The Plot Against American Democracy From Right-Wing ‘Dark Money’ Organizations

End Citizens United Action Fund is out with a new report, The Dark Money Assault On Voting Rights (excerpt):

THE BACKDROP

During the Trump Administration, Republican operatives raised at least $250 million in dark money contributions to help push through more than 200 conservative judges to the federal bench, including many who had records of arguing or voting against voting rights. Then, leading into the 2020 election, this same network of GOP dark money groups pushed dozens of lawsuits to try to restrict voting rights and access — and received many favorable rulings from the same judges they had helped get confirmed. Despite admitting that their efforts were solely aimed around suppressing the vote to help elect Trump, dark money groups after the election then turned to helping spread the Big Lie that the election had been stolen, and even helped organize President Trump’s rally that led to the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Now, after all of these efforts to suppress the vote in, and overturn the results of, the 2020 elections failed, Republicans and their dark money groups have found a new motive to engage their donors and their need for power: an unprecedented attack on voting rights at the state level. This plan, which has the full support of the party’s national apparatus, could represent “the most sweeping contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of Reconstruction.” In just the first three months of 2021, more than 361 restrictive voting bills were introduced across 47 states, including several that have already been signed into law and 55 more that were actively moving through state legislatures.

At the same time these wealthy special interests and dark money groups are supporting efforts to restrict voting rights at the state level, they are also working extensively to block passage of the For the People Act (H R 1/S 1), federal legislation that would overturn many of their state efforts by protecting the freedom and right to vote for all Americans, as well as end dark money by requiring these groups to finally have to disclose their major donors.

In support of these two goals, conservative dark money groups have already announced over $42 million in spending campaigns, and that is likely just a fraction of all the spending that will take place. This includes at least $5.1 million so far on TV ads opposing the For The People Act and voting rights efforts.

THE DARK MONEY PLAN

Responding to the demands of megadonors desperate to hold onto the undue influence they have held over our politicians and policies for far too long, the Republican party and its dark money groups have crafted a major plan to roll back access to voting and oppose democracy reforms.

As reported by the New York Times, conservative activists with no background in election law seized this opportunity to keep their donors and voters engaged by turning the focus of their dark money groups’ efforts to supporting restrictions on voting. Many of the most prominent conservative groups began directing their resources toward campaigns to restrict when and how people can vote, and an array of party leaders and outside groups began working directly with Republican state legislatures across the country to reengineer the voting system at the state level.

Simultaneously, many of these same groups started working at the federal level to stop the For the People Act (H.R. 1, S. 1), a once-in-a-generation package of critical anti-corruption reforms and voting rights protections that would prevent most of their state-level suppressive tactics. Just two days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, leaders of major GOP dark money groups secretly huddled on the phone with top Republican congressional staff to discuss the bill. To their dismay, their own polling found that not only was the bill overwhelmingly popular with voters across the political spectrum, but there was no message they could devise effectively to counter the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections. The participants conceded that since the bill was too well-liked to shift public opinion, that they would instead focus their efforts on ensuring Republican lawmakers use all legislative maneuvers available to try to kill the bill
in Congress.

These efforts are supported all the way to the top of the national Republican party. The Republican National Committee, which previously set aside $20 million on legal efforts to limit voting access during the COVID-19 pandemic, created an “election integrity’’ committee to develop restrictive voting legislative proposals, as did the Republican State Leadership Committee. Both of these committees were filled with members who backed false conspiracies about the 2020 election, and who were deeply involved in the effort to overturn Trump’s election loss as well as organize and promote the rally that led to the January 6th insurrection. The Republican Party has also made clear its unified opposition to the For the People Act.

There is a great deal more information you will find in this report from End Citizens United Action Fund. You may want to bookmark this report.

Ari Berman and Nick Surgery report at Mother Jones Leaked Video: Dark Money Group Brags About Writing GOP Voter Suppression Bills Across the Country:

In a private meeting last month with big-money donors, the head of a top conservative group boasted that her outfit had crafted the new voter suppression law in Georgia and was doing the same with similar bills for Republican state legislators across the country. “In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” she said, “or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.”

Note: The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump says this video is from a meeting in Tucson.

Watch the full video here.

