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Leaked Call Reveals Senate Republicans Know Election Reform Is “Overwhelmingly Popular” As They Plot To Protect Dark Money & Special Interest Donors

McConnell Policy Adviser To Right-Wing Groups: “When It Comes To Donor Privacy, I Can’t Stress Enough How Quickly Things Could Get Out Of Hand”

Senior Koch Aide Decides Republicans Would Be Better Off “Ignoring The Will Of American Voters And Trying To Kill The Bill” Instead Of Supporting Election Reform

A leaked recording of a private meeting between a senior Mitch McConnell aide and the leaders of prominent conservative groups obtained by The New Yorker reveals that Republicans know Democrats’ major election reform package is “overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum” according to their own polling — and they have no effective counter-message. But instead of supporting the plan to ban dark money, crack down on political corruption, defend voting rights and promote accurate, secure elections, Republican operatives believe their best strategy is “ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill.”

During the conference call, McConnell policy adviser Steve Donaldson said: “When it comes to donor privacy, I can’t stress enough how quickly things could get out of hand” — emphasizing the Minority Leader’s “concern about the effects that disclosure requirements would have on fund-raising.” And despite the fact that “a large, very large, chunk of conservatives” are supportive of Democrats’ efforts to fix our democracy and root out corruption in politics, McConnell’s aide assured the conservative groups on the call that McConnell was “not going to back down” from the fight against the bill.

The opposition to yet another piece of legislation with widespread public support — including from Republican voters — is poised to be an additional political liability for GOP Senate candidates in 2022.

“Once again, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans are ignoring the will of the American people to prioritize and protect their corporate special interest allies and ultra-wealthy dark money donors,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “This ‘overwhelmingly popular’ legislation is winning broad support because voters across the political spectrum understand that it’s past time to clean up our political system, crack down on corruption and defend our democracy.”

The New Yorker: Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century
By Jane Meyer

  • In public, Republicans have denounced Democrats’ ambitious electoral-reform bill, the For the People Act, as an unpopular partisan ploy.
  • But behind closed doors Republicans speak differently about the legislation, which is also known as House Resolution 1 and Senate Bill 1. They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.
  • A recording obtained by The New Yorker of a private conference call on January 8th, between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups—including one run by the Koch brothers’ network—reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too. The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.
  • Kyle McKenzie, the research director for the Koch-run advocacy group Stand Together, told fellow-conservatives and Republican congressional staffers on the call that he had a “spoiler.” “When presented with a very neutral description” of the bill, “people were generally supportive,” McKenzie said, adding that “the most worrisome part . . . is that conservatives were actually as supportive as the general public was when they read the neutral description.” In fact, he warned, “there’s a large, very large, chunk of conservatives who are supportive of these types of efforts.”
  • As a result, McKenzie conceded, the legislation’s opponents would likely have to rely on Republicans in the Senate, where the bill is now under debate, to use “under-the-dome-type strategies”—meaning legislative maneuvers beneath Congress’s roof, such as the filibuster—to stop the bill, because turning public opinion against it would be “incredibly difficult.”
  • “When it comes to donor privacy, I can’t stress enough how quickly things could get out of hand,” Donaldson said, indicating McConnell’s concern about the effects that disclosure requirements would have on fund-raising. Donaldson added, “We have to hold our people together,” and predicted that the fight is “going to be a long one. It’s going to be a messy one.” But he insisted that McConnell was “not going to back down.”
  • The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reports that in the 2020 federal election cycle more than a billion dollars was spent by dark-money groups that masked the identity of their donors. Of that total, more than six hundred and fifty-four million dollars came from just fifteen groups. The top spender was One Nation, a dark-money social-welfare group tied to McConnell. The For the People Act requires greater disclosure of the identities of donors who pay for election ads—including those released on digital platforms, which currently fall outside of such legal scrutiny.
  • But, as the January 8th conference call shows, opponents of the legislation have resorted to “under-the-dome-type strategies” because the broad public is against them when it comes to billionaires buying elections.

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