The Beatrice Fiddler

The Cantankerous Gentleman blog was kind enough to notice my blog post of last week about the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska--which dumps money into political campaigns in the state and refuses to disclose its donors.

Back to the Center for Rural Affairs

The Center for Rural Affairs is an active donor to big government political advocacy in Nebraska and it won't say where it's getting the money to do that. 

In 2006, the Center for Rural Affairs--a federally tax-exempt corporation--gave $39,045.77 to the campaign against Proposition 423, the spending lid amendment that was on the November 2006 ballot.

The CFRA's donations to oppose the spending lid ballot measure, as disclosed in mandatory campaign filings at the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, were both direct and indirect.

The Center for Rural Affairs reports that it gave $9896.53 in nine different indirect expenditures to Nebraskans Against 423. The CFRA also reports giving $15,000 directly to "Nebraskans Against 423" in 3 separate checks.

Additionally, CFRA provided the core funding for what some might view as a front group, Farmers and Ranchers for Tax Fairness, or FRTF. FRTF was formed in October 2006 by Chuck Hassebrook, who is the executive director of CFRA. FRTF was formed in October 2006 and dissolved in January 2007 by Hassebrook. In its short life, what FRTF did was receive $13,143.43 in direct donations from the Center for Rural Affairs as well as another $1,005.81 in indirect contributions from the CFRA. Farmers and Ranchers for Tax Fairness then donated the funds it had "raised" from CFRA to "Nebraskans Against 423".

Of FRTF's total income of $17,047.63 in it short life, about $14,000 was from the Center for Rural Affairs.  Other small donations to FTRF came from groups such as the Soybean Association and the NE Farm PAC.

The fact that "Farmers and Ranchers for Tax Fairness" existed for all of three months, was started by the executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs, got 83% of its funding from CFRA, and gave all its money to "Nebraskans Against 423"--a group that CFRA was also supporting directly--certainly raised my eyebrows. 

As I wrote here and here, I unsuccessfully requested information from the CFRA about who its donors are.

At that time, I just thought the CFRA was sort of a leftwing political advocacy thinktank.  I didn't realize it was giving direct money to political campaigns in Nebraska. 

I'd like to know where they get their money.  Wouldn't you?

The Center for Rural Affairs is a federally tax-exempt corporation and, as such, it could choose to voluntarily disclose its donors on its federal tax returns.

As described here, the left/progressive Nebraska Appleseed does voluntarily disclose information to the public about all its donors.

However, as you can see from the CFRA's most recent federal tax return, it has chosen not to make donor information available to the public.

Why is that?  Are they hiding something?

Digging through the mandatory campaign disclosures of Nebraskans Against 423 for this post, I couldn't help but notice that of the nearly $2.5 million they spent on the campaign against the spending lid measure, tons of it was from out-of-state donors. These out-of-state donors include--rounding to nearest $1,000--$10,000 from the AFL/CIO office in Washington, $30,000 from the AFSCME office in Washington, $5,000 from an obscure Arkansas corporation, $5,000 from "Tigercomm", an obscure Virginia corporation, $770,000 from the National Education Association, and $478,000 from the combined national and "state" office of AARP. That's not the full list of "out-of-state" money, but this list alone yields close to $1.3 million in out-of-state money.

I had to laugh when I saw that "Nebraskans Against 423" received $4,968.42 from a group called "Nebraskans Against Outside Influence."

Given that the question of out-of-state donors was used relentlessly by the opponents of 423, who themselves were taking in more than $1.3 million from out-of-state, is the Center for Rural Affairs refusing to disclose its donor list because it is full of donors from far away states? Or does it have some other motivation to refuse to disclose?

Just asking.

Hardcore leftwing money in Nebraska

Money Men who Fund the Left, and their Grim Plans for America.

I couldn't resist.

Uncle Wiggly coined the phrase yellow blogalism a few months back to describe the fevered efforts of some of Nebraska's left-oriented bloggers.

The other side of the political aisle has its own yellow blogalists but not, I think, as many. I do have a sense that the left has more of a belief that if they can only follow the money trail, this will reveal everything we have to know to understand modern politics and make good choices in the voting booth.

Therefore, we get treated to many "follow the money trail" treatises from the left.

However, the left has no incentive to follow its own money trail, and conservatives usually don't think that money trails make all that much difference (is this because we are lazy or because we think we should pay attention to the ideas and not the money?)

Last week I noted that Bill O'Reilly of Fox News aired a show about George Soros money flowing into American politics and decided to figure out if any of it was flowing into Nebraska.

It occurred to me that our friends at Nebraska Appleseed might be on this particular gravy train.

Are they? Yes.

Nebraska Appleseed's 2005 income tax return shows (p. 17) that it received $40,000 that year from a group called Public Interest Projects, which also goes by the name "Racial Justice Collaborative".

In turn, when we look at the 2005 tax return of the Tides Foundation, it gave (see p. 32) a $300,000 donation to "Public Interest Projects" in 2005.

And looking at the 2005 tax returns of the Open Society Institute (try not to pass out when you see how big a check it got from George Soros), we see on p. 204 that in 2005, the Open Society Institute gave $550,000 to "Public Interest Projects".

(Does the Open Society Institute give money to Tides? This website claims that it does.)

Nebraska Appleseed (p. 17 of their 2005 tax return) also received $32,500 from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. According to that link, the CBPP gets money from George Soros--and Mott, Ford and all the other usual big money left crowd. And Barbra Streisand.

The CBPP doesn't list its donors on its tax returns so I don't know how Capital Research got their donor list.

So what we have is: The Open Society Insitute gives money to Tides. The Open Society Institute and Tides both give money to "Public Interest Projects". And "Public Interest Projects" gives money to our own Nebraska Appleseed.

And Soros (and Babs) give money to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities which gives money to Nebraska Appleseed.

Voila! Extremist left-wing money in Nebraska! That wasn't so hard.

There may be much more Soros money going into Nebraska Appleseed. It is part of a national network of Appleseeds. The local branch got a fairly large donation from the national office in 2005. Unlike our local branch, the national group declines to identify its donors on its tax return.

Of course, the only reason we can tell that this happened is because Nebraska Appleseed includes its "Schedule B"--the list of its donors--on its tax returns. It doesn't have to do that.

Another candidate for Soros money is the Center for Rural Affairs which is on Day 7 of refusing to identify its donors. Secretive! Shadowy!