Non- profit’s funds fueling super PAC

Campaign- finance activists object to anonymous cash

WASHINGTON — A group aligned with the Tea Party has funneled more than $ 1.3 million in anonymous contributions to a super PAC working aggressively to unseat Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and other congressional veterans, raising alarms among some watchdogs that these outside groups are emerging as a new avenue for secret political money.

Freedomworks, a non- profit group that does not have to publicly disclose its donors, provided nearly half the money its affiliated super PAC, Freedomworks For America, collected last year, as it launched an all- out campaign to defeat Hatch, Sen. Richard Lugar, R- Ind., and others, campaign finance reports filed last week show.

The contributions are legal, but campaignfinance watchdog groups denounce the practice.

“That’s the laundering of secret money into a super PAC,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group that favors greater limits on campaign spending. “The bottom line is: No one should be doing it.”

The non- profit’s money paid legal expenses, salaries, overhead and travel for the super PAC, which is working hard to recruit and train activists to become delegates to the Utah’s Republican convention this spring where Hatch must stand for renomination. A similar campaign by outside groups helped oust three- term Sen. Bob Bennett at the 2010 GOP gathering.

Russ Walker, the super PAC’S national political director, said there’s “absolutely no” attempt to hide donations. The super PAC’S non- profit arm is supported by more than 40,000 people, many of whom donate in small amounts, he said. “They give to our institution because they believe in our mission, which is smaller government.”

Freedomworks for America has cast Hatch, a six- term incumbent, as out of step with conservative Utah because he has voted to raise the debt ceiling and the 2008 bailout package.

Hatch campaign manager Dave Hansen called the anonymous money “no surprise.” The super PAC’S officials “haven’t played above- board yet in this campaign,” he said.

Super PACS emerged as political tools after a pair of 2010 federal court rulings paved the way for PACS to raise and spend unlimited corporate and union money to directly attack or support candidates. The PACS must disclose their contributors to the public through regular filings with the Federal Election Commission, but many also have nonprofit “educational” arms, overseen by the IRS, that can accept unlimited corporate and union money. The names of their contributors and the amounts they gave are not reported publicly, even as they amass millions of dollars.

American Crossroads, a super PAC founded with the help of Republican strategist Karl Rove, raised $ 18.4 million last year, but its nonprofit arm, Crossroads GPS, collected far more, $ 32.6 million. American Crossroads did not report any transfers of money from its non- profit last year. It did receive $ 25,000 from a conservative non- profit called the League of American Voters, which has run ads opposing President Obama’s health- care law.

Comedian Stephen Colbert, who has used his Comedy Central show to mock lax campaign- finance rules, has put a spotlight on the role hidden money could play in this year’s presidential and congressional elections.

The non- profits “have created an unprecedented, unaccountable, untraceable cash tsunami that will infect every corner of the next election,” Colbert said last year, adding that he felt “like an idiot for not having one.”

To that end, Colbert created his own dummy non- profit, dubbed the “Anonymous Shell Corporation” to accept anonymous contributions, which can then be passed along to Colbert’s super PAC, “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.”

Wertheimer, who is pushing legislation to force public disclosure of contributions to political non- profits, says he deplores any anonymous money showing up in super PAC accounts.