The Georgia law had “eight key provisions that Heritage recommended,” Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, told the foundation’s donors at an April 22 gathering in Tucson, in a recording obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with Mother Jones. Those included policies severely restricting mail ballot drop boxes, preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters, making it easier for partisan workers to monitor the polls, preventing the collection of mail ballots, and restricting the ability of counties to accept donations from nonprofit groups seeking to aid in election administration.

Heritage Action says it wrote “8 key provisions” in Georgia voter suppression law, “19 provisions” in Texas House bill & “3 provisions” of Iowa law. Dark $ fueling voter suppression

“Republicans who adopt these model laws should be ashamed of themselves” says @marceelias pic.twitter.com/BB5BCAn7cr

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) May 13, 2021

All of these recommendations came straight from Heritage’s list of “best practices” drafted in February. With Heritage’s help, Anderson said, Georgia became “the example for the rest of the country.”

The leaked video reveals the extent to which Heritage is leading a massive campaign to draft and pass model legislation restricting voting access, which has been swiftly adopted this year in the battleground states of Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and Iowa. It’s no coincidence that so many GOP-controlled states are rushing to pass similar pieces of legislation in such a short period of time.

Republican legislators claim they’re tightening up election procedures to address (unfounded) concerns about fraud in the 2020 election. But what’s really behind this effort is a group of conservative Washington insiders who have been pushing these same kinds of voting restrictions for decades, with the explicit aim of helping Republicans win elections. The difference now is that Trump’s baseless claims about 2020 have given them the ammunition to get the bills passed, and the conservative movement, led by Heritage, is making an unprecedented investment to get them over the finish line.

“We’re working with these state legislators to make sure they have all of the information they need to draft the bills,” Anderson told the Heritage Foundation donors. In addition to drafting the bills in some cases, “we’ve also hired state lobbyists to make sure that in these targeted states we’re meeting with the right people.”

To “create this echo chamber,” as Anderson put it, Heritage is spending $24 million over two years in eight battleground states—Arizona, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Texas, and Wisconsin—to pass and defend restrictive voting legislation. Every Tuesday, the group leads a call with right-wing advocacy groups like the Susan B. Anthony List, Tea Party Patriots, and FreedomWorks to coordinate these efforts at the highest levels of the conservative movement. “We literally give marching orders for the week ahead,” Anderson said. “All so we’re singing from the same song sheet of the goals for that week and where the state bills are across the country.”

Days before the Georgia legislature would pass its sweeping bill rolling back access to the ballot, Anderson said she met with Gov. Brian Kemp and urged him to quickly sign the bill when it reached his desk. “I had one message for him,” said Anderson, a former Trump administration official in the Office of Management and Budget. “Do not wait to sign that bill. If you wait even an hour, you will look weak. This bill needs to be signed immediately.” Kemp followed Anderson’s advice, signing the bill right after its passage. Heritage called it a “historic voting security bill.”

Anderson said she delivered “the same message” to Republican governors in Texas, Arizona, and Florida. [Governor Doug Ducey dutifully complied by signing S.B. 1485 before the ink was even dry on the paper.] Texas is the next big fight for Heritage. Anderson said Heritage Action wrote “19 provisions” in a Texas House bill that would make it a criminal offense for election officials to give a mail ballot request form to a voter who hadn’t explicitly asked for one and would subject poll workers to criminal penalties for removing partisan poll challengers who are accused of voter intimidation. [This is to enable the Houston-based GQP voter suppression organization True The Vote.] It’s expected to pass in the coming days.

Remember how Donald Trump tried to raise an “army of poll watchers,” i.e., MAGA/QAnon red cap goons to intimidate voters? As Trump team rushes to train ‘army’ of poll watchers, experts on watch for voter intimidation. Heritage is trying to legalize voter intimidation in state laws (it is a crime under federal law).

“Gov. Abbott will sign it quickly,” Anderson said. She warned of corporate opposition to the bill, following actions by Georgia-based companies to distance themselves from the restrictive voting bill there. “American Airlines, Dell, they’re coming after us,” she said. “We need to be ready for the next fight in Texas.”

In response to a request for comment, Anderson said in a statement, “We are proud of our work at the national level and in states across this country to promote commonsense reforms that make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. We’ve been transparent about our plans and public with our policy recommendations, and we won’t be intimidated by the left’s smear campaign and cancel culture.”

