What Charles G. Koch Can Teach Us About Campaign Finance Data

Lasrick writes "Lee Drutman is a political scientist with the Sunlight Foundation who does terrific work. In this article, he attempts to trace campaign donations made by one of the Koch Brothers and discovers just how difficult it is to do: 'The case of Charles G. Koch is a nice lesson in just how hard it is to determine who is breaking and who is abiding by campaign finance limits. It's hard to make accurate tallies of individual aggregate campaign contributions when the Federal Elections Commission doesn't require donors to have a unique ID, and when campaigns don't always reliably report donor names. Given this, it is unclear how the FEC would even enforce its own aggregate limit rules. The FEC's spokesperson told me that while the FEC welcomes complaints, it does not typically take enforcement initiative."'

Comments

Asinine Article of the Year Award Goes to...

[KalvinB]

Obama is spying on every American with blanket data grabs and still fails to stop terrorist attacks
Obama has the IRS pry into the personal lives of anyone (and high school kids) who is trying to start a conservative non-profit

And you want to bitch about money from people supporting a candidate that DIDN'T WIN the election.

Step 1: Get the tyrant in power
Step 2: Keep the tyrant in power

Posting an article about people who are harassing conservatives for who they dare to support with their money... That's just special. I guess the IRS isn't doing a good enough job, we need to find other avenues to ensure Conservative/Republicans politicians don't get financial contributions to their campaign.

Re:Asinine Article of the Year Award Goes to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite the fact that the record shows them preventing crimes and arresting criminals.

Tell that to Boston. You know, where the FBI was flat-out told by Russia "this man is a radical Muslim and is going to commit terrorist attacks" and the FBI responded by asking him if it were true and then ignoring him. (But apparently my phone calls are needed to "stop the terrorists!")

Actually, maybe don't tell Boston that, because apparently the city was trying to get the attack classified as "not a terrorist attack" in order to not offend Muslims or something.

But the point stands: if the FBI can't catch a terrorist when they're flat-out told "he's a terrorist" by Russia, why the hell should we believe that they'd do any better when it's the NSA telling them? We already know the FBI can't stop even the most inept and incompetent terrorist attacks like the one in Boston, why would they do any better with the aid of nation-wide spying? That was, you know, was ALREADY HAPPENING WHEN THEY MISSED THAT ATTACK IN ANY CASE. So it's not like this is theoretical or anything: PRISM didn't help stop the Boston attack. Which isn't surprising since being handed a report saying "this man is a terrorist" didn't help prevent them.

Another irrational statement. Obama is not micromanaging the IRS. There is indication Obama did any such thing.

Wrong: the IRS manager had nearly 200 meetings at the White House. There's very good evidence Obama knew exactly what was happening and didn't care.

Unfortunately your chance at the moral high-ground was killed when conservatives profiled black-people as being more likely to have invalid voter-registration, and thus did mass suppression of voting in black areas.

Uh, also wrong: the simple answer is that we have no idea how bad voter fraud is in the United States because WE DON'T BOTHER CHECKING FOR IT. Voter ID laws are NOT targeting "blacks" they're targeting voter fraud PERIOD, plain and simple. No racial bias since it covers everyone, no economic bias since the IDs are free for people who can't afford them.

Why Koch and not Soros?

[JDAustin]

Is it because the Koch is considered evil by the left while Soros is a saint?

Yet the irony is that the Koch brothers actually make something in the United States and their workforce is 80% unionized while Soros is a banker who makes money on devaluing countries currency.

Re:Why Koch and not Soros?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's much more likely because the Koch brothers quite literally astroturfed the Tea Party into existence. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the agenda being pushed by the Tea Party is obviously pro-corporation and anti-liberty.

If people could detach emotional bias from politics, the Tea Party would disappear overnight when everyone realized how hoodwinked they had been by corporate interests.

Re:Why Koch and not Soros?

[Anonymous Coward]

Deregulation has caused us nothing but trouble. Remember that Enron crisis a decade or so ago in CA? That was caused by deregulation. The 2008 economic meltdown was caused by deregulation. Deregulation only works in some imaginary libertarian fantasy world where greedy sociopath douchebags don't exist.

