Koch Was Not Shy About Talking Strategy for Wisconsin Recall

Updated - Every Wisconsin politico remembers the recording made public in 2011 of Scott Walker's gushing over the man Walker thought to be David Koch.

Repulsive in about a dozen ways.

Jack Craver of the Capital Times looked at the transcripts of the Walker-faux Koch conversation and found another repulsive angle: Koch and Walker plotting to use Koch's Americans for Prosperity 501(c)(4) (AFP), illegally I would say, to help out the six Republican state senators who were recalled in 2011.

From the 2011 recording referenced in Craver's piece:

And later Walker hinted at how AFP could protect state senators running for reelection: "(P)articulary in some of these, uh, more swing areas, a lot of these guys are gonna need, they don’t necessarily need ads for them, but they’re gonna need a message out reinforcing why this was a good thing to do for the economy and a good thing to do for the state."

Koch and Walker were right about using AFP to keep GOP control in the Wisconsin senate.

Mal Contends learned last February that David Koch more than hinted, he explicitly took credit for keeping the Wisconsin State Senate in Republican control.

In February 2012, a reporter, Stacey Singer, scored a rare interview of Koch for her piece that ran February 18, 2012 in the Palm Beach Press.

Writes Singer:

Asked about his efforts to sway public opinion, Koch acknowledges his group is hard at work in places such as Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker is facing off with public unions and grappling with a likely recall vote.

"We're helping him, as we should. We've gotten pretty good at this over the years," he says. "We've spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We're going to spend more."

By "we" he says he means Americans for Prosperity, which is spending about $700,000 on an "It's working" television ad buy in the state. It credits Walker's public pension and union overhaul with giving school districts the first surpluses they've seen in years.

Reached at the Press in 2012 after the Koch piece had run, Singer told me (by phone) Koch said, it "was the work our people did, what Americans for Prosperity did and the money spent that enabled them [the Republicans] to keep control in the [Wisconsin state] senate."

The problem with Koch and AFP is that AFP is registered as a non-profit 501(c)(4).

So AFP's electoral politics, electioneering, are explicitly delineated by law, and they are not supposed to act in support or opposition of political candidates.

As noted here regarding Lawrence O'Donnell reporting on 501(c)(4)s:

Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out in May 2013, 501(c)(4)s are by federal statute, supposed to be operated "exclusively for the promotion of social welfare," as O'Donnell cites federal law on non-profit, tax exempt organizations

And this "exclusively" element means  501(c)(4)s cannot be an electoral tool used to elect political candidates for public office.

Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code defines tax-exempt social welfare groups like this:
"Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare." (Evan Puschak, The Last Word with  Lawrence O'Donnell; May 13, 2013)

There have been complaints filed with the IRS and the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board alleging illegal use of tax-exempt status by Koch's group.

Wisconsin awaits word on the response to these complaints. John Doe II may comprise much of this response.

Few believe, and certainly not Koch and Scott Walker, that Americans for Prosperity is exclusively used for the promotion of social welfare.

Lawrence O’Donnell Show - May 2013

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Obama v. Koch Brothers

Think the Koch Brothers are trying to buy the presidency, having already bought off Scott Walker.

Obama's reelection team certainly does (and for good reason). From an Obama fund-raising e-mail.

In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers.

Those are the same Koch brothers whose business model is to make millions by jacking up prices at the pump, and who have bankrolled Tea Party extremism and committed $200 million to try to destroy President Obama before Election Day.

So in the hours before Romney courts two men obsessed with making Barack Obama a one-term president, let's see how many of us can chip in to the Two-Term Fund.

Thanks,


Messina

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
---
We're helping him, as we should," Koch says of Walker. "We've gotten pretty good at this over the years. We've spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We're going to spend more." (Singer.  Palm Beach Post)

Walker Toes Billionaires' Line, Refuses to address Wisconsin family concerns

All Wisconsin families want is to talk and compromise for the common good.

Gov. Walker has refused this good-faith commitment in favor of following the agenda of billionaires and social extremists.

Publicly employed teachers, nurses, EMTs, cooks and so on are not the problem; they are our neighbors. It sure did not take Walker long to forget these facts.

The war on Wisconsin employees isn't just about the budget or Wisconsin: Koch toady Gov. Walker is just one soldier in the billionaire's offensive to kill labor, aka Americans.

