Perhaps, Congress wasn't "hoodwinked" at all. Perhaps, Institutes like that set up by John McCain were specifically established to sell legislation offered by none other than -- John McCain!New York Post excerpt, March 21, 2005:
A former program officer for Pew, Sean Treglia, was caught on videotape bragging about how the foundation worked behind the scenes to create the false impression that there was a "mass movement" afoot clamoring for campaign-finance reform.
The intent: to hoodwink Congress.
It worked.
Pew did this in the run-up to the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 — a.k.a. McCain-Feingold — by spreading around more than $40 million to grass-roots front groups like Common Cause, the Campaign Finance Institute and the inaptly named Center for Public Integrity.
Pew wasn't alone in its efforts.
Several other major liberal foundations — including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation and George Soros' Open Society Institute — colluded with Pew to give $123 million between 1994 and 2004 to promote the regulation of political speech.
That sure fits with what Eva outlines in post #315 regarding environmental "justice."
Very nice find.
Yes, it does have all the earmarks—if you’ll excuse the expression. This faux consensus model seems to be in play on just about every liberal cause, too.
That was probably the plan for the “immigration reform” end, too, but creating the illusion of overwhelming grassroots support is much harder when normally apolitical people are exposed to the issue at every step of their daily lives and have already formed opinions; from the emergency room to the workplace, to local crime, to every automatic phone menu that makes you sit through Spanish language options before you can get on with business.
REFERENCE In the run-up to the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 — a.k.a. McCain-Feingold — Pew spread around more than $40 million to grass-roots front groups like Common Cause, the Campaign Finance Institute and the inaptly named Center for Public Integrity.
Several other major liberal foundations — including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation and George Soros' Open Society Institute — colluded with Pew to give $123 million between 1994 and 2004 to promote the regulation of political speech.