Arkansas officials to try to ban foreign money in ballot initiatives
Arkansas officials on Monday said they plan to close a loophole in federal election law that allows foreign nationals to contribute money toward ballot measures, in the latest move aimed at overhauling the state's ballot process.
House Bill 1837, sponsored by Rep. Mindy McAlindon, R-Centerton, would require an 'affirmation' from the individual or organization making a donation that it 'has not knowingly or willfully accepted funds in excess of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) in the aggregate from one (1) or more prohibited sources within the four-year period immediately preceding' the donation.
The bill defines a 'prohibited source' as a political action committee that accepts at least one contribution from a foreign national, an organization funded by a PAC that receives a donation from a foreign national, contributions from a foreign national and contributions that violate state or federal law.
The bill will go before the House State Agencies and Government Affairs Committee later this week, McAlindon said, where she expects the Legislature's 'full support.'
Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester said in a press conference Monday morning that 'foreign billionaires have been donating tens and hundreds of billions of dollars to statewide ballot initiatives across this country, including Arkansas.'
'In fact, a single Swiss billionaire, Hansjörg Wyss, has spent over $100 million in ballot initiatives across the country in an effort to remake the American Constitution in what he called a progressive vision,' Jester said.
(The Wyss Foundation is one of the supporters of States Newsroom.)
While many state constitutions can be altered via direct democracy processes, the United States Constitution can only be changed via a specific process that does not include voting in an election.
Jester cited President Donald Trump's recent executive order targeting election processes.
'President Trump has taken action on this in his recent executive order on election security,' Jester said. 'He said that the foreign funding [of] ballot initiatives is a serious problem that states need to address. It's unacceptable. In Arkansas, if you are a wealthy foreign national, we welcome your tourism, we welcome your friendship, but our constitution is not for sale.'
ARFairWage2018-08-15-combined-combined-compressed
However, when asked, Jester only cited $1.34 million in donations from the 1630 Fund in 2018, an American nonprofit that is part of a network of left-leaning so-called 'dark money' groups. He said the Swiss billionaire made donations to the 1630 Fund in 2018.
He said that Arkansans should know that 'the person taking your signature was most likely funded by a Swiss billionaire who has never stepped foot in our great state.' However, Jester specifically said the issue he described with foreign funding of ballot measures wasn't an issue during the 2024 election, although he anticipated that would not remain the case in future election cycles.
When requested, Jester's office provided filings made by Arkansans For A Fair Wage during the 2018 election cycle, which showed that the 1630 Fund donated just over $1.34 million on $1.5 million in total donations received by the ballot committee. There's no indication that any of Wyss' donations to the 1630 Fund were included in the money the nonprofit gave to the Arkansas ballot committee.
According to the 1630 Fund's IRS Form 990, which nonprofits file each year, the fund received $143.3 million in contributions in 2018 alone, with $141.39 million in expenses.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
28 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Corporation for Public Broadcasting to shut down after being defunded by Congress, targeted by Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a cornerstone of American culture for three generations, announced Friday it would take steps toward its own closure after being defunded by Congress — marking the end of a nearly six-decade era in which it fueled the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and even emergency alerts. The demise of the corporation, known as CPB, is a direct result of President Donald Trump's targeting of public media, which he has repeatedly said is spreading political and cultural views antithetical to those the United States should be espousing. The closure is expected to have a profound impact on the journalistic and cultural landscape — in particular, public radio and TV stations in small communities across the United States. CPB helps fund both PBS and NPR, but most of its funding is distributed to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations around the country. The corporation also has deep ties to much of the nation's most familiar programming, from NPR's 'All Things Considered' to, historically, 'Sesame Street,' 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood' and the documentaries of Ken Burns. The corporation said its end, 58 years after being signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, would come in an 'orderly wind-down.' In a statement, it said the decision came after the passage through Congress of a package that clawed back its funding for the next two budget years — about $1.1 billion. Then, the Senate Appropriations Committee reinforced that policy change Thursday by excluding funding for the corporation for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill. 'Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,' said Patricia Harrison, the corporation's president and CEO. As part of Thursday's committee deliberations, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., authored but then withdrew an amendment to restore CPB funding for the coming budget year. She said she still believed there was a path forward 'to fix this before there are devastating consequences for public radio and television stations across the country.' 'It's hard to believe we've ended up in the situation we're in,' she said. 'And I'm going to continue to work with my colleagues to fix it.' But Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, sounded a less optimistic tone. 'I understand your concerns, but we all know we litigated this two weeks ago,' Capito said. 'Adopting this amendment would have been contrary to what we have already voted on.' CPB said it informed employees Friday that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. It said a small transition team will stay in place until January to finish any remaining work — including, it said, 'ensuring continuity for music rights and royalties that remain essential to the public media system.' 'Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,' Harrison said. 'We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to serving the American people.' The impact will be widespread NPR stations use millions of dollars in federal money to pay music licensing fees. Now, many will have to renegotiate these deals. That could impact, in particular, outlets that build their programming around music discovery. NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher estimated recently, for example, that some 96% of all classical music broadcast in the United States is on public radio stations. Federal money for public radio and television has traditionally been appropriated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes it to NPR and PBS. Roughly 70% of the money goes directly to the 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country, although that's only a shorthand way to describe its potential impact. Trump, who has called the CPB a 'monstrosity,' has long said that public broadcasting displays an extreme liberal bias, helped create the momentum in recent months for an anti-public broadcasting groundswell among his supporters in Congress and around the country. It is part of a larger initiative in which he has targeted institutions — particularly cultural ones — that produce content or espouse attitudes that he considers 'un-American.' The CPB's demise represents a political victory for those efforts. His impact on the media landscape has been profound. He has also gone after U.S. government media that had independence charters, including the venerable Voice of America, ending that media outlet's operations after many decades. Trump also fired three members of the corporation's board of directors in April. In legal action at the time, the fired directors said their dismissal was governmental overreach targeting an entity whose charter guarantees it independence.
