The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dark money helped fund Lee’s bid
Funds from undisclosed donors were used to help Cobb chairman in failed re-election campaign.
Tim Lee’s contentious battle to retain his job as chairman of the Cobb County Commission attracted more than $143,000 in secret money that was used in a failed attempt to influence voters and keep him in office, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis has found.
The so-called dark money came from a nonprofit social-welfare organization that is not required to disclose its donor list, meaning voters had no way of knowing who was behind the positive messages about the chairman and the negative advertising about his opponent, retired Marine Col. Mike Boyce.
While instances of undisclosed donations are still rare in Georgia’s county politics, dark money is playing a greater role in state and local elections — where it has more power to mislead voters or malign opponents because of the lower overall levels of fundraising in those races, experts say.
The 2016 Cobb primary illustrates how anonymous political contributions, which have become the norm in national politics, can be converted into campaign spending in a local election.
The dark money spent on Lee’s behalf came from the nonprofit Revitalize America Fund, which wrote checks to an independent political committee called Cobb First. The political committee then spent heavily trying to help Lee win re-election — from FOX News television commercials touting the chairman’s conservatism to direct mail attack pieces against Boyce.
Revitalize America Fund also paid for two glossy mailers that incorrectly claimed Lee cut county-wide property taxes in each of the last three years. They stopped just short of asking voters to cast ballots for him: “Call your county commissioner and tell them to vote for Tim Lee’s 4th tax cut in 4 years.”
It’s unknown how much the mailers and postage cost, since the social-welfare organization paid for it.
Formed in January 2015, Revitalize America Fund is led by Ben Mathis, a Marietta attorney with longstanding ties to Lee. In 2014, Mathis defended Lee before the county ethics commission when the chairman was accused of improperly hiring an outside attorney to negotiate a stadium agreement with the Braves. He also was part of a small group of private advisers that Lee called his “Kitchen Cabinet.”
As an independent political committee, Cobb First was required to report its fundraising to the state. But Revitalize America Fund is under no legal obligation to say from where its money came, so long as a majority is spent on “social welfare,” defined by the IRS as furthering “the common good and general welfare of the community.”
Mathis said he does not speak to the media about the fund’s operations, and referred all questions to Stefan Passantino, an attorney who specializes in campaign finance law and helped incorporate it.
“As a ... social welfare organization, Revitalize America Fund exists to promote fiscal responsibility at all levels of government,” Passantino wrote in an email to the AJC. “Revitalize America Fund made contributions to Cobb First because it knew Cobb First was generally supporting Chairman Lee, and because (Cobb First and Lee) shared values consistent with Revitalize America Fund’s goals.”
Passantino also said Revitalize America Fund “never specifically earmarked or specified how Cobb First should spend the funds it received.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was able to identify one contributor to the fund, construction giant C.W. Matthews Co., which voluntarily reported $20,000 in donations on its campaign disclosure. Since 2014, the county has paid the company more than $65 million for construction work on 29 projects.
Executive Vice President Michael Bell said the contribution was to support the fund’s goals, and that his company “has never had any input into the organization’s particular expenditures.”
Lee did not return messages seeking comment. Brian Robinson, former communications director for Gov. Nathan Deal who worked as a consultant on Lee’s campaign before the July 26 runoff, also declined to answer questions.
“This isn’t a client matter for me at this juncture,” Robinson said.