The Center for Public Integrity

Voters haven’t had a clue who is behind American Tradition Partnership — the Colorado-based group pushing to rewrite Montana’s campaign finance laws — and that’s just the way the secretive nonprofit wants it.

A 2010 fundraising pitch to its donors promised that “no politician, no bureaucrat, and no radical environmentalist will ever know you helped,” and “the only thing we plan on reporting is our success to contributors like you.”

“Montana has very strict limits on contributions to candidates,” reads the document, obtained by The Center for Public Integrity. “but there is no limit to how much you give to this program.”

As for the state’s ban on corporate money in elections?

“Corporate contributions are completely legal,” the pitch assures potential funders. “This is one of the rare programs you will find where that’s the case.”

“You can get some traction with that pitch,” says Dennis Unsworth, who led the state’s investigation of the group in 2010 that unearthed the document. “If you can offer to influence the elections outside the law, that’s a great calling card.”

For three election cycles, ATP has plastered the state with mailers attacking "radical environmental groups" and moderate Republicans.

While ATP’s funders are still mostly a mystery, the Center for Public Integrity has identified what records indicate is the secretive organization’s founding donor — an anti-union owner of Colorado’s largest furniture chain — and discovered a long list of affiliations with national tea party groups funded by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers.

This election, ATP has vowed to keep Attorney General Steve Bullock out of the governor’s mansion. In October, voters received a brazen multi-page newspaper-style flier placing the Democratic candidate in a photo lineup with three registered sex offenders.

Jacob "Jake" Jabs is not quite a national figure, but he is a celebrity in Colorado — so much so that he was featured in the animated comedy series “South Park,” which is set in the state.

A cartoon version of Jabs made a cameo appearance in 2007, according to Furniture Today. Kyle, one of the main characters, is at a party for high-rollers when he spots a man in a yellow suit with a white tiger in his lap.

“Look over there, it’s that Jake Jabs guy from American Furniture Warehouse commercials!”

Jabs, 81, owns Colorado’s largest furniture chain and is probably best known for his commercials featuring the big cats.

While his commercials are amusing, he is serious about his politics. A document from the Internal Revenue Service shows Jabs pledged $300,000 in seed money to American Tradition Partnership. ATP is a secretive pro-energy nonprofit that’s taken the state of Montana to court three times challenging the state's campaign finance laws.

Jabs, through a spokesman, on Monday said he did not make a donation and has "never heard of" ATP or the group's previous incarnation.

"He did not commit to the funds indicated by Athena Dalton in the filing so clearly he did not give them funds," wrote Charlie Shaulis, director of communications for American Furniture Warehouse, Jabs' company, in an email to I-News Network in Colorado.

Dalton wrote a letter to the IRS asking the agency to speed up the process for awarding it nonprofit status. The letter states that the approval was needed quickly, otherwise Jabs would not make a contribution. The agency gave it the thumbs up four days later.

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign added 120 new fundraising “bundlers” during the third quarter who have brought in at least $17.5 million, including a former secretary of state and a platinum blonde pop star who has sold more than 40 million albums.

According to a newly released list from the Obama campaign, a total of 758 bundlers have raised at least $180 million for the president’s re-election efforts, including scores of well-connected individuals from California, New York and Obama’s home state of Illinois.

Notable additions to the list include Madeleine Albright, who served as secretary of state under former President Bill Clinton and has raised at least $200,000; pop singer Gwen Stefani, who raised at least $500,000; fashion designer Tom Ford, who has raised at least $500,000; and Warner Brothers CEO and Chairman Barry Meyer and his wife Wendy, who raised at least $500,000.

Other new bundlers include former U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who raised at least $200,000; Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy, who raised at least $200,000; and former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who raised at least $100,000 and spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month.

These funds have benefited not only the Obama campaign but also the “Obama Victory Fund” — a joint fundraising organization that funnels cash to his campaign, the Democratic National Committee and party entities in several battleground states.

Individuals may donate up to $75,800 to the Obama Victory Fund. The first $5,000 is directed to the Obama campaign while the next $30,800 goes to the DNC. The remaining funds are split between other participating party committees.