By Adele M. Stan in AlterNet

As some 30,000 protesters overwhelmed the state capitol building in Wisconsin today, Democratic state senators hit the road, reportedly with State Police officers in pursuit. The Dems left the state in order to deprive Republicans the necessary quorum for taking a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's bill to strip benefits and collective bargaining rights from state workers.

Newsradio 620 WTMJ reported that the Democratic senators were holed up in a Rockford, Illinois, hotel, out of reach of Wisconsin state troopers. Now, it seems, Republican lawmakers are beginning to waver on their support for the union-busting bill.

Last week, Walker threatened to activate the National Guard in the event of any disruption in services from public employees that, he said, could occur as a result of his legislation.

Gov. Walker claims that his war on the public workers in his state is simply about balancing Wisconsin's budget; believe that and there's a collapsed bridge in Minnesota I'd like to sell you. The fact is, Walker is carrying out the wishes of his corporate master, David Koch, who calls the tune these days for Wisconsin Republicans. Walker is just one among many Wisconsin Republicans supported by Koch Industries -- run by David Koch and his brother, Charles -- and Americans For Prosperity, the astroturf group founded and funded by David Koch. The Koch brothers are hell-bent on destroying the labor movement once and for all.

During his election campaign, Walker received the maximum $15,000 contribution from Koch Industries, according to Think Progress, and support worth untold hundreds of thousands from the Koch-funded astroturf group, Americans For Prosperity. AlterNet recently reported the role of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Americans For Prosperity in a vote-caging scheme apparently designed to suppress the votes of African-Americans and college students in Milwaukee. In 2008, Walker served as emcee for an awards ceremony held by Americans For Prosperity. There, he conferred the "Defender of the American Dream" award on Rep. Paul Ryan, now chairman of the House Budget Committee.

On Monday, AlterNet reported on the gaggle of Koch-sponsored politicians who individually graced the podium at last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference (including several from Wisconsin: Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ron Johnson). Rep. Michele Bachmann, also a Koch favorite from next-door Minnesota, kicked off the conference.

Not Just About Wisconsin -- or State Workers

It's said that states are the laboratories of democracy, but the Kochs are determined to make Wisconsin a laboratory of corporate oligarchy. Nationwide, the war on public workers -- and government in general -- is not simply a facet of an ideological notion about the virtues of small government. The war on government is a war against the labor movement, which has much higher rates of union membership in the public sector than it does in the private sector.

Labor is seen by corporate leaders as the last strong line of resistance against the wholesale takeover of government (and your tax dollars) by corporations. So, by this line of thought, labor must die.

But it's even deeper than that. The labor movement holds whatever modicum of workplace fairness standards exist for the rest of workers, be they organized or not. Contracts won by organized workers function as a ceiling for what the rest of the workforce is able to demand. Without the labor movement, there's not a worker anywhere in the nation who has much of a bargaining position with her or his employer. And that's the way David Koch and his brother, Charles, want it.

Midwest Frontier Province of Kochistan

Although headquartered in Kansas, Koch Industries has at least 17 facilities and offices in Wisconsin (by my rough count of facilities and companies noted on the Koch Industries "Wisconsin Facts" page), and operates "nearly 4,000 miles of pipeline" through its Koch Pipeline Company, L.P. Which may account for Wisconsin's evolution into the Midwest Frontier Province of Kochistan.

The conglomerate boasts "four terminals and strategically located pipelines" through its Flint Hills Resources, LLC, which it describes as "a leading refining and chemicals company" that markets "gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol, olefins, polymers and intermediate chemicals, as well as base oils and asphalt."

The Kochs' Georgia Pacific paper and wood products division has six facilities in Wisconsin. Its C. Reiss Coal Company "is a leading supplier of coal used to generate power," according to the Koch Web site. "The company has locations in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan."

Is it any wonder that Gov. Walker signed Americans For Prosperity's pledge (PDF) against energy reform legislation?

"I Don't Run a Union Facility"

At the Americans For Prosperity Foundation's RightOnline conference last July, a breakout session for managers and entrepreneurs focused on how to talk to workers about legislative issues -- including the Employee Free Choice Act, which would simplify the process by which workers could elect to join a union. Among the panelists was former Godfathers Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who is currently exploring a presidential bid. (Last month, Mark Block stepped down from his perch as state director of Americans For Prosperity Wisconsin chapter in order to serve as Cain's chief of staff.) The panel also featured Timothy Nerentz of The Oldenburg Group, a mining and defense equipment manufacturer based in Milwaukee. Nerentz illustrated how he talked to his workers about EFCA: "[W]e don't operate a union facility. That's all I have to say."

