Name: Right to Work leader helps bundle $100k to 10 GOP senate candidates
Brand: unionleader.com
SKU: unionleader-com-60
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Right to Work leader helps bundle $100k to 10 GOP senate candidates

preview

You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.CONCORD — A leader of a special-interest group exploited a loophole in New Hampshire’s campaign finance law to create 11 political action committees which donated nearly $100,000 to 10 Republican state Senate candidates during the 2020 election.A New Hampshire Union Leader investigation found that a representative of New England Citizens for Right to Work gave similarly themed names to the different PACs, which enabled the group’s supporters to collectively give their preferred candidates at least eight times what a single PAC could.Such an effort is not specifically prohibited under state law.Eight of the 10 candidates backed by the PACs won on Nov. 3.Like most major candidates in New Hampshire, all 10 declined to agree to the voluntary campaign spending limit. That meant they could not accept more than $1,000 from any individual source — or PAC — for the general election.According to campaign finance , each of the 10 received between $9,000 and $10,500 from the network of PACs. (See accompanying list.)The 11 PACs that contributed the $98,250 were Defense of Liberty PAC; National League of Taxpayers PAC; Conservative Ideals PAC; Traditional Values PAC; Sanctity of Life PAC; Protect Life PAC; Pro-Life PAC; National Pro-Life Alliance PAC; National Right to Work Committee PAC; NH Worker Freedom PAC and State Employees Rights Campaign Committee.The official treasurer for each of those PACs was McKayne Boedeker, a former lobbyist and longtime leader of New England Citizens for Right to Work.On each PAC report, Boedeker listed his contact address as 373 S. Willow St., Suite 231 in Manchester, which is Right to Work’s mailing address.Boedeker did not respond to several emails or messages left on his cell phone seeking comment for this story.Federal law does not permit PACs to create affiliated committees as a way of circumventing contribution limits to federal candidates.The Federal Election Commission spell out how these affiliated committees share a “single contribution limit and can’t exceed it no matter how many groups they form.”New Hampshire has no “affiliated committee” law, and state election laws don’t prevent one person from establishing multiple committees. State prosecutors must find identical donors to multiple committees to even consider whether a candidate has exceeded a donation limit.“Contribution limits are really an important way to avoid corruption or the appearance of corruption by public officials. Any time you see the evasion of limits, that is precisely a problem because it’s reasonable to be troubled by schemes such as this one,” said Paul Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause in Washington, who has been investigating campaign finance and election laws for more than 20 years.“This is such a blatant end run around the contribution limit and it is so easily fixable,” Ryan said. “My sense is most states don’t allow what is allowed under New Hampshire law.”Several candidates said they were unaware of any connection between the PACs.“I remember the check from Right to Work came near the end. The others were pretty sporadic and I wasn’t aware of any of them being connected to each other,” said Sen. Bob Giuda, R-Warren, chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.“Most of my contributions came to my campaign treasurer, but I didn’t see any pattern per se.”Jason Syversen of Dunbarton, a successful venture capitalist and a first-time candidate, lost his race to Sen. Kevin Cavanaugh, D-Manchester.“I didn’t know they all had the same treasurer,” Syversen said in a telephone interview last Friday. “I was told they were different organizations that fundraised in campaigns.”He recalled later wondering about a connection when someone raised the topic after the election.“I thought it was a Right to Work group, but they were representing right to life and other names. What do all these guys have in common? They are totally unrelated to each other.”Democratic Party Communications Director Holly Shulman condemned the effort.“The extent to which New Hampshire Republicans are willing to go to use shadow groups to spend campaign cash in order to lie to Granite State voters raises serious questions about whether they are fit to lead at all,” Shulman said in a statement.Right to Work — essentially limitations on agreements between management and labor — is the subject of an annual public policy debate at the State House. Right to Work advocates clearly have more allies after the recent elections gave Gov. Chris Sununu a third term and Republicans control of the House and state Senate.After first winning office in 2016, Sununu tried to make New Hampshire the first state in the Northeast to eliminate any requirement that employees in a workplace must join a union or pay agency fees in support of the organizing labor group.The Senate had passed the measure, but Sununu’s 2017 bid narrowly failed in the House, the bill’s traditional burial ground.Union organizers have mocked this effort as the “right to work for less” campaign.They insist Right to Work states attract companies that pay lower wages and less generous benefits than states that allow so-called “closed” union shops, which cover all employees.The amount of paperwork traceable to the 11 Right to Work-backed PACs was limited.PACs are supposed to submit campaign finance reports for any of eight periods during the primary and general election in which they receive contributions.Boedeker submitted only one report for each PAC — all 11 on the same day. They were turned in on Oct. 27, the Friday before the Nov. 3 election.The reports stated that after distributing checks to candidates, all 11 PACs were “closed out” for the campaign cycle, with no further disclosures to be made.The 110 checks to candidates from the 11 PACs were written on two days — 64 of them on Oct. 16 and 46 on Oct. 26.Three of the PACs had obvious Right to Work ties — the National Right to Work Committee PAC, NH Worker Freedom PAC and State Employees Rights Campaign Committee.Those are the only three that listed individual donors.The other eight listed PAC cash transfers as their only contributions.The National League of Taxpayers PAC of Fairfax, Va., for example, gave $10,000 to itself and then cut checks to candidates.The Union Leader’s investigation uncovered direct Right to Work ties to the rest of the PACs.Henry of Treasure Island, Fla., and his family have a more than 40-year history of association with and work on behalf of Right to Work.On Dec. 27, 2019, Walther wrote separate $5,000 checks to six of the PACs backing New Hampshire Republicans, according to , the campaign finance database of the Center for Responsive Politics.According to campaign finance reports, Walther also gave $1,000, the maximum allowable, to seven of these Republican Senate candidates in 2020.The National Pro-Life Alliance PAC shared $30,000 of its own money with six of the PACs as well.The chairman of that New Hampshire PAC was Steve Antosh, who has served on the board of trustees for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.Almost all of the 10 GOP candidates who received PAC donations were outspent by their Democratic opponents.In one notable case, the cash from the PACs made up the lion’s share of the candidate’s contributions.Former state Rep. George Lambert of Litchfield reported raising $11,230 in his bid to unseat Sen. Donna Soucy, D-Manchester, then the Senate president.So the $9,000 from the PACs with Right to Work links represented 80% of Lambert’s campaign war chest.The one campaign report Lambert turned in listed 10 of the 16 checks he received as coming from one of the Right to Work-connected PACs.Common Cause’s Ryan said closing the loophole would not be difficult if the Legislature wanted to reform the law.“There are clever and difficult ways to evade contribution limits, and there are straightforward, easy-to-fix problems,” Ryan said.“I would put this in the category of simple fixes.”© Copyright 2022 , 100 William Loeb Drive Manchester, NH&nbsp;| &nbsp;|Powered by from .Sorry, an error occurred.You are logged in&nbsp;Sign up withThank you .Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.Check your email for details.Sign in withSubmitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account.×Thank you.Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.Rate:Begins:Ends:Transaction ID:A receipt was sent to your email.

You are the owner of this article.You have permission to edit this article.CONCORD — A leader of a special-interest group exploited a loophole in New Hampshire’s campaign finance law to create 11 political action committees which donated nearly $100,000 to 10 Republican state Senate candidates during the 2020 election.A New Hampshire Union Leader investigation found that a representative of New England Citizens for Right to Work gave similarly themed names to the different PACs, which enabled the group’s supporters to collectively give their preferred candidates at least eight times what a...

Right to Work leader helps bundle $100k to 10 GOP senate candidates

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS