Josh Kanter, founder and largest donor of Alliance for a Better Utah with President Barack Obama from @jkanter3 on Twitter.
When an organization purports to have the public’s interests at the heart of their actions, it’s prudent to look into their motives. And when you want to know motives, look at where their money is coming from and to whom they are giving to.
In other words, head on over to OpenSecrets.org and start typing in names.
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Occupy Movement Email Starts a Look at a Local Organization
I’ve occasionally run into the Twitter account of the “Alliance for a Better Utah” online. Until this week, however, I’ve not paid much attention to them. This week, I started hearing murmurings from Alliance for a Better Utah that something wicked was coming to town. An email sent out from an organization called “ALEC Welcoming Committee” came under the subject line “We Start Today! Occupy ALEC slc! VICTORY!!!”
Not only did I not know what ALEC was, but the Occupy movement’s anti-capitalism/anti-free market predilections raises my hackles.
A little time on the internet led me to Alliance for a Better Utah. Their website is currently advertising an “ALEC Exposed Event” for June 26th that purports to “expose” what ALEC was doing “behind closed doors” to promote issues like school vouchers, privatization, and public land initiatives.
Also, voter suppression.
Except for that last one, I’m not sure why any of those are particularly nefarious issues to promote. I can agree that these are issues that Republicans and Democrats can, and do, stand on both sides of, though none, except voter suppression, is particularly the role of a government watch dog.
Apparently, the Alliance for a Better Utah disagrees. Their main argument appears to be that ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council…far less evil sounding when not an acronym) holds an annual conference with legislators. These meetings are closed to the public. (More on the American Legislative Exchange Council later…because it interests me, as well).
One question that came to mind as I was looking at this was what allies form the “Alliance for a Better Utah.” Usually, one thinks of an alliance as a group of organizations. Think NATO. Or the US and UK during the World Wars. None were one person, but nations allied in a cause.
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Who are the allies and donors of Alliance for a Better Utah?
It’s hard to say, and the closest Alliance for a Better Utah comes to saying is citing its board members and staff. Apparently I was not the first person to seek this information. When I asked over Twitter, Alliance for a Better Utah deferred, offering to meet in person but preferring not to answer. And then a number of other people started to pile on Alliance for a Better Utah for a lack of transparency.
Back on the Alliance for a Better Utah page advertising the “Expose ALEC” meeting on July 26th (today), several organizations are listed as participating:
- Common Cause
- ALEC Exposed
- AFL-CIO
- Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
- HEAL Utah
- League of Women Voters of Utah
The Delicate Arch, a natural arch near Moab, Utah (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
For what is supposed to be a “bi-partisan organization,” or at least a non-partisan government watch dog, the list seems more fit to promote liberal causes than to watch government. I’m willing to agree that each has has promoted, at various times, non-partisan goals, but as a whole tend to be left-leaning.
- The AFL-CIO is one of the largest and most powerful unions in the country, spending a record $4.5 million on lobbying in 2010 and “has long supported Democratic candidates and frequently runs television ads against Republican opponents.”
- Common Cause has often taken up the issues dealing with fundraising and donor disclosure, but its employees have given almost exclusively to Democratic campaigns, including Elizabeth Warren in New York and Barack Obama for President. For a non-partisan organization, that indicates a left leaning tilt.
- ALEC Exposed appears, based on their rhetoric, to be an Occupy movement organization.
- Like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, I like our canyon country in southern Utah. However, I disagree that with SUWA that the federal government is the appropriate manager of public lands. While less has been spent by SUWA lobbying in recent years, SUWA has long been an advocate of federal government locking up public lands from access and resources.
The list makes Alliance for a Better Utah look less non-partisan and more left leaning. But this is all just speculation without knowing who Alliance for a Better Utah relies upon for funding. The organization is only about a year and a half old, and as such has not been required to file with the IRS its 990 form disclosing donors. Clearly it does not agree with the American Legislative Exchange Council, but less clear is why.
What is wrong with vouchers, privatization, or public land use such that it requires a “government watch dog” to oppose them? These aren’t the issues that a watch dog covers–they’re issues that an advocacy group opposes. Government watch dogs should be focused on transparency, accounting, government spending, and so on, not issues that fall under one partisan umbrella or another.