These Neo-Confederate crypto-fascists at the Heritage Foundation most definitely need to be “canceled,” as the wingnuts like to call it these days. They are anti-democratic and un-American fascists seeking to destroy American democracy. This country fought a World War to rid the world of fascism, and now these evil sonsuvbitches want to bring fascism to America. Patriotic Americans are not going to allow them to succeed with their evil plot against American democracy.

Heritage Foundation fellow Hans von Spakovsky, a [voter suppression specialist and] former George W. Bush administration official who for two decades has been the driving force behind policies that restrict access to the ballot, spoke alongside Anderson at the donor summit.

This evil GQP bastard belongs in prison, for years now.

“Hans is briefing governors, secretaries of state, state attorney generals, state elected officials,” Anderson said. “Just what three weeks ago, we had a huge call with secretaries of state, right?”

“We’ve now for several years been having a private briefing of the best conservative secretaries of state in the country that has so annoyed the left that they have been doing everything they can to try to find out what happens at that meeting,” von Spakovsky replied.

“So far unsuccessfully,” Anderson said. “No leaks.”

Though the bills shaped by Heritage have been sold as advancing “election integrity,” they appear aimed more at helping GOP candidates take back power. “We are going to take the fierce fire that is in every single one of our bellies,” Anderson told the donors in April, “to right the wrongs of November.”

* * *

[H]eritage has been at the forefront of weaponizing Trump’s Big Lie of widespread voter fraud in order to build support for policies that restrict access to the ballot. “A lot of bad things happened in 2020,” Heritage Foundation senior adviser Genevieve Wood said in April to the donors, who ranked “election integrity” as their top issue in a survey this year. “But you should know a lot of good things are beginning to happen now in 2021. You’re seeing it in Georgia. You’re seeing in the state of Arizona. You’re beginning to see it in Texas and so many more.”

Heritage began its lobbying campaign early in Georgia. In February, a representative from the group delivered a letter signed by 2,000 conservative activists to Republicans in the state legislature, urging them to rewrite the state’s voting laws after GOP defeats in the November presidential election and the January Senate runoffs (where Heritage Action contacted 1.5 million voters on behalf of the losing Republican candidates). The activists wrote that they had “lost faith in the process and the outcome of their elections.” Soon after, bills restricting voting access started moving through the legislature.

“Then we provided testimony, expert witnesses, analysis, and actually how to draft these bills so that they were legally tight,” Anderson said. “So, [Democratic voting rights lawyer] Marc Elias, if you know that name from the progressive left, he’s like their legal pit bull. He goes after all of this with lawsuits, so that Marc Elias can’t find any holes.”

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1393666680199516162

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1393611115758751751

Elias has filed a suit challenging the Georgia law. “The Georgia law violates both the Voting Rights Act and the US Constitution,” Elias told Mother Jones. “Heritage Action claiming that this is legally tight is like hearing from the Titanic shipbuilders about how much confidence they have in its maiden voyage. This law is based on a Big Lie, denies Black, Brown, and young voters of their rights, and will be struck down in court.”

* * *

[O]ther measures Anderson said Heritage drafted included “three provisions” in legislation adopted by Iowa Republicans a few weeks before Georgia’s law, including one placing voters on inactive status if they sit out one election cycle and removing them from the rolls if they fail to take action, a system that could lead hundreds of thousands of voters to be purged.

“Iowa is the first state that we got to work in, and we did it quickly and we did it quietly,” Anderson said. “We worked quietly with the Iowa state legislature. We got the best practices to them. We helped draft the bills. We made sure activists were calling the state legislators, getting support, showing up at their public hearings, giving testimony…Little fanfare. Honestly, nobody even noticed. My team looked at each other and we’re like, ‘It can’t be that easy.’” (Elias has also filed suit against the Iowa law.)

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1393596977057869827

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1392960952350425088

Anderson also took credit for a Arizona law enacted in early April that prohibits election officials from accepting private funding, which was used in 2020 in both red and blue counties for things like opening more polling locations and drop box sites, saying, “We’re kicking Mark Zuckerberg out of all of our state and federal elections.” And she claimed that another bill signed by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday, which could purge more than 100,000 people from the state’s list of voters who automatically receive a mail ballot, was “straight from the Heritage recommendations.”

