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Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century
On a leaked conference call, leaders of dark-money groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of the legislation—even among Republican voters.
In public, Republicans have denounced Democrats’ ambitious electoral-reform bill, the For the People Act, as an unpopular partisan ploy. In a contentious Senate committee hearing last week, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, slammed the proposal, which aims to expand voting rights and curb the influence of money in politics, as “a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats.” But behind closed doors Republicans speak differently about the legislation, which is also known as House Resolution 1 and Senate Bill 1. They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.
A recording obtained by The New Yorker of a private conference call on January 8th, between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups—including one run by the Koch brothers’ network—reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too. The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.
Kyle McKenzie, the research director for the Koch-run advocacy group Stand Together, told fellow-conservatives and Republican congressional staffers on the call that he had a “spoiler.” “When presented with a very neutral description” of the bill, “people were generally supportive,” McKenzie said, adding that “the most worrisome part . . . is that conservatives were actually as supportive as the general public was when they read the neutral description.” In fact, he warned, “there’s a large, very large, chunk of conservatives who are supportive of these types of efforts.”
As a result, McKenzie conceded, the legislation’s opponents would likely have to rely on Republicans in the Senate, where the bill is now under debate, to use “under-the-dome-type strategies”—meaning legislative maneuvers beneath Congress’s roof, such as the filibuster—to stop the bill, because turning public opinion against it would be “incredibly difficult.” He warned that the worst thing conservatives could do would be to try to “engage with the other side” on the argument that the legislation “stops billionaires from buying elections.” McKenzie admitted, “Unfortunately, we’ve found that that is a winning message, for both the general public and also conservatives.” He said that when his group tested “tons of other” arguments in support of the bill, the one condemning billionaires buying elections was the most persuasive—people “found that to be most convincing, and it riled them up the most.”
McKenzie explained that the Koch-founded group had invested substantial resources “to see if we could find any message that would activate and persuade conservatives on this issue.” He related that “an A.O.C. message we tested”—one claiming that the bill might help Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez achieve her goal of holding “people in the Trump Administration accountable” by identifying big donors—helped somewhat with conservatives. But McKenzie admitted that the link was tenuous, since “what she means by this is unclear.” “Sadly,” he added, not even attaching the phrase “cancel culture” to the bill, by portraying it as silencing conservative voices, had worked. “It really ranked at the bottom,” McKenzie said to the group. “That was definitely a little concerning for us.”
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Interesting read, more here:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...half-a-century
Derp in 3, 2, 1...
no it's not
(saved you some time)
Show us your polling, Qhris.
Your effort has been really disappointing tbh, if you're going to be a chicken welcher who cant keep his word at least make an effort in your ty trolling
Repugs don't GAS about what Repug voters want. Repugs know Repug voters will not vote for Dems
Lol Nothing the progressive commies do is "for the people"; nothing whatsoever!
This bill is 1% for the people and the rest is for laundering. the left!
what do you think money laundering means?
Yall ing egotistical rejects think no one knows what words mean just because you think you're so intelligent. Bro you need an assistant to do 99% of your job and yet you have the audacity to think you're an intellectual while you sit pretty on your mountain built of .
I hope we weed you asses out of society eventually.
Someone's had a rough day
I've had a great day... Everyday is great knowing I don't have the mentality of a like you do Leet.Someone's had a rough day
no, i just dont think that you know what that word laundering means because you constantly misuse it.
I constantly misuse it? Are you serious? How often bro? Seriously, if you're claiming I constantly use the term "money laundering" then prove your claim or else you're nothing more than another dip just like Mono.
You're a dumbass who also believes those who might not know a thing or two can't as easily just check any of the mul ude of dictionaries online or did you forget about those too?
You and the others here with inflated egos are straight up pussies, were always pussies, and will always be pussies bro.
he's melting down but not saying what he thinks money laundering is
He’s right, joey. I’ve seen you use that term.
There's a search feature here so show me how much I use that term bro. Let me guess, you won't and neither will that other just like you.
honestly i used to think that but you continue to prove me wrongI constantly misuse it? Are you serious? How often bro? Seriously, if you're claiming I constantly use the term "money laundering" then prove your claim or else you're nothing more than another dip just like Mono.
You're a dumbass who also believes those who might not know a thing or two can't as easily just check any of the mul ude of dictionaries online or did you forget about those too?
You and the others here with inflated egos are straight up pussies, were always pussies, and will always be pussies bro.
Prove me wrong then and back up your claim already instead of always dodging it. Do it pussy!
there's 4 times that you've used the term laundering in a manner that demonstrates you dont know what it means. you seem to think that laundering just means spending money in ways that you dont personally like
So 4 times over how many years? You say I don't know what words mean yet you use "constantly"...
Next time you should just stfu and let your paralegal assistant do the work for you here on ST because you're as incompetent here as you are irl.
now go ahead and prove me wrong. tell me what money laundering is, and explain how it applies to any of the scenarios above. or more specifically, tell me how 99% of the bill discussed in this thread is money laundering.
yeah, i'd say so. you constantly use the term in a way that demonstrates you dont know what it means. like 100% of the timeSo 4 times over how many years? You say I don't know what words mean yet you use "constantly"...
Next time you should just stfu and let your paralegal assistant do the work for you here on ST because you're as incompetent here as you are irl.
kori should read this US government press release to get an idea what money laundering actually is.
FinCEN Fines Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort $10 Million for Significant and Long Standing Anti-Money Laundering Violations
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