Re:Why Koch and not Soros?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it because the Koch is considered evil by the left while Soros is a saint?

No, it's a directive. This is part of the larger campaign to instruct left-wing career bureaucrats to abuse their power, of which the IRS abuses are only the beginning. Rather than using "dog whistles" or "code words," they're using goddamned bullhorns to coordinate this, out in the open.

The top leaders of the left, including Obama, deliberately claimed that conservative and libertarian organizations were cheating on their taxes, and groups like Sunlight and Media Matters made similar claims. It was basically an instruction, directly from leading Democrats and liberal activists, to do precisely what we've seen happen. Hell, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid falsely claimed on the Senate floor that Mitt Romney, then a private citizen, had not paid taxes for 10 years.

Sure enough, IRS agents did precisely what they were instructed to do.

Obama has also repeatedly decried Fox as an illegitimate news organization. Sure enough, the Justice department has charged Rosen for passing on data that had been leaked to him. Passing on leaked data is normally considered to be okay by people who don't have a clearance, but the Justice department is claiming that Rosen, a private citizen, is an enemy of the state under the Espionage Act.

Claiming that conservative and libertarian (Koch being libertarian) organizations are not abiding by the byzantine campaign finance regulations are another way to instruct bureaucrats to harass and silence them. We should expect to see these organizations hounded and harassed by FEC and others.

Re:Why Koch and not Soros?

[chihowa]

ok, so we're at a special moment in US history. both the right and the left agree that the government is dysfunctional, highly corrupt, and borderline totalitarian.

appropriate next move... anyone?

Whine and bitch about the other guy and the lesser of two evils. In other words, exactly the same move that got us into this mess.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were asking what was actually going to happen.

Re:Why Koch and not Soros?

[khallow]

Deregulation has caused us nothing but trouble. Remember that Enron crisis a decade or so ago in CA?

I take it you don't realize that the state of California deliberately broke the electricity market in question? Electricity utilities were required to buy a portion of their electricity at any price on the spot market. It didn't take the so-called "smartest people in the room" (Enron) to see that was going to cause lucrative trouble.

And once this flaw was revealed in the summer of 2000, the then governor, Gray Davis let this flaw run on for about six to seven months, bankrupting one utility and almost nailing a second (there were three such businesses in addition to utilities on the public or non profit side).

Yes, Enron and other players manipulated the market. But we need to remember that the market was designed to reward such market manipulation.

Another group of markets with similar behavior are the carbon credit exchanges in Europe. Because of the hard cap on the credits allotted for emissions, there either are more credits than emissions or less. In the former case, emission credits are low value. In the latter case, the high inelasticity of supply drives up prices and encourages market manipulation.

After all, if you can buy a lot of credits early in the year for cheap and then sell them to desperate coal power generators and other industries near the end of the year, then you can make a bit of coin, even if you can't get rid of all the credits you bought.

Anyway, when that market melts down, you'll know why.

It's tiresome to see all these accusations against deregulation by the painfully ignorant. Deregulation can be done poorly, such as the California energy crisis or the firesale of Russian gas properties to Yeltsin cronies. Or it can be done well. One doesn't see such drama in telecommunications or passenger air travel, for example.

Re:Why Koch and not Soros?

[Odin's Raven]

Is it because the Koch is considered evil by the left while Soros is a saint?

Seriously, did you even read the article? (I know, I know, this is /., what on earth am I thinking.) That's a rhetorical question, of course - you wouldn't ask the question you asked if you'd read the article. Then again, that seems to also be true of quite a few people who replied to you, so you're hardly alone.

Koch is the subject because an earlier article, by the same author, had listed Koch as one of nearly 600 people who appeared to have exceeded campaign contribution limits. Turns out this was incorrect - an error due in large part to the disasterously poor state of data on contributions by major donors. The whole damned article is both exonerating Koch and explaining where the original analyis went wrong. It's about Koch because Koch's company took the time to contact the author, work with him to identify where and how some of the erroneous data came about, and help set the record straight. If one of the other nearly 600 donors listed had done the same, this follow-up article might easily have been about someone other than Koch.