"Now, you certainly have a right to a union, right?" Nerenz continued. "You got rights, I got rights, all God's children got rights. But you need to know before you make that decision what's involved in that decision." When I pressed him after the panel to clarify whether he was threatening to shut down a factory whose workers chose to unionize, he simply restated his initial point: "We don't operate a union facility."

Stimulus Spending Seen as Too Friendly to Unions

You'd think that a big business like Koch Industries would love the idea of stimulus spending, since it's bound to improve the economy. So, what gives? Why do these guys hate the stimulus funds so much?

Well, it seems that too much of it, in their view, goes to preserve the jobs of unionized workers -- like autoworkers and teachers -- which, in turn, preserves unions as part of the U.S. workforce. So that's why, presumably, Americans For Prosperity President Tim Phillips today sent out a newsletter touting an anti-stimulus bill introduced by a House member from the Midwest Frontier Province of Kochistan:

By the way, newly-elected Congressman Sean Duffy from Wisconsin (emphasis mine) made one of his first efforts in Congress a bill that returns non-obligated stimulus funding to the taxpayers. Now his bill has been included in the continuing resolution the House is working on this week. It’s great to see our efforts to end government overspending become the core of actual legislation and not just something we all rally for.

Bus Follies

While we're on the topic of e-mail blasts, I received quite the indignant one today from something called the Campaign To Defeat Obama, a.k.a., Our Country Deserves Better PAC, a.k.a., Tea Party Express. The e-mail expresses great consternation at the fact that Organizing For America, the remnant of the Obama campaign's organizing effort (now part of the Democratic National Committee), helped get protesters to Madison to protest at the Wisconsin state capitol. "They sent out 54 messages on Twitter alone!" the e-mail shouts (emphasis theirs). They accused the Obama administration of sending in a "mob" to the state capitol to "bully" state lawmakers to abandon Walker's bill.

In the e-mail, Tea Party Express Our Country Deserves Better Campaign to Defeat Obama screams:

Organizing For America is responsible for most of the chaos, and has been filling bus after bus with protestors and shuttled them to the State Capitol. This was not a spontaneous uprising - this was an organized effort by Barack Obama to further his radical, leftist agenda.

Tea Party Express worked with Americans For Prosperity during the mid-term election campaign. What did they do? Filled buses with activists to get them to rallies and protests.

Today, however, it seems Americans For Prosperity had a hard time finding takers for their free-bus-trip offer for those wanting to support Gov. Walker's union-busting, worker-bashing bill. As of scheduled departure time, reports the Racine Journal Times, only six people had boarded AFP's Racine bus to Madison. Several key Republican lawmakers, according to recent reports, are beginning to waver in their support for Walker's labor-bashing bill.

GOP and Tea Party Team Up to Obstruct Voters in Wisconsin - Plot Caught on Tape

- CAUGHT ON TAPE: Wisconsin GOP and Tea Party Target to block Minorities and College-age Voters in Voter Caging Plot -

Those high Wisconsin election turn-out rates just drive the GOP and the self-proclaimed liberty-loving Tea Partiers crazy.

Listen to the voting-obstruction tape: Download the audio of the Tea Party meeting. Read documents detailing voter suppression plan, read transcript of Tea Party meeting audio.









Plot begs question: Is Wisconsin alone in Tea Party-GOP voter obstruction plot?

From One Wisconsin Now and Save Wisconsin's Vote:

The Conspirators of the Voter obstruction plot

Republican Party of WI

WISGOP will allegedly provide training for 'poll watchers' and an army of lawyers to support the caging efforts. WISGOP would also allegedly provide the voter database to create the caging list.

Americans for Prosperity

AFP of Wisconsin will allegedly provide the funding for the mailer to be sent to voters targeted for caging.

WI Tea Party Groups

Various Tea Party groups would provide volunteers who will act as poll watchers on

GOP- Tea Party Coordination on Voter Caging, Targeting Minorities, College Students Outlined in Documents, Tea Party Meeting Recording

A coordinated plot by the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin and organizations in the so-called Tea Party movement targeting minority voters and college students in a possibly illegal "voter caging" effort for voter suppression has been uncovered in evidence we have obtained.

Based on what we have heard, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, the Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin and leading Tea Party organizations are in collusion in an effort to suppress the ability of minorities and university students in Wisconsin to exercise their right to vote this November. We will be providing all of the evidence we have received on this wrongdoing to federal and state authorities so that they can investigate to ensure justice and democracy prevail."

