Held to Account

The “Institute for Truth in Accounting” is a conservative right-wing 501(c)3 non profit American think tank and an associate of the State Policy Network, an American nonprofit organization that functions primarily as an umbrella organization for a consortium of conservative and libertarian right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom founded in 1992 by Thomas A. Roe, a South Carolina businessman who was a member of the board of trustees of The Heritage Foundation.

[“The Right-Wing Network Behind the War on Unions: Funded by the right’s richest donors, a web of free-market think tanks has fueled the nationwide attack on workers’ rights.”: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining/ ].

Gary Palmer, co-founder and president of the conservative think tank the Alabama Policy Institute from 1989 until 2014, helped found SPN and served as its president. SPN was founded at the suggestion of President Ronald Reagan. In a conversation with Thomas Roe (a member of his “kitchen cabinet”) in the 1980s, Reagan allegedly suggested Roe create “something like a Heritage Foundation in each of the states.” SPN was reportedly founded at the suggestion of President Ronald Reagan, who, in a conversation with millionaire Thomas Roe, suggested Roe create “something like a Heritage Foundation in each of the states.” Roe told Ronald Reagan that he thought each of the states needed something like the Heritage Foundation, which led Roe to establish the South Carolina Policy Council (SCPC). SCPC adapted Heritage Foundation national policy recommendations, such as environmental deregulation [Miller, John. “Conservative think tanks—mini-Heritage Foundations”. National Review. Vol. 59 no. 21. November 19, 2007 pp. 42–44].

SPN’s predecessor, the Madison Group, was launched by ALEC in the 1980s, according to historical documents. In the mid-1980s, Roe told fellow wealthy conservative donor and Heritage Foundation trustee Robert Krieble, “You capture the Soviet Union — I’m going to capture the states.” It is an $83 million right-wing empire as of the 2011 funding documents from SPN itself and each of its state “think tank” members [“In 2011, SPN and its regular member organizations received combined total revenues of $83.2 million, according to a 2013 analysis of their federal tax filings by the liberal watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy. SPN has grown into a multi-million dollar “think tank” empire, as SPN and its member think tanks cumulatively reported over $83.2 million in revenue and $78.9 million in expenses in 2011.” -“State conservative groups plan public sector assault”: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/12/06/State-conservative-groups-plan-public-sector-assault/62811386313200/ ], the tip of the spear of far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party. In 2006, three former presidents of SPN member organizations were serving as Republicans in the United States House of Representatives: MIKE PENCE of Indiana, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and Tom Tancredo of Colorado. Tracie Sharp, president of SPN since January 2000, told the Wall Street Journal after Donald Trump’s victory at the polls in 2016, “We feel like for such a time as this, we’ve built up this network. We need to really run. SPN member think tanks aided the Tea Party movement by supplying rally speakers and intellectual ammunition. The Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity provides the “grassroots” boots on the ground for this agenda.

[“New media help conservatives get their anti-Obama message out”, Washington Post, Monday, February 1, 2010: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/31/AR2010013102860.html ]

Some of SPN’s documented activities include “franchise” help — setting up state think tanks and exchanging information; political candidate “training”; influencing state laws; litigating through associated litigation centers; creating PR plans; and hosting news sites criticized for conservative bias. SPN’s membership includes state-based “think tanks,” right-wing media institutions, advocacy groups, leadership training centers, and funding institutions like Donors Trust, an investment vehicle used by the Koch network of funders. SPN has close ties to, and works with, other national right-wing organizations like the Franklin Center and David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity. According to Politico, SPN’s associate members include a “who’s who of conservative organizations”, including the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, FreedomWorks, Americans for Tax Reform, and American Legislative Exchange Council. Policy initiatives supported by SPN members have included reductions in state health and welfare programs. SPN introduced model legislation for state legislators to implement on the state level to undermine the Affordable Care Act. The organization also pushed for states not to expand Medicaid.

[Hertel-Fernandez, Alex. “How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States” Oxford University, 2019. page 4: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/state-capture-9780190870799?cc=us&lang=en& ]

Another area of activity has been opposition to public-sector trade unions. Legislative actions taken by the GOP included the introduction and enactment of bills reducing or eliminating collective bargaining for teachers and other government workers and reducing the authority of unions to collect dues from government employees. The State Policy Network produced a “Messaging Guide: How to Talk About Teacher Strikes” as teacher strikes unfold to demand higher pay and more school funding in Oklahoma and Kentucky.

