The enemy beneath...
Sounds like a slasher flick, doesn't it?
In recent posts, I've mentioned in passing a new website I recently discovered, LobbySense.com. A quick look at its membership is a glance at the underbelly of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, including (but not limited to):
Kerri Houston
Frontiers of Freedom
Jason Wright
Institute for Liberty
Grover Norquist
Americans for Tax Reform
Daniel Clifton
American Shareholders Association
Richard W. Rahn, Ph.D.
Center for Global Economic Growth
Larry Cirignano
CatholicVote.org
Gary Bauer
American Values
Chuck Muth
Citizen Outreach
Kay Daly
Coalition for a Fair Judiciary
Tom McClusky
Family Research Council
Paul M. Weyrich
Coalitions for America
Michael D. Ostrolenk
Liberty Coalition
Wendy Wright
Concerned Women for America
Tom Readmond
Media Freedom Project
Phyllis Schlafly
Eagle Forum
Kenneth Boehm
National Legal and Policy Center
Andrea Lafferty
Traditional Values Coalition
George Landrith
Frontiers of Freedom
Christopher L. Carmouche
GrassTopsUSA
Ann Stone
Republicans for Choice
William Greene
RightMarch.com
Alex St. James
African-American Republican Leadership Council
Tom Schatz
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
Thomas Shields
Coalition for Marriage and Family
Dan Perrin
American Taxpayers Alliance
Italia Federici
Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy
Mary M. Martin
The Seniors Coalition
Alan Keyes
Declaration Foundation
Mike Hardiman
American Land Rights Association
So what burning issue has these bastions of the Far Right all with their knickers in a twist?
Lobbying reform.
Yes, that which leaves most on the Left snoozing, has our counterparts across the political divide so concerned, some are actually willing to crawl out from under their Abramoff-scandal rocks to fight for their livelihood - donor anonymity.
See, most of the above groups claim non-profit 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 status, which is essentially supposed to limit their lobbying activities in exchange for tax-free status with the IRS. But more importantly to these groups, it allows them to hide the identities of their donors, even while acting very overtly political.
While many people believe the crux of the Abramoff scandal was the exposure of corrupt politicians, the fact is that very little of the tens of millions extracted from Abramoff's clients went into Congressional coffers. The vast majority, much of it still unaccounted for, passed through purported non-profits, such as Norquist's ATR, Ridenour's National Center for Public Policy Research and Federici's CREA. What even a summary scratch at CREA's tax status surface uncovered was a pattern of fraud and deception which allowed a well-funded front group to act with impunity for years. Other groups on the above list show similar pattern of behavior, with very little punitive action from the IRS or FEC.
What the groups in the LobbySense coalition fear is Congress closing the elephant-sized loophole in current lobbying regulations which they believe provides them personal and political immunity. Personally, I don't feel the law goes far enough, and strongly urge even stronger lobbying disclosure laws.
The LobbySense website has been quiet since Congress went on recess. Expect that to change dramatically this week, should lobbying reform be taken up again on the Hill. Which it should, as it clearly is the thing the extreme right "grassroots" fears can break its powerful grip on the GOP. Perhaps calls to reform-minded Democrats would help, neh?
Comments
I have a small project that I want to get around to doing one of these days - a six degrees of seperation within the US right. It seems to me that if you look close, most right-winged groups in the US is connected directly to each other (though overlapping memberships usually) or are very closely related (being founded or funded by the same people).
What I want to do, is something similar to Sourcewatch, in which you can enter a name of a group, organization, person etc. and get information about it. Instead of information, I want to make a list of 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. degrees of seperation.
The biggest problem is to get all the information entered - after that it should be too hard. Of course, keeping the information up to date will also be some work.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | April 23, 2006 10:29 AM
Kristjan, that's a project I could get behind 100%. I think Norquist is the common thread in many of those listed above - he really recognized early on the concept of a Big Tent for the extreme right. He's actually quite socially libertarian, but gets along fine with the religious extremists.
Good luck - keep us up to date.
Posted by: MB | April 23, 2006 11:44 AM
I'd love to see the info assembled as well. It can be sussed out now; but you need to feed the right combo of words into Google. I have to say I've come across some very interesting connections though. Like the primary corporate supplier of defective body armor to the US Military is a big-time contributor to the Republican Party. Establishing that connection took approximately 1 hour of searching. It would have been easier if all political contributors were on a single data base. His was hidden away on his local Republican tally list. I had to search by his name, corporation, state and county. It's how they hide the truth.
Posted by: The Fat Lady Sings | April 23, 2006 07:02 PM