Because the Obama campaign voluntarily only discloses broad ranges of how much money its bundlers have collected, it’s impossible to precisely determine how much these elite fundraisers have gathered.

Less than three weeks before Election Day, a new mystery group dropped nearly $1 million on an anti-Obama expenditure, according to records.

Citizen Awareness Project appears to be a nonprofit organization. It reported the independent expenditure opposing President Barack Obama Thursday, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission.

The entire sum — $994,000 — was paid to Stephen Clouse & Associates Inc., a Virginia firm that specializes in raising money for its clients via direct mail, according to its website.

The firm has produced marketing materials for the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, both of which count billionaire businessman and financier of conservative causes Charles Koch as a board member.

Citizen Awareness Project has no website that the Center could find and no Internal Revenue Service documents appear to have been posted online. Thursday’s filing was the first reported political expenditure made by the group.

The group is likely a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit. Such organizations can function like super PACs but are not required to register with the FEC or disclose their donors. They are required to file reports with the IRS.

The group’s address is the same as Zakhem Law LLC in Denver, Colo., where its treasurer, Charlie Smith, is a law clerk specializing in election law.

Smith is former chairman of the College Republican National Committee and the founder of a lesser-known pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC, Solutions 2012, which raised $67,000. All of its contributions came from small donors.

If there was a silver lining for open-government advocates in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling that unleashed corporate and union spending on elections, it was that the identity of those who pay for all those annoying ads would be made public on a regular basis.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way.

Since Labor Day, spending by outside groups taking advantage of the high court’s Citizens United decision totaled a little more than $229 million, including unions. Forty-four percent of the total — $100 million — has come from non-disclosing, nonprofit corporations.

The clearest example comes from the top two spenders, two organizations that share the same post office box in Washington, D.C.

American Crossroads, the so-called super PAC co-founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove, has spent $33.1 million since Labor Day, according to Federal Election Commission records. Its top donor is Texas billionaire and businessman Harold Simmons, who along with his company, Contran Corp., has given $13 million to the group so far this election, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of Federal Election Commission records.

Second is Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit sister organization of American Crossroads, also co-founded by Karl Rove, which has spent $30.3 million. Its top donor is — unknown. Crossroads GPS was organized as a nonprofit, “social welfare” organization. The Internal Revenue Service does not require it to disclose its donors to the public, nor does the FEC.

By now most folks know that the U.S. Supreme Court did something that changed how money can be spent in elections and by whom, but what happened and why should you care?

The Citizens United ruling, released in January 2010, tossed out the corporate and union ban on making independent expenditures and financing electioneering communications. It gave corporations and unions the green light to spend unlimited sums on ads and other political tools, calling for the election or defeat of individual candidates.

In a nutshell, the high court’s 5-4 decision said that it is OK for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want to convince people to vote for or against a candidate.

The decision did not affect contributions. It is still illegal for companies and labor unions to give money directly to candidates for federal office. The court said that because these funds were not being spent in coordination with a campaign, they “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

So if the decision was about spending, why has so much been written about contributions? Like seven and eight-figure donations from people like casino magnate and billionaire Sheldon Adelson who, with his family, has given about $40 million to so-called “super PACs,” formed in the wake of the decision?

For that, we need to look at another court case — SpeechNow.org v. FEC. The lower-court case used the Citizens United case as precedent when it said that limits on contributions to groups that make independent expenditures are unconstitutional.

And that’s what led to the creation of the super PACs, which act as shadow political parties. They accept unlimited donations from billionaires, corporations and unions and use it to buy advertising, most of it negative.

Secretive nonprofits affiliated with oil and coal companies, including Koch Industries, are hitting Obama hard for what they call his “war on coal.”

Yesterday, for example, the nonprofit American Energy Alliance reported that its new ad “Stand with Coal,” cost more than a half-million dollars and is running for two weeks in the coal-producing states of Ohio and Virginia.

The ad accuses President Barack Obama of wanting to bankrupt the coal industry, alleging that his plan is to “kill affordable energy.”

