.
67
Meet Our Team:
Gary Aldrich, President & CEO
[1]
In the course of his 26 year career with the FBI,
Special Agent Gary Aldrich accepted a post at the White House during the
administration of President George H.W. Bush on matters related to National
Security and regarding the backgrounds on political appointees and White
House officials. Mr. Aldrich retired from the FBI during the first term of
President Bill Clinton.
In stark contrast with the impeccably clean records of the Bush staff and
appointees, those of the Clinton Administration were devious and
obfuscating. In many cases Mr. Aldrich met a blithe attitude to serious
allegations of wrongdoing that would have sunk a Bush candidate.
Discoveries of drug abuse, criminal activity, and disregard for National
Security became common when vetting a candidate—and the administration
did not seem to care.
Mr. Aldrich became increasingly concerned with what he witnessed. Unable
to gain security clearance without meeting well established investigation
standards, Clinton employees flouted authority by carelessly moving into
restricted areas and viewing classified documents without security clearance.
Additionally, the moral fiber of this great symbol of American patriotism and
honor was impugned with a callus, post-modern approach to etiquette
practiced by First Lady and ―co-president‖ Hillary Rodham Clinton (with the
greatest example being the now storied pornographic Blue Room Christmas
tree decorated for the sake of high art).
Mr. Aldrich could not let these threats to national security and attacks on
basic American values continue. Very few were willing to make a stand and
call the Clintons to task on their debauched and dangerous moral
transgressions, so he decided to end his career in law enforcement and
expose the truth. He authored Unlimited Access – An FBI Agent Inside the
68
Clinton White House [2]. The book was a well-reasoned indictment of the
Clinton Administration centralized around his argument that the lax attention
given to ethics and morals was creating possible catastrophic breaches of
national security, as well as setting the scene for a world-wide
embarrassment.
The book soon entered the New York Times‘ bestsellers list at #1, and has
since been credited as one of the forerunners of the provocative trend in
popular conservative books on national affairs. But this success did little to
blunt the harsh sting of scorn and criticism that was to be heaped upon Mr.
Aldrich. His livelihood, his family‘s security, his hard-earned good reputation,
and his very life were put on the line on a daily basis in the face of a
vociferous maelstrom from the Hard Left who wished to keep the truth about
the Clintons, and their real agenda under wraps.
Mr. Aldrich was able to weather the storm all the stronger though, and went
on to release both a political novel, Speak No Evil [3], and another book of
essays, Thunder on the Left [4], which outlined the Hard Left‘s systematically
co-option of a political party. He was left in a fortunate position of credibility
and respectability in the conservative movement.
With firsthand knowledge of the hardship facing those who dare speak the
truth in the face of corrupt power, Mr. Aldrich became determined to make a
difference by helping others. Thus was conceived a non-profit foundation to
assist whistleblowers and to protect their first amendment rights.
Sarah Field, Chief Operating Officer and
General Counsel
Thanks to the free-market enthusiasm of her native New
Hampshire, Sarah‘s passion for individual liberty was
born at an early age, and has only grown since. Sarah
joins Liberty Central after stints with the Charles G. Koch
Charitable Foundation and the Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies. While working at the
Federalist Society, Sarah‘s portfolio involved educating
the public about the Constitution and the proper role of
courts. Before that, Sarah‘s work at the Charles G. Koch
Charitable Foundation centered on legal reform, with a focus on criminal and
civil justice issues. Sarah is a graduate of Grove City College and received
her J.D. at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Because she is
a self-proclaimed history nerd, Sarah‘s husband proposed to her in the
steeple of Boston‘s Old North Church, but only after she successfully
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completed a historical scavenger hunt along the Freedom Trail. When she‘s
not engaging the public about Beltway politics, Sarah enjoys marathon
training and sailing with her husband.
Brian Faughnan, Managing Editor
Brian‘s a veteran of conservative politics – at first in his
home state of New York, and later in his adopted state of
Virginia. Brian put in 10 years in the House of
Representatives, pushing for smaller government and
lower taxes. He worked as a lobbyist, speechwriter, and
ice cream maker before turning to new media and online
conservative advocacy. He‘s written at the Weekly
Standard blog, RedState.com, and the Washington
Times. In his spare time, Brian roots for the New York
Yankees and the Washington Nationals, and still finds time to make the
occasional batch of mint chocolate chip.
Billie Tucker, President – Citizen Leadership
Council
[5]
Leadership is Billie‘s passion. She has spent her professional career working
with CEO‘s by helping them build successful entrepreneurial organizations.