It's got nothing to do with "evil", "good", "bad", etc, except inasmuch as the FEC data is manifestly "bad", and woefully inadequate for even the FEC themselves to determine who may be breaking campaign finance laws. If you want to get upset about the article, get upset about the real point - that nobody has sufficient information to tell whether major contributors on either side of the political aisle are breaking the law. (And there were plenty of Dem donors in the original article if you take the time to read it. I apologize in advance to you that Soros wasn't on the list. Well, that's not true - there's two Soroses (Sori?) on the lists - just that <Jedi>these are not the Soroses you're looking for</Jedi>)

So untwist your knickers, grab a beer, chill out, then try actually reading the article.

Of course it is difficult.

[nitehawk214]

Why would politicians that got elected enact laws to make it harder for them to be bribed? They specifically make the campaign finances difficult to track in order to hide the bribery.

Not only that, but we let the people being elected set their own paychecks as well.

Re:Who cares who donates and how much?

[Trepidity]

If you know who donates to which parties, politicians, and organizations, it can highlight what things you might want to give extra scrutiny to.

You don't have to use the information, but I would like it to be available for analysis.

Re:More support for a national ID

[xtronics]

Really strange - the lefts HATRED of brothers promoting freedom with their own money.

For the record - did you know that the Koch Brothers support:

Decriminalizing drugs,
Legalizing gay marriage,
Repealing the Patriot Act,
Ending the police state,
Cutting defense spending.

They call this being way right wing?

Re: Who cares who donates and how much?

[drinkypoo]

Where in the Constitution is there a right to privacy for individuals?

The Supremes have repeatedly ruled that the enumerated rights in the constitution add up to an implied right to privacy, since you can't realistically have several of them (including the right to freedom of speech) without it. It is ignorant at best to utilize this argument. It is also highly disingenuous to ask this question in any case because the constitution was never intended to exhaustively enumerate the Human Rights of The People. Your one-liner amounts to nothing more than tired prevarication.

Re: Government. Is there ANYTHING it can't screw u

[Anonymous Coward]

If the government has no power, the corporations will take over. That is a nightmare scenario because corporations have no interest whatsoever in maintaining society and ensuring quality of life (the very purpose of government). The corporation's only purpose for existence is to make as much money as possible, how do you think that is going to play out for everyone? Corporations need to be hobbled by taxes and regulation at all times to prevent them from becoming too powerful.

Re:More support for a national ID

[atriusofbricia]

Really strange - the lefts HATRED of brothers promoting freedom with their own money.

For the record - did you know that the Koch Brothers support:

Decriminalizing drugs,
Legalizing gay marriage,
Repealing the Patriot Act,
Ending the police state,
Cutting defense spending.

They call this being way right wing?

The problem is that even though they support Freedom and Liberty they don't support Liberalism. They're against big government, heavy taxes and heavy regulation. They tend to be individualists and not collectivists, ergo they are right wing extremists (or something).

Re: Who cares who donates and how much?

[atriusofbricia]

Where in the Constitution is there a right to privacy for individuals?

4th Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, and the 9th Amendment which clearly says that just because a set of rights are enumerated doesn't mean those are the only ones you have, and the 10th Amendment which says that the only powers the Federal government has are those delegated to it, and that all others are reserved to the States (where not prohibited) or the People.

So, the real question which you should have asked is where in the Constitution was the government given the power to snoop through all your crap in the first place.

WTF is income equality?

[KalvinB]

Should we all be paid the same per hour regardless of what we produce in that hour?

The Koch brothers employ 10's of thousands of people.

Obviously they're doing something for ordinary people.

Re:WTF is income equality?

[pwizard2]

Capital gains (how the rich make most of their income) should be treated no differently than regular income. This is one way the current tax code favors the rich. Also, eliminating the cap on social security would keep it solvent indefinitely. Would it be such a bad thing if more industries were nationalized? I've seen how the private sector runs the economy and honestly, I'm not very impressed. (banking and healthcare, I'm looking at you!)

I disagree that our standard of living has improved since the 50s. When the rich paid higher taxes, the country experienced a period of high prosperity. We experienced a similar thing when Clinton raised taxes in the 90s. We ended up with a budget surplus that was soon squandered by Bush. Sure, we have more cheap electronic gadgets nowadays but job security, healthcare affordability, and infrastructure have gone to shit since Reagan came up with trickle-down economics. I'd call trickle-down the most ghastly economic failure in history except it did exactly what it was supposed to do (redistribute middle class wealth upward to the rich).

Re:WTF is income equality? - Exaclty.

[stenvar]

What does have most concerned is the disproportionate gains that the super rich are getting just because they are rich. Rent seeking is the economic term. And what the Kochs and their ilk are doing is rigging the game.

Whatever gives you that idea? Opposition to rent seeking is probably the primary defining characteristic of libertarianism, and the Koch brothers support numerous causes and organizations that strongly oppose rent seeking.

You see, back in the 19th century, many of the "Robber Barons"

The 19th century robber barons weren't unfettered free marketeers, they were people who translated a high level of political influence and corruption into personal fortunes. This is exactly what libertarianism opposes.

The Kochs want the 19th century gilded age back when there wasn't income taxes and the rich got richer and the poor just died.

Do have even the slightest idea what you're saying? Do you really think anybody who is rich is affected by income taxes at all? Rich people don't have income, they mostly just own untaxable assets. Income tax is primarily a burden on the middle class and professionals, not "the rich".

Furthermore, the 19th century was a period of great improvement in the standard of living for everybody, not a period of economic and social decline the way you falsely portray it.

Re:If you donate to leftists

[Trepidity]

What does any of that have to do with being far-left? Harassing Fox News is just political partisanship, not leftism. Abolishing capitalism and private property and promoting communism: now that would be a far-left organization. Media Matters are just Democratic partisans who don't appear to have any interest in actual leftism, just in attacking Republicans.

That's more about how fervent you are in approaching politics as team sports, than about position on the left/right spectrum. You can be a hardcore partisan and be anywhere on the spectrum; even some very centrist politicos in terms of their actual political ideology are hardcore partisans, in both parties.

America never had a 90% tax rate

[rsilvergun]

I'm outta mod points anyway so I'll just clear up this lie right here. It was _not_ a 90% tax rate. It was a graduating rate where you paid the same tax on the first $50k as someone making only $50k, then you paid the same tax on the _next_ $50k as someone making $100k, and so on so forth. When you got to $1 mil/yr+ you paid 90% on the amount between $900k and $1 mil. I'm simplifying it so my numbers might be off, but that's the gist of it.

Basically at one point in time we said there ought to be limits on how much of societies limited resources we dedicate to 1 person.

Biased by design

[RogueWarrior65]

This would have more validity if the the title was "What Charles Koch & George Soros can teach use about campaign finance data"

Re:WTF is income equality? - Exaclty.

[cas2000]

FFS!

WTF is wrong with you stupid fucking americans?

How do you get to believe that kind of bullshit? are you just born stupid or is it brainwashed into you?

"the government" is *NOT* the source of all evil. There are plenty of other sources that have nothing at all to do with government, and there are plenty of things that governments can and do do that aren't in the least bit evil.

why the fuck, when you hear a rich and poweful man telling you that "government and regulation is evil and bad for you" that you never, ever, not even for one moment stop to think and ask yourself "what's in it for him to say that? why does he want me to believe that?"

have you no natural suspicion? or cynicism? or has it all been channeled and misdirected via propaganda into anti-government theology?

rent-seeking, for instance, is completely unrelated to government or 'government powers'. it is what happens when a private individual or organisation uses their monopoly or near-monopoly of supply to charge whatever they think they can get away without an angry mob with pitchforks burning them down.

and that means a lot...far more than you might expect because most people will take a hell of a lot of shit from businessmen parasites and exploiters before getting angry enough to even think about doing something about it. rebellion only occurs when conditions become completely and relentlessly unbearable.

it's got nothing at all to do with governments or governmental powers.