Name: ‘Dark money’ groups gear up for Supreme Court battle as 2020 election nears
Brand: opensecrets.org
SKU: opensecrets-org-7
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

‘Dark money’ groups gear up for Supreme Court battle as 2020 election nears

preview

“Dark money” groups are projected to spend tens of millions of dollars on the battle over Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court, raising the stakes — and likely the cost — of an election cycle that is already seeing record-breaking cash flow.&nbsp;Even before President ’s announcement that he will appoint a woman to fill the open Supreme Court seat, multiple outside groups weighed in on the projected nomination in the days following Justice Ginsburg’s death.&nbsp;&nbsp;, a dark money group that operates as the preeminent vehicle for deep-pocketed conservative donors to into Supreme Court confirmation fights, announced a on Monday. The ad pushes for a confirmation vote before Election Day 2020 and is expected to target Colorado, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Utah, and Washington, D.C.Judicial Crisis Network’s recent spending was largely bankrolled by a and another donation in 2017. In both cases, Judicial Crisis Network took the money from a closely-tied dark money group that is also funded almost exclusively by multimillion-dollar anonymous donors. But that group and Judicial Crisis Network’s operation recently , leaving even more questions about the source of funding its new multimillion-dollar ad blitz unanswered.&nbsp;Carrie Severino, Judicial Crisis Network’s president, on Saturday that the conservative dark money group aims to “match” and “surpass” the pledged by their liberal counterpart, .Launched by in 2018 as the left’s to Judicial Crisis Network in Supreme Court confirmation fights, Demand Justice quickly established itself as the left’s top dark money spender in the Kavanaugh confirmation fight and announced it would invest $10 million into the fight over Ginsburg’s seat.But Demand Justice may not be Judicial Crisis Network’s only competition.&nbsp;The day after Ginsburg’s death was announced, a group called released its first ad about the Supreme Court vacancy. The ad uses Senate Majority Leader ’s words against him, urging voters to press their Senators to treat any Supreme Court nominee like Merrick Garland.But Fix Our Senate isn’t exactly new. In fact, incorporation records reviewed by OpenSecrets reveal that it is a project of , information Fix Our Senate does not publicly divulge on its website or in its .Operating as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Sixteen Thirty Fund is a dark money group that steers money from secret donors to projects it fiscally sponsors, effectively letting them operate without a papertrail. Sixteen Thirty Fund projects include the left’s top spender in the Kavanaugh confirmation fight, .Supreme Court Voter, which a project of Demand Justice, launched a in July targeting competitive states in an attempt to mobilize voters around the idea that the 2020 election will impact the federal judiciary for years to come.Different branding gives the appearance that the initiatives’ messages stem from multiple different organizations when, in actuality, they are legally one in the same.&nbsp;Because Sixteen Thirty Fund acts as the fiscal sponsor to so many operations with varying levels of politicking, its political operations dilute the portion of the organization’s overall activities that are considered political. A generally accepted rule of thumb is that 501(c)(4) nonprofits are not allowed to devote more than half of their activities to political purposes but the lack of bright-line rules established by the IRS has created substantial holes in disclosure. This tactic enables initiatives operating under the Sixteen Thirty umbrella to engage in a level of political activity that might not be possible if they operated as separate tax-exempt nonprofits.Sixteen Thirty Fund is also pouring into political contributions.&nbsp;FEC filings covering the last two months reveal more than $7 million in contributions to political committees with $2 million to , $3.5 million to , $100,000 to and $1.5 million toSixteen Thirty Fund funneled more than $32 million into contributions to political committees like super PACs during the 2020 election cycle, according to FEC filings submitted through Sept. 20.“The Sixteen Thirty Fund is confronting the biggest social challenges in our country including the Supreme Court and the election through fiscal sponsorship, advocacy and electoral action,” Sixteen Thirty Fund executive director Amy Kurtz told OpenSecrets by email, noting that they are “committed to following the current laws to level the playing field for progressives.”Super PACs and other outside spending groups are legally required to disclose their donors.&nbsp; But those PACs have taken around $200 million in contributions from opaque entities including shell companies and nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors during the 2020 election cycle. That’s a new record for the amount of dark money flowing into federal races through contributions to political committees like super PACs.The 2020 election cycle has seen record dark money contributions to super PACs and a record number of compared to election cycles, according to by the Wesleyan Media Project in partnership with OpenSecrets.&nbsp;Dark money spending is generally more common early in the election cycle, before the Federal Election Commission’s disclosure window requiring issue ads to be reported to the FEC during the 60-day period before Election Day. But a Supreme Court confirmation fight is a gamechanger projected to usher in tens of millions more in dark money spending on SCOTUS-themed issue ads boosting or attacking congressional incumbents and presidential candidates without explicitly calling for their election or defeat.Sept. 26, 2020: This post has been updated to incorporate comments from the Sixteen Thirty Fund.Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center:Read more OpenSecrets News &amp; Analysis:Support Accountability JournalismAt OpenSecrets.org we offer in-depth, money-in-politics stories in the public interest. Whether you’re reading about 2020 presidential fundraising, conflicts of interest or “dark money” influence, we produce this content with a small, but dedicated team. Every donation we receive from users like you goes directly into promoting high-quality data analysis and investigative journalism that you can trust. Please support our work and keep this resource free. Thank you.Anna first joined the Center for Responsive Politics in September 2015. She works with CRP's foreign influence and FARA data as part of the Foreign Lobby Watch Project, tracks FCC and digital political ad data, and is responsible for CRP's politically active nonprofit and nondisclosing "dark money" group data. She holds degrees in political science and psychology from North Carolina State University and a J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia School of Law.Want first access to OpenSecrets' investigations and data features? .Select an amount to make a donation.Sign up for our newsletter to track money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy.The Center for Responsive Politics,Except for the Revolving Door section, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License by OpenSecrets.org. To request permission for commercial use, .

“Dark money” groups are projected to spend tens of millions of dollars on the battle over Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court, raising the stakes — and likely the cost — of an election cycle that is already seeing record-breaking cash flow.&nbsp;Even before President ’s announcement that he will appoint a woman to fill the open Supreme Court seat, multiple outside groups weighed in on the projected nomination in the days following Justice Ginsburg’s death.&nbsp;&nbsp;, a dark money group that operates as the preeminent vehicle for deep-pocketed conservative donors to...

public

Anna Massoglia

The most comprehensive, nonpartisan money-in-politics resource around. Formerly the Center for Responsive Politics & the National Institute on Money in Politics

‘Dark money’ groups gear up for Supreme Court battle as 2020 election nears

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS