-By Warner Todd Huston
In the run up to the 2012 election an out-of-state, conservative, anti-tax group put upwards to $11 million into the effort to fight tax hikes in California. Immediately left-leaning groups cried foul and state authorities filed all sorts of charges against the political spending trying to force the group to disclose donors. Now that case has been settled and on terms favorable to the conservative group.
The One million dollar fine settlement was agreed upon between authorities and Arizona-based non-profits, Americans for Responsible Leadership and the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR). The group Americans for Job Security were also a part of the coalition.
CPPR entered the California elections to fight Governor Jerry Brown’s tax hike scheme as well as to advocate for a ballot measure to fight overarching union power. Once in the ring, though, the $11 million being spent was attacked.
At issue is a California law that forces donor disclosure of groups spending on state-centered issue advocacy. Federal law does not require Political action groups to disclose donors.
Left-wing groups charged that the spending violated state laws and in the waning days of the 2012 election cycle a move was made to stop CPPR’s spending or at the very least force them to disclose their donors so that enemies could initiate a harassment campaign against them.
At last the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) has decided that CPPR acted “in good faith.” It appears that CPPR violated the law to disclose the participation of CPPR.
In a statement by CPPR attorney Malcolm Segal, the group celebrates the favorable ruling issued by the FPPC.
“The Commission,” Segal said, “recognized that CPPR acted in ‘good faith’ and that there was absolutely no intent to violate campaign reporting rules. Also, the California Attorney General conducted a complete and thorough investigation and agreed that the conduct was unintentional and inadvertent.”
CPPR and its director Sean Noble are associated with libertarian billionaires David and Charles Koch, but a spokesman for the Kochs say that the famed political donors weren’t personally involved in the California issues that CPPR advocated for.
This case brings to mind the harassment that Obama’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) launched against conservative groups seeking a federal tax status. The full force of the regulatory and legal establishment is constantly brought down on conservatives while unions and liberal groups are left to spend anything they want on any issue without molestation.
Regardless, despite the absurd million-dollar fine, the closure on this matter won’t satisfy the left. They’ll continue to agitate and try every avenue to drag people to court to harass them out of politics.
It should be remembered that the most famous American political advocacy was done anonymously. The Federalist Papers written to convince Americans to vote in favor of enacting the U.S. Constitution was written under false names.
It is an American founding principle that money in politics and anonymous involvement in the political system is legal and perfectly American.
These efforts to harass political donors is little else but a way for the left to put a chill on political activism by right of center groups.
Here is the press conference announcing the settlement:
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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