She has served as an executive facilitator in large and small board rooms;
worked alongside executive teams to articulate their vision; acted as an
accountability partner to help teams stay focused on timelines and goals;
and collaborated with others in public relations, marketing, media and
website development to enhance the strategic plan. She also developed CEO
roundtables across Florida and hired and trained facilitators to lead them.
CEO‘s describe Billie‘s greatest strength as having the ability to bring ―the‖
conversation to the table so other agendas and issues do not impede
success. Billie married her high school sweetheart more than 35 years ago.
She has two grown children who are great American patriots and is the
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proud grandmother of two granddaughters. She likes to build organizations
and encourage people. That combination together makes for a great
America!
Lynne Holicky, National Coordinator – Citizen
Leadership Council
[6]
Lynne comes to Liberty Central with a diverse
background in the Insurance and Financial Services arena. For the last 10
years, she has been operating her own small business as a decorative artist
for commercial and private clients. With paintbrush in hand and headphones
on, she spent her days beautifying homes and businesses while listening to
her favorite voices on talk radio. This education fueled her new passion for
grassroots activism in the on-going battle to preserve our freedoms and
liberties. Lynne hails from New York, is a graduate of Boston College and is
a 20 year resident of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. She‘s looking forward to
hearing from you!
Citizen Leadership Council
The Citizen Leadership Council assists American patriots who are seeking
knowledge of the core founding principles and supports their passion for
preserving freedom and liberty. State representatives facilitate grassroot
organizations and collaborate efforts to define both National and Statewide
concerns, creating a valuable place where all citizens can become active
participants in their citizenship.
Internship Program
The Liberty Central Internship Program will provide participants with the
opportunity to work substantively with a team of dedicated staff members
committed to citizen activism. Interns will work with the staff to research,
market and update the website to provide everyday citizens across the
country with a means to get involved. The intensive work load, job
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experience and technical skills will equip interns for a future career in
politics.
What Others are Saying about Liberty
Central:
―Liberty Central fills a vital role in connecting the grassroots with our
Founders‘ principles. Ginni, we wish you well in these efforts.‖
Edwin J. Feulner, President, The Heritage Foundation
―I support Liberty Central because I deeply share Virginia Thomas‘s vision of
an America rededicated to its founding principles. Defeatists say that it is
too late to restore our nation to its ideals of limited government, personal
responsibility, equality of opportunity, and the dignity of the human person.
They are wrong. All that is needed is for true American patriots to muster
the determination to fight for what is right and true and good. Liberty
Central will rally us to this noblest of causes.‖
Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the
James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton
University
―Virginia Thomas is an urgent and high-minded soul. She loves her country
and wishes it good. She thinks its institutions, the original ones, are the key
to the future. She is prepared to fight for that. She does so with vigor and
effect.‖
Dr. Larry Arnn, President, Hillsdale College
―Ginni Thomas has been a good friend for years. I followed her work at the
Heritage Foundation and more recently at Hillsdale College. Like so many
others, I am impressed by the energy and enthusiasm Ginni Thomas brings
to the cause of freedom and individual rights. Ginni can help channel the
frustration felt by millions across America at the current course of our
country. Leaders committed to smaller government, fiscal prudence, and a
strong national defense will be returning to Washington D.C., and I am
confident that Ginni Thomas will be part of the reason it will happen.‖
Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense
―Ginni has a long history of connecting the power of ideas with the key
decision-makers to move the public policy and preserve our liberty. She
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works outside the DC special interests to help action-oriented Americans
leverage their involvement to have maximum impact.‖
Hon. Steve King (R-IA), U.S. House of Representatives
―Ginni Thomas is a rising star among conservatives. She‘s a rare leader –
highly principled, remarkably smart, and pleasantly persistent. She has
everything it takes for her following to grow and grow.‖
Morton C. Blackwell, President, The Leadership Institute
Article printed from Liberty Central: Equipping Citizens to Lobby for Liberty:
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URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.libertycentral.org/about/gary-aldrich
[2] Unlimited Access – An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House:
http://www.amazon.com/Unlimited-Access-Agent-InsideClinton/dp/0895264064
[3] Speak No Evil: http://www.amazon.com/Speak-No-Evil-GaryAldrich/dp/0895263580
[4] Thunder on the Left: http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-LeftInsiders-Hijacking-Democratic/dp/0974028401
[5] Image: http://www.libertycentral.org/about/billie-picture
[6] Image: http://www.libertycentral.org/about/lynne-holicky
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