As I indicated earlier, I’ve asked Alliance for a Better Utah to send me a list of their larger donors (I figure smaller donors don’t really define an organization or get a say in what an organization does or supports). We’ll see if a response is sent. In the mean time, it’s hard to take Alliance for a Better Utah at its word–that it is a government watch-dog and not just another advocacy group.
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UPDATE: Alliance for a Better Utah just tweeted, in response to a question, that they did not have any donors above $2,000. Another tweet, in response to a comment by Ben Horsley, indicated that their largest donor is Josh Kanter, who is also Alliance for a Better Utah’s founder. Not sure how non-partisan Josh Kanter is…his Twitter picture has him shaking hands with Barack Obama and Open Secrets lists him as a donor to Jim Matheson, the Democratic Committee of Utah, Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Barack Obama, as well as an Obama Inaugural Donor.
Clearly, we need more information on Alliance for a Better Utah and why they oppose the American Legislative Exchange Council (and more on that, too). A first look at them, though, is anything but clear.
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About Daniel Burton
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Decry secret funding, then use secret funding. It’s a clever bit of doublespeak, isn’t it? It also underscores that many “non-partisan” organizations are anything but.
To be clear, I’m not yet clear myself that they are “evil” or “nefarious” or even hiding the ball, so to speak. I just am not persuaded that their motives are all up in the open.
It all seems very straightforward to me. ABU is a 501c4 issues-based non-profit. While an “alliance” and “non-partisan” in the sense that they have some (one?) Republican(s) on their Board of Directors, their website frankly acknowledges they promote “progressive ideas and causes” through education and advocacy. Clearly they’re left-leaning. I don’t see them trying to hide any of this. I suspect the drive behind wanting to keep their list of donors quiet is more for the sake of the donors themselves than to hide the fact that they’re quite Democratic in their positions.
A straightforward request to share who their governing principals, though, as well as donor, is not out of the bounds of reasonableness, especially when they regularly level charges of “lack of transparency” against their opponents. Add in their list of supporters and that they often cite that they are bi-partisan, and it begins to look more than a little disingenuous to take a position that appears at odds with their rhetoric.
I will be expecting a follow up in which you explore these same concerns with ALEC themselves… lest ye be exposed as the tool ye may be.
I’ve got about a dozen links to ALEC stuff opened on my home laptop. It’s not going to happen this afternoon, but I’m curious about it, and I’ll write up what I find.
Well, at least here we can have a discussion that exceeds 140 characters – thank god! I was starting a very long response to Daniel when I saw the Tweet about this post. I promised some information last night and I intended to provide it, particularly because Daniel seemed really interested in answers, not just confrontation. If that’s true, I’ll continue to draft the answers. Let me know. (This is Josh, by the way.) Keep in mind, please, I have a full time job and sit on several non-profit boards. Sometimes I can’t devote the time to this that I’d like to when I’d like to so things happen slower than I’d sometimes like and the idea of trading barbs on Twitter and Facebook all day is beyond my capacity to find the time.
So let me set a few things straight quickly. First, as far as I know, we’ve never called ourselves a government watch-dog, though open, transparent government is definitely an issue we care a lot about. Not sure who started that but it wasn’t us. As Curt points out, we do claim to be a bi-partisan, multi-issue advocacy and education group. We have nothing to hide and the only accusation that seems to have any merit at all is the question of us not publishing our donor list. I’ll come to that one but as Curt also mentioned, this is more about protecting our donors than anything else and we’re not a Super PAC or raising tons of money so the idea that a George Soros or Koch Brothers type of mogul is behind us or dictating what we do is simply silly. (But I acknowledge it’s a very fair question.)
We have a 501(c)(3) which is the ABU Education Fund. It is there to promote education about political and policy issues. It does not advocate – it educates.
We have a 501(c)(4) which accepts non-deductible donations and is allowed to advocate, though we do not lobby and we do not support candidates.
Both are small, both are waiting official approval from the IRS. No 990s have yet been filed. Both are on extension and will be filed soon.
I am the founder and it’s no surprise and no secret that I’m a Democrat. If that were a secret, putting a picture of myself with the President (who wasn’t yet) with a grin from ear to ear on my Facebook page would pretty stupid, no? Meeting him was really, really, really cool. If anyone has a problem with that, too bad. He’s the President of the United States. That’s cool. I was no fan of George Bush (among other things, I believe if we go to war, we need to pay for that war) but if I had a picture of me with him, I’d have that on my Facebook page too. And I met Michael Jordan once too and that was really cool too but, alas, I have no picture.
By the way, we’ve said over and over again that we have a progressive leaning. That means different things to different people. Around here, seems like that’s automatically a bad, or liberal thing. If so, fine, but I’ll happily debate any issue we stand on with anyone and argue it’s not necessarily liberal or conservative, left or right, but is based on a value set that we think represents the balance of American politics and values. Let’s face it, there’s a reason with 300 million people that elections are decided by fractions of a percent. 300 million people can’t agree on anything. That said, I think I can successfully argue that I believe strongly in limited government and the capitalist system (I have an economics degree, am a lawyer, and co-manage an investment business that includes a heavy component of venture capital so I’m not exactly the socialist type). But anyone who wants to have a serious conversation about those things needs to get past the bumper sticker, right? Free markets means free riders. Free markets, in fact, are anything but free – think military protection, interstate highways, air traffic systems, etc.
Our board is decidedly bi-partisan though frankly, I’ve never asked anyone their political affiliation when asking them to serve on the board. We’ve sought out smart, engaged people. We have two former Republican legislators. We have a number of other Republicans and a number of Democrats. We have a Rabbi, several business people, people with communications experience, political experience, and people with particular issue expertise.
We have a great number of other experts and advisers who work with us as needed on issues they care about. It would be unruly to have them all on our board. We haven’t gotten around to publishing a list of our advisers and the areas in which they work with us but eventually we’ll get to that – and yes, it’ll be on our website.
We seek out experts for issues we decide to address. Currently, for what it’s worth, I’m seeking a water expert. Seems like we have some water problems out here in the West – no great surprise. I’d like to know more. I think a nuclear power plant in the desert sounds stupid but that’s just me and my opinion which, rightly, no one should care about. So we’ll find experts and educate ourselves.
Funding…
I am the largest funder. Our budget is quite small. Last night you mentioned influence or influential donors. It is incorrect, as you stated in your piece, that we have no donors over $2,000. I don’t think we said that. We probably have a handful of donors over that level. We don’t have any over $10,000. I can certainly say that we’ve never gotten a phone call from a donor asking us to take a position on anything. Our donors get the same newsletter that you get by being on our list. Beyond that, until I can seek their permission, I will not list the handful of “large” donors but if anyone really thinks a $5,000 donor’s identity is key to understanding our organization, I tend to disagree but will seek that permission.
If there’s anyone wielding influence on what we do, it’s me. And our Executive Director, Maryann Martindale. And our board. And our advisers. And our experts. We balance those views and opinions and try to come to a consistent (I hate hypocrisy and inconsistency) point of view that is supported by facts and intellectual honesty. If we get it wrong, we’ll happily say so.
(Someone last night jumped on us for calling for Romney’s tax returns. Comparing that to our donors strikes me as apples and oranges but fine. In all events, simple point of view – they guy is running for President. Obama should do the same. Romney has offshore accounts, pays minimal taxes – which is most likely done perfectly legally – and sat on the board of Marriott and advocated that company’s use of the Son of Boss tax shelter scheme – one of the most abusive tax shelter schemes in recent history. The question is simple – is he playing by the rules. He chose to run for President and that opens him up to a higher level of scrutiny than most people.)
You asked about alliances. Depends how you want to define that and I’m not sure I want to try to get into that here. We will work with any individual or organization on an issue we believe is important. Our alliances are with local and national groups. They are often issue-specific. I mentioned on Twitter last night that I spent a month reaching out to Paul Mero and Sutherland last January (2011). I thought they were doing great work on immigration and wanted to work with them. Mero refused to return my phone calls.
The groups you mentioned in your piece are groups with whom we share a philosophy about open government and transparency as it relates to ALEC – I can write more on ALEC but this is getting too long. Maybe other issues too. Where appropriate, we share an alliance.
I’m going to stop there. Perhaps you’ll see why I suggested we meet. We are all for a good debate about the issues we face as a state and country. I’m not convinced it’s any more complicated than at any other time in history, all other things being equal, but we live in complicated times. The problems are complicated and the answers are complicated. Bumper sticker slogans won’t cut it and, as such, Twitter sucks for a real debate!
One parting comment about ALEC – I’m no fan but it’s the debate that’s occurring that is important. People need to understand what they really do and whether what they do is transparent enough. Then they can make their own decisions. I think we’re more right than wrong but our goal is to educate and elevate the discussion. Then the good people of Utah and the USA will draw whatever conclusions they choose to draw.
Josh
Days jobs are for people who need money…like me, too. Thanks for your very thorough response. Allow me to get home and spend more time with it tonight. In any regards, thank you for posting it.
My pleasure. Sounds like you’ll understand, as well, that I’m sitting at work and rushing to be responsive so please take imperfections in my response with a grain of salt and the intent to be responsive. I’d sincerely appreciate the chance to talk together. Nuance is lost in such a long response and intent can be misread. You can also reach me directly at josh@betterutah.org.
Hey Daniel, I don’t know how else to reach you so wanted to check in and see if you’d reviewed what I wrote to you. Please contact me at josh@betterutah.org.
I have read over your comments…but life has a way of moving in one direction. I don’t intend to do a large post about it (due primarily to time constraints), but i’ll respond to just a couple points (briefly):
Regarding donor amounts: I made my assertion that no donors were larger than $2,000 because when I asked on Twitter if you had them of a certain size, I also asked if you had donors over $10,000. I mistakenly looked at your response as to the wrong tweet. I do find it difficult to believe that you have so few donors of greater than $10,000 (and that’s either a compliment to your efficiency or hidden popularity), but it was my mistake. ( see https://twitter.com/betterutah/status/228010515434205184)
The reason I referred to you as a “government watch dog” is tied to an assertion by Eric Ethington, also on Twitter, in which he stated: “Comparing a small watchdog group to a multi-billion dollar national lobbying organization is just silly guys[.]” (see https://twitter.com/PRIDEinUtah/status/227995776192749569)
I had not made the comparison, but apparently many people had, and as such he did. I see Ethington published on the Alliance for a Better Utah, as well as listed as your Communications Director, so, I assumed he knew what he was talking about. (for example http://betterutah.org/2012/07/27/listen-better-utah-talks-alec-on-kcpw/) . Is it a government watch dog, or isn’t it? Apparently, even Alliance for a Better Utah has employees who are unclear.
I look forward to seeing your 990’s when they are released. I’m clearly in favor of self-disclosure, but respect your decision to disclose only the minimum required by law.
I promised to review ALEC, and while the past few days have been busy, I do intend to do so before the weekend is out (if not sooner). I’m glad to review anything you should like to share–I think you can find on my About page ways to contact me, as well as in the Twitter stream from our conversation on the evening of July 24th.
Josh, you sound like a nice guy…and I’m sure you are, but let’s face it…people (make that liberals and democrats) contribute to your “cause” because you support Obama. Republicans (Romney) and conservatives do not get that same love from you. They don’t need to know more.
You say that you wanted Romney’s tax returns. As I recall, he provided them all except the return for 2013, which he was still waiting to receive back from those who prepare it. Were Romney’s actions unlawful? There has never been any proof of anything he did was unlawful. Anything. Not even smoking crack cocaine. But, the accusation remains in the air, just like Harry Reid’s lie that Romney had not paid any taxes for years.
Let’s face it, nice guy, you are out to win it for the liberals. If what Obama has done over the past five years has not convinced you he is at the very least not transparent, and is attempting to implement a socialist agenda, then you are not awake.
Finally, hiding a donors list means there is something to hide. I can believe “protecting” donors. I think of the big Romney donor from Idaho who was castigated and ridiculed for his financial support, or the CEO in California who contributed to a cause in which he believed, in which he had to give up his position.
Sorry, we have seen the stripes on the donkey…and know what it is.