This NPR report is a good example of why many of us think NPR is left-leaning on campaign finance issues. Their program featured two liberal journalists and, for balance, Ken Vogel of Politico—probably the fairest campaign finance reporter around.

 

Vogel’s snippet that NPR published is relatively straightforward—of course Rove and Gillespie are involved with these groups and conservatives will be grateful for their support. Peter Stone basically rehashes the issues in the CLC/D21 letter alleging that Crossroads GPS is violating its 501(c)(4) status despite existing for only a few months into the fiscal year.

 

Lee Fang finishes the segment synopsis discussing his blog post alleging the Chamber accepts foreign funding for its political advocacy program. NPR doesn’t even bother to report a denial of the Chamber that foreign funds are being used for political spending [By the way, the NPR report is incorrect that the Chamber has raised $75 million for political spending. That has been the reported spending plan, but Roll Call noted recently that they’ve actually spent far less than that amount].

 

On a related note, Trevor Potter and I both queried the list Tuesday asking whether or not this “foreign funding” issue would apply to international labor unions.

 

Trevor asked a structural question (whether or not international unions such as the AFL-CIO or IBEW actually accept foreign payments from affiliates) and I asked if a similar question: if unions accept these payments—or dues from foreign nationals—do they use a similar “internal accounting procedure” as the Chamber to safeguard that the funds are not spent on American politics?

 

It’s frustrating that practitioners and academics can spend countless e-mail exchanges on trivial matters, but no one bothers to respond to serious inquiries from both sides of the campaign finance ideological spectrum concerning matters of great media attention and consequence.

 

Seeing no response, I contacted attorneys and communications officials for seven unions that have over 50,000 Canadian members. Only the SEIU replied, noting that they go an extra step to segregate their foreign funds into a different account.

 

Considering six of the unions declined to respond, I’d deem it relatively likely that at least one of these unions has a similar accounting procedure as the Chamber. I’m still waiting for more information.

 

 

 

Worth a listen: Terry Gross' 'Citizens United' Ruling Opened Floodgates On Groups' Ad Spending
dan