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The political network spearheaded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch has expanded into a far-reaching operation of unrivaled complexity, built around a maze of groups that cloaks its donors, according to an analysis of new tax returns and other documents.

The filings show that the network of politically active nonprofit groups backed by the Kochs and fellow donors in the 2012 elections financially outpaced other independent groups on the right and, on its own, matched the long-established national coalition of labor unions that serves as one of the biggest sources of support for Democrats.

The resources and the breadth of the organization make it singular in American politics: an operation conducted outside the campaign finance system, employing an array of groups aimed at stopping what its financiers view as government overreach. Members of the coalition target different constituencies but together have mounted attacks on the new health-care law, federal spending and environmental regulations.

Key players in the Koch-backed network have already begun engaging in the 2014 midterm elections, hiring new staff members to expand operations and strafing House and Senate Democrats with hard-hitting ads over their support for the Affordable Care Act.

Its funders remain largely unknown; the coalition was carefully constructed with extensive legal barriers to shield its donors.

But they have substantial firepower. Together, the 17 conservative groups that made up the network raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign, according to the analysis of tax returns by The Washington Post and the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.

A labyrinth of tax-exempt groups and limited-liability companies helps mask the sources of the money, much of which went to voter mobilization and television ads attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats, according to tax filings and campaign finance reports.

The coalition’s revenue surpassed that of the Crossroads organizations, a super PAC and non­profit group co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove that together brought in $325 million in the last cycle.

The donor network organized by the Kochs — along with funding an array of longtime pro-
Republican groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Rifle Association and Americans for Tax Reform — distributed money to a coalition of groups that share the brothers’ libertarian, free-market perspective. Each group was charged with a specialized task such as youth outreach, Latino engagement or data crunching.

The system involved roughly a dozen limited-liability companies with cryptic, alphabet-soup names such as SLAH LLC and ORRA LLC, and entities that dissolved and reappeared under different monikers.

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a University of Notre Dame Law School professor who studies the tax issues of politically active nonprofits, said he has never seen a network with a similar design in the tax-exempt world.

“It is a very sophisticated and complicated structure,” said Mayer, who examined some of the groups’ tax filings. “It’s designed to make it opaque as to where the money is coming from and where the money is going. No layperson thought this up. It would only be worth it if you were spending the kind of dollars the Koch brothers are, because this was not cheap.”

Tracing the flow of the money is particularly challenging because many of the advocacy groups swapped funds back and forth. The tactic not only provides multiple layers of protection for the original donors but also allows the groups to claim they are spending the money on “social welfare” activities to qualify for 501(c)(4) tax-exempt status.

Such maneuvers could be sharply restricted under new regulations proposed by the Internal Revenue Service in November. The new rules seek to rein in nonprofit groups that have increasingly engaged in elections while avoiding the donor disclosure required of political committees.

Through a corporate spokesman, the Kochs declined to comment on what support they give.

Much of the money that flowed through the network in the last election cycle originated with two nonprofit groups that served as de facto banks, feeding money to groups downstream, according to an analysis by Center for Responsive Politics researcher Robert Ma­guire, who investigates politically active nonprofits.

The biggest was the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, an Arlington County-based group set up in November 2011 that now functions as the major funding arm of the network, according to people familiar with the operation. The organization, whose board includes current and former Koch Industries officials, brought in nearly $256 million in its first year, “significantly more revenue than was expected,” according to its tax filing. Lots more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-backed-political-network-b
uilt-to-shield-donors-raised-400-million-in-2012-elections/2014/01/05/9e7cfd9a-719b-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html

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Originally posted by M52NICKERSON:
Of course, that way they can claim its is small donation and call it grass roots when in fact it is the rich and powerful protecting their own interests.

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Originally posted by reaverfan:
They don't need your $10.00

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