[Jason Deparle, “Right-of-Center Guru Goes Wide With the Gospel of Small Government”, New York Times, November 17, 2006: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/us/politics/17thinktank.html ]

Why does SPN want to destroy unions? An expose on the Bradley Foundation by the Center for Media and Democracy’s (CMD’s) Mary Bottari explains, “Because if you dismantle unions, you destroy a key funder of the Democratic Party and its ‘army on the ground,’ as Newt Gingrich once put it.”

[“Foundation Bankrolls Attacks on Unions”: https://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/05/13239/bradley-foundation-bankrolls-attacks-unions ]

“‘Did the labor reforms enacted in Wisconsin and neighboring Michigan help Donald Trump win those states?’ asked Matt Patterson, executive director of the Center for Worker Freedom at Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (SPN member group). ‘No question in my mind. Hard to fight when your bazooka’s been replaced by a squirt gun.'” SPN President Tracie Sharp celebrated Trump wins in traditionally blue, labor-friendly states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Indian, claiming that anti-union law changes pushed by SPN members and ALEC politicians in those states flipped them from blue to red between 2008 and 2016. Sharp told the Wall Street Journal that she had always felt Wisconsin and Michigan were only “thinly blue,” and that the GOP has been put on better footing by the unions’ slide. “There’s no doubt that with the decline in union membership here in Wisconsin, the political clout of the union bosses and their ability to automatically turn out members for Democrats has declined dramatically,’ Brett Healy, president of the Bradley-funded MacIver Institute (SPN member group), told the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal.

[“The Spoils of the Republican State Conquest”, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9, 2016: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-spoils-of-the-republican-state-conquest-1481326770 ]

In 2017, the Center for Media and Democracy launched a series of articles on the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, exposing the inner-workings of one of America’s largest right-wing foundations. 56,000 previously undisclosed documents laid bare the Bradley Foundation’s highly politicized agenda. CMD detailed Bradley’s efforts to map and measure right wing infrastructure nationwide, including by dismantling and defunding unions to impact state elections.

TIA’s State Data Lab lists ALEC as a partner organization. The State Data Lab uses the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC’s) Rich States, Poor States state economic outlook rankings analysis. SPN is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that drafts and shares state-level model legislation for conservative causes, [“Corporate Money in Network of Right-Wing State Policy Think Tanks”, Nonprofit Quarterly, November 14, 2013: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/corporate-money-in-network-of-right-wing-state-policy-think-tanks/ ] and ALEC is an associate member of SPN. SPN is among the sponsors of ALEC. A 2009 article in an SPN newsletter encouraged SPN members to join ALEC and many SPN members are also members of ALEC. All of SPN’s 64 member state think tanks have pushed parts of the ALEC agenda in their respective states, and at least 34 of them have additional direct ties to ALEC (beyond SPN’s own ties as an ALEC funder). SPN President Tracie Sharp was the recipient of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC’s) 2009 “Private Sector Member of the Year Award.” ALEC gave her the award because, according to an ALEC “scholar” and founder of SPN member think tank the Freedom Foundation), “Not only have SPN members assisted legislators in drafting model legislation, they’ve been key in killing some proposals”. ALEC is “SPN’s sister organisation,” according to The Guardian. SPN groups operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy. SPN groups increasingly peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda, spinning that agenda as indigenous to the state and giving it the aura of academic legitimacy. ALEC is a corporate bill mill. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC’s operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. The Center for Media and Democracy’s in-depth investigation, “EXPOSED: The State Policy Network — The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government” [https://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/2/25/SPN_National_Report_FINAL.pdf ], reveals that SPN and its member think tanks are major drivers of the right-wing, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders. SPN shares many of same sources of funding as ALEC, including Koch institutions. A 2013 article by The Guardian said that SPN received funding from the Koch brothers, Philip Morris, Kraft Foods and GlaxoSmithKline. Tax documents and other available records reveal that SPN is funded by the same large corporations, right-wing foundations, and wealthy conservative ideologues that fund ALEC. Corporations like Facebook and the for-profit online education company K12 Inc., as well as the e-cigarette company NJOY (a new member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)), also fund SPN, as demonstrated by its most recent annual meeting. SPN and its “think tanks” are also largely funded by right-wing special interest groups and individuals, including the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Coors family, the Walton Family Foundation, the Roe Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and Searle Freedom Trust. Some of the most notable corporate funders of SPN and its web of “think tanks” include Big Tobacco companies (like Reynolds), Big Oil corporations (like the Koch family fortune), AT&T, Kraft Foods, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Facebook, and Microsoft. But public documents discovered by CMD reveal that SPN is largely funded by global corporations — such as Reynolds American, Altria, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft Foods, Express Scripts, Comcast, Time Warner, and the Koch- and Tea Party-connected DCI Group lobbying and PR firm — that stand to benefit from SPN’s agenda, as well as out-of-state special interests like the billionaire Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Bradley Foundation, the Roe Foundation of SPN’s founder, and the Coors family — who are underwriting an extreme legislative agenda that undermines the rights of Americans:

“The Little-Known Network Pushing Ideas For Kochs, ALEC”: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/state-policy-network-kochs_n_4275899

“Think tanks tied to Kochs”: https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/koch-brothers-think-tank-report-099791

“Koch-funded charity passes money to free-market think tanks in states”, NBC News. Center for Public Integrity. Thursday February 14, 2013: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/14/16939114-koch-funded-charity-passes-money-to-free-market-think-tanks-in-states

“Koch Front Group “Truth in Accounting” Applies Fuzzy Math to State Budgets”: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/18/1758015/-Koch-Front-Group-Truth-in-Accounting-Applies-Fuzzy-Math-to-State-Budgets

In her article, “Is IKEA the New Model for the Conservative Movement?” [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement.html ], The New Yorker’s Pulitzer-nominated reporter Jane Mayer revealed that, in a recent meeting with the heads of SPN affiliates around the country, SPN Executive Director Tracie Sharp, formerly one of the founders and the executive director of Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s SPN group, from 1991 to 1999 [“The Right Leans In: Media-savvy conservative think tanks take aim and fire at progressive power bases in the states”: https://www.thenation.com/article/right-leans/ ], “compared the organization’s model to that of the giant global chain IKEA.” Not only that, but Sharp “also acknowledged privately to the members that the organization’s often anonymous donors frequently shape the agenda. ‘The grants are driven by donor intent,’ she told the gathered think-tank heads. She added that, often, ‘the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen.'” A set of coordinated fundraising proposals obtained and released by The Guardian in early December 2013 confirm many of these SPN members’ intent to change state laws and policies, referring to “advancing model legislation” and “candidate briefings.” According to The Guardian, the proposals documented a coordinated strategy, “a blueprint for the conservative agenda in 2014.” The funding proposals are from 40 SPN members to the Searle Freedom Trust, a private foundation that funds right-wing groups such as Americans for Prosperity, ALEC, Americans for Tax Reform, and more, funded by the “NutraSweet” fortune of G.D. Searle & Company, which was purchased by Monsanto in 1985 and which is now part of Pfizer, as suggesting campaigns designed to cut pay to state government employees; oppose public sector collective bargaining; reduce public sector services in education and healthcare oppose efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions. SPN think tanks have introduced, echoed, pushed, and reinforced ALEC policies to hamstring labor, privatize education, disenfranchise minorities, students, and the elderly, and rollback environmental initiatives in the states. SPN and its affiliates push an extreme right-wing agenda that aims to privatize education, block healthcare reform, restrict workers’ rights, roll back environmental protections, and create a tax system that benefits most those at the very top level of income. These activities “arguably cross the line into lobbying,” The Guardian notes. Many SPN groups, such as the Mackinac Center in Michigan, have been accused of lobbying in their states, in violation of IRS rules for non-profit “charitable” organizations. Several appear to orchestrate extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators, despite the IRS’s regulations on nonprofit political and lobbying activities.

[“State conservative groups plan US-wide assault on education, health: the money behind the fight to wreck Medicaid”: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/state-conservative-groups-assault-education-health-tax ]

~ by Judgian12365 on October 4, 2018.