Posted on 09/04/2004 8:06:03 AM PDT by bad company
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Posted on Sat, Sep. 04, 2004
Democrats' ties to 527s incite legal challenge GOP questions rivals' compliance with campaign laws By MATT STEARNS The Star's Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON Ties between Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and President Bush's allies outraged Democrats when the veterans group ran attack ads against Sen. John Kerry.
Critics, however, charge that there are more and closer ties between Democratic Party operatives and similar independent groups working to defeat Bush.
And, they say, it is the Democrats and their allies who through the aggressive use of such groups to fund campaign activities may be skating close to a Federal Election Commission line that defines how these groups can operate.
Such groups, called 527s for the tax-code section that permits their existence, run political ads, register voters and organize get-out-the-vote efforts to help Kerry or Bush.
Many see the tax-exempt 527s as a new outlet for so-called soft money, the unlimited and largely unregulated contributions to party committees that were banned in 2002.
The Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors campaign contributions, estimates that 527s have raised more than $165 million so far this year. About 90 percent of that has been raised by groups that lean Democratic. The Media Fund has raised $28 million; America Coming Together $26 million; and MoveOn.org $9 million.
The Bush-Cheney campaign went to federal court in Washington on Wednesday to seek a preliminary injunction forcing the election commission to take action against 527s within 30 days, said Tom Josefiak, the campaign's general counsel.
The campaign's goal is to stop the torrent of 527 money before the election, although we recognize it's a long shot, Josefiak said.
The rules say 527s are not allowed to coordinate their plans, projects, activities or needs with campaigns or party committees, such as the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee.
What coordination means is at the heart of the imbroglio surrounding 527s. The election commission, in implementing the 2002 campaign-finance reform law, chose a narrow interpretation. That leaves campaign-finance watchdogs concerned that, given the small world of political operatives, many are playing loose with the rules.
These people do talk to each other, said Larry Noble, the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. I'm sure there's a lot of nodding and winking going on.
Erik Smith, the president of the Media Fund, a 527 that is running pro-Democratic ads in key states, said, however: Just because you have a pre-existing relationship with someone doesn't mean you're going to violate the law. That's a big jump, I think. There is a human quality called discretion.
In recent weeks, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made headlines by running ads challenging Democratic nominee Kerry's actions in the Vietnam War. (Official records and investigations by several media organizations, including Knight Ridder newspapers, support Kerry's version of events.)
Benjamin Ginsberg, a Bush-Cheney campaign lawyer, and Kenneth Cordier, a campaign volunteer, left the president's re-election effort after their ties to the Swift boat group were publicized, even though there was no proof of coordination between the campaign and the group.
On its face, there's absolutely nothing wrong with what he (Ginsberg) was doing, said Aron Pilhofer of the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity. There's nothing that says you can't represent multiple clients. I think it was more a public-relations problem than it was a legal problem.
While Democrats made much of the connections between the Bush campaign advisers and the Swift boat group, there is a much larger web of relationships among Democratic-allied 527s, Democratic interest groups and the Democratic Party.
There's been a revolving door between the Kerry campaign and these shadowy groups, said Reed Dickens, a Bush-Cheney spokesman. There is a double standard that has been applied on this issue.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was chairman of the Democratic National Convention, is vice president of a 527 called Voices for Working Families. Harold Ickes, who serves on the Democratic National Committee's executive committee, is the chief of staff of America Coming Together, a 527 that is trying to register new voters in swing states. Until recently, Ickes was president of the Media Fund.
Ickes would have to have had a frontal lobotomy to not take information he knows through his role at the Democratic National Committee and apply it to his work at 527s, Ginsberg said. They've gone places that nobody in the Bush-Cheney campaign or at the RNC have gone or is going to go.
Ickes countered: I have nothing to do with the communications aspect of the DNC, and that's a critical feature of the law.
He called the GOP assault on 527s a sign of success. They're very surprised at how effective we've been, he said. Tell you the truth, we're a little surprised at how successful we've been. They thought we'd never get off the ground. They're very anxious about this.
Bill Burton, a Kerry spokesman, said the connections between the Kerry campaign and Democratic-leaning 527s are nowhere near as close as those between Ginsberg and the Swift boat group.
Someone was working with this group spreading blatant lies and was serving as the campaign's top lawyer, Burton said of Ginsberg's dual roles advising Bush and the Swift boat group. There's not a lot of dots to connect there. Everything our campaign does is above board. We continue to work well within the guidelines of the law.
Several former 527 staffers now are working for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, which Burton said was perfectly legal.
Beyond the Kerry-Edwards campaign, there are other ties between the Democratic Party and 527s.
Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who runs the party's Voting Rights Initiative, also has been paid by America Coming Together for political consulting work. Democratic National Committee lawyer Joseph Sandler also represents the MoveOn.org Voter Fund, a 527 committed to defeating Bush.
Finally, leaders of many of the core constituencies of the Democratic Party have ties to 527s.
The AFL-CIO endorsed Kerry months ago. The union's executive vice president, Linda Chavez-Thompson, is the treasurer of Voices for Working Families. And more than a half-dozen other union leaders who back Kerry also serve on the group's board.
Even if there is no direct coordination among the various people with various ties to the Democratic National Committee, liberal interest groups, Kerry-Edwards and 527s, they all are political pros devoted to the same goal, Noble said.
This isn't some store owner from Dubuque trying to figure out how to help a campaign, Noble said. These are Washington insiders who are experienced in this and know what to do. They know what the battleground states are. They know what the issues are.
Many critics think 527s should be forced to rely solely on hard-money contributions, direct donations from individuals limited to $2,000 per election cycle.
This is the history of campaign-finance reform, said Mark Glaze, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center, a campaign-finance watchdog group.
You fix a problem, it works for a generation or so, another problem arises, and you fix that. We're now in the process of finding ways to fix the soft-money problem.
To reach Matt Stearns,
call 1-(202) 383-6009 or send e-mail to mstearns@kcstar.com.
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First glance
The Bush-Cheney campaigns ties to an independent group that ran ads attacking John Kerry pale in comparison with the connections between Democrats and left-leaning independent political groups.
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© 2004 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.kansascity.com
Glass houses.
Exactly.
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