One Wisconsin Now has filed formal requests for investigation with the U.S. Attorney's Office, as well as the Wisconsin Attorney General's Election Integrity Task Force and the Government Accountability Board demanding a full investigation to ensure the right to vote is not stolen by these plans.
The non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice outlines the process of voter caging:

Voter caging is the practice of sending mail to addresses on the voter rolls, compiling a list of the mail that is returned undelivered, and using that list to purge or challenge voters registrations on the grounds that the voters on the list do not legally reside at their registered addresses. Supporters of voter caging defend the practice as a means of preventing votes cast by ineligible voters. Voter caging, however, is notoriously unreliable. If it is treated (unjustifiably) as the sole basis for determining that a voter is ineligible or does not live at the address at which he or she registered, it can lead to the unwarranted purge or challenge of eligible voters. ...Moreover, the practice has often been targeted at minority voters, making the effects even more pernicious. [Brennan Center, "A Guide to Voter Caging," 6/29/07]One Wisconsin Now obtained an audio recording it has verified as authentic from a June 12, 2010 meeting between the leaders of the state's Tea Party movement, led by Tim Dake, head of the GrandSons of Liberty. Dake serves as a regular spokesperson for Wisconsin's Tea Party organizations and is widely viewed as the movement's Wisconsin leader. The full audio, available at One Wisconsin Now's voter protection website, http://www.savewisconsinsvote2010.org/, details the plans for a coordinated voter suppression efforts, which is anchored in challenging voter eligibility on Election Day this November 2.

THE PLOT
According to the statements made on the recordings, Dake lays out the plans, detailing contact between himself and Reince Preibus, the Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair and Mark Block, state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin:

• The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its "Voter Vault" state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.

• Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.

• The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.

• On Election Day, these organizations will then "make use" of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges.

According to the recordings, Dake told the assembled Tea Party members he leads:

So, what we're hoping is that the various groups in the coalition plus Americans for Prosperity and Mark Block, who has been in on this, and the Republican Party, and this is coming all the way from the top: Reince Priebus has said, "We're in." And there's a reason why these guys are volunteering to work with us. They have access to what they call Voter Vault, you know the records of voting. They can go in there and look for lapsed voters. They can go in and compare lists of voters and say, "Oh look at this. This person is registered in this county, this county, this county, and this county." And do something about this. So we're talking about a broad based support behind this idea. What they're offering is training.Dake continues in the recording to outline the plan:

[RPW is] offering to do the training; it's not going to cost anything, but what we're looking at is statewide getting our groups involved, getting people, like my group has a 2,700 person email list. We want to hit that and see how many of these people we can get involved in this one project. The idea being at some point to go in on September 14 and November 2 and have these people involved and doing poll watching and checking. There are some consultants that have offered to step up, "We're Watching" is stepping up; attorneys from the Republican Party.Later in his presentation, Dake adds:

Okay, poll watchers what you can do is you can call in a lawyer. The Republican Party, this is one of the things they're offering, they're saying they'll have their lawyers standing by so that if you call, let's say you're poll watching in say Hales Corners and you see something really fraudulent, they will send a lawyer out right away and be able to say, "Here's the deal, here's the law, this is what we expect." Bring the police in and make your complaint that sort of thing. So, we've got that. You can challenge voters through the precinct captains. This is one of the things they will teach you how to do and anybody can challenge a voter. And since the voter law did not get passed this year that could hit you with $100,000 and three years for unsuccessfully challenging a voter, we can still do this.Dake is interrupted at this point by an unidentified coalition member who shouts, "Hallelujah." Dake adds, "Yes, everybody gets to take credit for that." He goes on to outline Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin's role and how to target law enforcement:

So we're talking about AFP is willing to fund doing a mass mailing to registered voters on this, about getting them involved with this, making sure that their information is current, because people periodically need to go back and check. I found, before we bought the house we lived in. Four years ago I lived in a brand new condo, the first people to live in it. I went to vote and found twelve people registered at my address. My wife and I are the only people to have lived there. Yet, there were twelve people registered to vote. I couldn't believe it. They said, "Wow, you must have a big family." And I'm looking at names and going, "No, there's nobody named 'Nguyen' and 'Din' and that sort of thing in my family." So that's the kind of thing we need to clean up and people need to be aware of. Go in and check who else is registered at your place and ask to have them tossed off. Work with the media on this and district attorneys. Try to get them involved early and fired up about this and say look, "We know you're shorthanded, we're hands, we're boots on the ground. We will help you, just bring the weight of the law behind us." One of the things we're going to do is take these addresses that people give and we want to send out a postcard that says, "You need to call and confirm this. And if you haven't called, well then it could get tossed out." We're also looking for when you send these cards out is they'll come back if it is an undeliverable address.THE QUOTES: Among some of the discussion also captured on the audio:

"[Y]ou run into the racial thing. You have people screaming, 'Oh, you're denying the minorities the right to vote.' No., we're denying their right to vote multiple times." [Tim Dake, GrandSons of Liberty]"Work with the media on this and the district attorneys. Try to get them involved early and fired up about this and say look, 'We know you're shorthanded, we're hands, we're boots on the ground. We will help you, just bring the weight of the law behind us." [Tim Dake, GrandSons of Liberty]"I was a poll watcher from 2000 to 2006 and if you've got a university in your county, or your city, students will come down in droves and then they will all vouch for each other. I had this one kid come in five times with five separate groups of people and this person brings in students, they're usually from Minnesota or wherever up by Eau Claire, and you go, 'Do you live here?' 'Yes.' 'Well do you have anything that shows your address?' 'No.' Then that one student says, 'I vouch for her, I vouch for him.' And they all vote. [Shane McVey, Eau Claire Tea Party]"This is apparently a very effective deterrent, just having people standing there. Poll watching tends to discourage people when they know someone is looking." [Tim Dake, GrandSons of Liberty]"It's just having people who have the courage and conviction because in our society we have been 'wussified'.... [T]hey try to claim intimidation and they'll bring a whole bunch of people. If you do challenge a vote like three people will surround you and they'll all start getting in your face and threatening you with legal action and all that stuff. You just have to be strong willed and be able to take that stuff." [Shane McVey, Eau Claire Tea Party]

THE REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION

The possible illegality of the RPW-AFP-WI-Tea Party plot that One Wisconsin Now lays out in the requests for investigation to law enforcement officials assert:

• Federal law prohibits racially targeted caging operations. Statements made during the June 12 meeting make clear that race is a motivating factor in the planned caging and challenge effort. Any efforts to deter qualified electors from voting based on their race must be immediately investigated and, if substantiated, stopped. [42 U.S.C. §§ 1973(a); 1973gg]

• The organizations' Election Day plans could put the state at possible risk of violating federal law. Federal law makes clear that elector challenges cannot be based solely on returned mail. The organizations' plans to recruit individuals to become poll workers in order to conduct challenges based on the returned mail would result in individuals acting unlawfully under color of state law. [42 U.S.C. § 1973gg; Tiryak v. Jordan, 472 F. Supp. 822, 824 (E.D. PA 1979)]

• Federal law also makes clear that private actors are similarly prohibited from challenging voters based solely on undelivered mail. Even if a challenge comes from a volunteer election observer, the challenge is unlawful if it is based on the voter's failure to respond to the mailing. Any challenge to an elector's eligibility based on such unreliable grounds is an abuse of the right to challenge and violates state and federal law, subjecting the challenger to removal and other sanctions. [42 U.S.C. § 1973gg]

• Disturbingly, the mail program described by the Tea Party members will contain false and misleading information. The Tea Party plans to tell certain voters that their name may be removed if they fail to call the telephone number provided. It would be illegal to remove a voter from the statewide database based on this reason. [42 U.S.C. § 1973gg]

• The deceptive nature of the planned mailing is particularly troubling because the mailing described would almost certainly would appear to be an official governmental mailing. For the same reasons that it is unlawful to use official attire to challenge a voter at the polls on Election Day, it is unlawful to send a mailing that appears to be an official action of the governmental. [18 U.S.C. § 242; 42 U.S.C. § 1973i(b)]

Based on our discussions with legal counsel, we believe certain statements made at this Tea Party meeting clearly outline a plan by these organizations to engage in what may potentially be illegal conduct. The voter caging and challenge plans outlined by the Tea Party could result in an apparently illegal effort to deter qualified citizens from voting. As described, their plan would deter qualified citizens from voting in a manner that is coercive and without sufficient basis. All of these activities raise serious concerns and should be investigated further to determine whether illegal activity has occurred.

The full recordings, as well as a transcript and other information, is available at One Wisconsin Now's voter protection website: http://www.savewisconsinsvote2010.org/.