A Heritage lobbyist met early on with Florida Republicans to draft a bill largely mimicking the Georgia law, which passed the legislature over the unanimous opposition of Florida’s county elections supervisors. While the bill worked its way through the legislature, Anderson urged DeSantis to champion it. “I’ve got a call this afternoon with Gov. DeSantis’ team getting an update,” she said on April 22 to her donors. “Why is that? He needs to do more. He needs to say, get this bill on my desk.” DeSantis signed the bill on May 6 behind closed doors, with only Fox & Friends cameras allowed in for an “exclusive.”

“The scandal is the national pressure coming down on states with an intent to keep people from voting,” says Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the corporate watchdog group Public Citizen. After record turnout in 2020, “writing these bills, pushing these bills, is a mechanism to attempt to return to those new voters being unable to vote.”

In addition to pushing state-based voting restrictions, Heritage Action is leading the effort to block the passage of HR 1, Democrats’ sweeping democracy reform bill that would preempt many of these voter suppression laws by enacting policies like automatic and Election Day registration, two weeks of early voting, and expanded mail-in voting on a nationwide basis. “HR 1 is basically the dream bill of every left-wing advocacy group we’ve been fighting against for years on election issues,” von Spakovsky said at the donor event.

[A] Heritage fact sheet we put out is being used by congressional staffers, members of Congress, to go up and fight HR 1.” The group dubbed the bill the “Corrupt Politicians Act,” a label that was soon being used by leading Republicans like Ted Cruz.

“We’ve made sure that every single member of Congress knows just how bad the bill is,” Anderson added. “Then we’ve made sure there’s an echo chamber of support around these senators driven by your Heritage Action activists and sentinels across the country where we’ve driven hundreds of thousands of calls, emails, place letters to the editor, hosted events, and run television and digital ads.”

* * *
Heritage Action announced on Wednesday it would run ads this summer pressuring Democratic senators in West Virginia, Arizona, Montana, and New Hampshire to preserve the filibuster in order to block HR 1.

“It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Anderson said in April. “If we don’t win this, we lose our republic, period.”

Apparently this Aryan Princess doesn’t get irony. It is she and the Neo-Confederate crypto-fascist Heritage Foundation that is trying to end our democratic republic, and replace it with Trumpism, the new American fascism.

To Elias, the video from the Heritage summit is proof that Republican state lawmakers are pursuing voting restrictions not in response to real local problems, but at the behest of well-funded Washington insiders. “It’s not being run by a coalition of state legislators,” he says. “It’s not being run by election administrators. It’s being run out of an office in Washington, DC, by people whose sole agenda is to make it harder for Black, Brown, and young voters to participate in the electoral process. Republicans who adopt these model laws should be ashamed of themselves.”

Phillip Bump of the Washington Post adds, Group that can’t find systemic voter fraud eager to help combat systemic voter fraud:

[H]ere we’ll diverge to make another point.

That is this: Anderson and von Spakovsky are making claims about demonstrated fraud that a database operated by the Heritage Foundation itself can’t back up.

I make this point with some regularity because the Heritage Foundation’s database of fraud cases is often cited as evidence of the rampant scale of fraud. You can find it online; it claims to have demonstrated 1,322 “proven instances of voter fraud.” But when you look at what’s presented, you see all of the caveats that aren’t mentioned. Like that the database goes back to the mid-1980s. Or that it includes a number of cases of fraudulent voter registration by third parties, which is not generally included in assessments of “voter fraud.”

In fact, as I’ve pointed out before, the database includes only one example of a fraudulently cast ballot from the 2020 general election. That’s not the only such case, mind you. Local news reports indicated 16 such incidents when I looked for examples earlier this month. If that were every demonstrated case and each of those votes was counted (which they weren’t), that would amount to one instance of voter fraud for every 10 million votes tallied in 2020. Being struck by lightning is four times as common.

In other words, Anderson is going on cable television and driving an effort to pass new voting restrictions by asserting that fraud is a real threat demanding of legislative response — when even the tally compiled by her parent organization makes obvious that it isn’t.