The American Energy Alliance is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which means its donors remain unknown to the public. Its president, Thomas Pyle, is the former director of federal affairs for Koch Industries and former lobbyist for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. He also served as a policy analyst for Rep. Tom Delay, R-Texas, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The American Energy Alliance is affiliated with the Institute for Energy Research, a free-market energy nonprofit that has received backing from the Koch-run Claude R. Lambe Foundation. Pyle is also the institute’s president.

Robert Bradley, the CEO of the institute called those who are concerned about global warming “climate alarmists” in an op-ed in The Washington Times.

At a campaign stop near Philadelphia early in his 2010 bid for governor, Republican Tom Corbett announced “we’ve got to raise money,” that it was the “number-one” priority. In an answer to his prayers, that same July day, a $1.5 million contribution arrived from — Wisconsin?

Officially, the donation was from the Wisconsin affiliate of a D.C.-based political organization called the Republican Governors Association.  

The $1.5 million could not travel directly from the RGA to Corbett. Pennsylvania law bans candidates from accepting corporate money and the RGA accepts millions of dollars from some of the nation’s largest businesses.  

Also, state law requires all non-individuals to establish PACs in Pennsylvania.  

In a single day, the $1.5 million gift traveled from the D.C.-based parent organization to the RGA Wisconsin PAC, to the RGA Pennsylvania PAC and finally to Corbett’s campaign account.

By the time the donation reached Corbett, it was impossible to identify the original source of the cash or whether the donation was permissible under state law.

The well-traveled donation is a prime example of “an elaborate money-laundering scheme, which is legal,” used by the RGA with success in a number of races for governor in 2010, according to Pennsylvania Common Cause Executive Director Barry Kauffman.

The RGA’s funding played a central role in Corbett’s victory. By Election Day he had received a total of $6 million from the RGA — 21 percent of his total fundraising, easily the top donor to the campaign, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Corbett’s campaign office did not return calls for comment for this story.

It was no secret in the 2010 race for governor of Pennsylvania that Republican Tom Corbett, the state’s attorney general, was the favorite of the burgeoning natural gas industry.

Corbett collected almost $1.3 million from donors with oil and gas interests, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Aubrey McClendon, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy, the nation’s No. 2 natural gas producer and the top driller in the lucrative Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania, gave the campaign $5,000 while his company’s political action committee contributed $12,000.

But that’s a small fraction of what Chesapeake gave to Corbett’s top donor.

McClendon’s company gave a little over $300,000 in 2010 to a so-called “527” organization called the Republican Governors Association, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The RGA gave Corbett’s campaign more than $6 million, 21 percent of the $28.7 million he raised, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

The RGA acts as a central depository and distributor of funds from wealthy individuals and corporate treasuries that are used to underwrite governors’ races in the states.

The organization routinely accepts six- and seven-figure contributions and deals out the funds to state candidates and parties. In states like Pennsylvania, where corporate contributions are banned, the group appears to be skirting the law.

But the RGA says it keeps track of where the money comes from and adheres to all state laws and regulations. Corporate and non-corporate funds are segregated. Critics say, however, that such segregation is meaningless thanks to the wide variation in state campaign finance laws.

“It’s time to put the adults back in charge,” says the narrator of a new attack ad from a conservative political action committee.

“Sometimes Barack Obama seems to confuse being president with being on spring break,” he continues. “It’s time to retire the beer-summit, spring-break presidency.”

The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama released this new advertisement just after the end second presidential debate Tuesday night, which saw Obama continue his campaign’s theme of painting GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney as out-of-touch and elitist.

The ad takes the out-of-touch theme and turns it against Obama.

The PAC’s ad notes that Obama has played more than 100 rounds of golf during his tenure. It also features clips of his “slow jamming the news” on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" and other talk show appearances. This is contrasted with criticisms of rising gas prices, unemployment and foreclosures.

The ad also attempts to flip what is considered one of Obama’s biggest victories — the killing of Osama bin Laden — by saying he was on the golf course when the operation got underway, which stretches the truth. Obama was on the golf course until 20 minutes before the operation to take down bin Laden began, according to a book “SEAL Target Geronimo,” published by a former Navy SEAL commander.

During the operation, Obama was gathered with his national security team in the Situation Room, a scene depicted in a famous photo released by the White House.