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Appeals Court Allows Trump Order That Ends Union Protections for Federal Workers
A federal appeals court on Friday allowed President Trump to move forward with an order instructing a broad swath of government agencies to end collective bargaining with federal unions. The ruling authorizes a component of Mr. Trump's sweeping effort to assert more control over the federal work force to move forward, for now, while the case plays out in court. It is unclear what immediate effect the ruling will have: The appeals court noted that the affected agencies had been directed to refrain from ending any collective bargaining agreement until 'litigation has concluded,' but also noted that Mr. Trump was now free to follow through with the order at his discretion. Mr. Trump had framed his order stripping workers of labor protections as critical to protect national security. But the plaintiffs — a group of affected unions representing over a million federal workers — argued in a lawsuit that the order was a form of retaliation against those unions that have participated in a barrage of lawsuits opposing Mr. Trump's policies. The unions pointed to statements from the White House justifying the order that said 'certain federal unions have declared war on President Trump's agenda' and that the president 'will not tolerate mass obstruction that jeopardizes his ability to manage agencies with vital national security missions.' But a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a famously liberal jurisdiction, ruled in Mr. Trump's favor, writing that 'the government has shown that the president would have taken the same action even in the absence' of the union lawsuits. Even if some of the White House's statements 'reflect a degree of retaliatory animus,' they wrote, those statements, taken as a whole, also demonstrate 'the president's focus on national security.' The unions had also argued that the order broadly targeted agencies across the government, some of which had no obvious national security portfolio — including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Environmental Protection Agency — using national security as a pretext to strip the unions of their power. The panel sidestepped that claim, writing in the 15-page ruling that 'we question whether we can take up such arguments, which invite us to assess whether the president's stated reasons for exercising national security authority — clearly conferred to him by statute — were pretextual.' The order, they continued, 'conveys the president's determination that the excluded agencies have primary functions implicating national security.'
an hour ago
5 years after Ohio's $60M bribery scandal, critics say more could be done to prevent a repeat
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Five years after a $60 million bribery scheme funded by FirstEnergy Corp. came to light in Ohio, expert observers say the resulting prosecutions, lawsuits, penalties and legislation haven't led to enough change and accountability to prevent politicians and corporate executives from cutting similar deals in the future. The scheme — whose prospective $2 billion-plus pricetag to consumers makes it the largest infrastructure scandal in U.S. history — surfaced with the stunning arrests of a powerful Republican state lawmaker and four associates on July 21, 2020. That lawmaker, former House Speaker Larry Householder, is serving 20 years in federal prison for masterminding the racketeering operation at the center of the scandal. Jurors agreed with prosecutors that money that changed hands wasn't everyday political giving, but an elaborate secret scheme orchestrated by Householder to elect political allies, become the House speaker, pass a $1 billion nuclear bailout law in House Bill 6 and crush a repeal effort. One of the dark money groups Householder used also pleaded guilty to racketeering. Householder and a former lobbyist have unsuccessfully challenged their convictions. Two of the arrested associates pleaded guilty, and the other died by suicide. Any hope that the convictions would have clarified federal law around 501(c)4 nonprofit 'dark money' groups or prompted new restrictions on those hasn't materialized, said former U.S. Attorney David DeVillers, who led the initial investigation. 'I think it's actually worse than it was before,' he said. 'Nationally, you have both Democrats and Republicans using these, so there's no political will to do anything about it.' Indeed, a study released in May by the Brennan Center for Justice found that dark money unleashed by the 2010 Citizens United decision hit a record high of $1.9 billion in 2024 federal races, nearly double the $1 billion spent in 2020. The vast majority of money from undisclosed donors raised into dark money accounts now goes to super PACs, providing them a way to skirt a requirement that they make their donors public, the study found. DeVillers said one positive result of the scandal is that Ohio lawmakers appear genuinely concerned about avoiding quid pro quos, real or perceived, between them and their political contributors. Anti-corruption legislation perennially introduced by Ohio Democrats since the scandal broke has gone nowhere in the GOP-dominated Legislature. Republican legislative leaders have said it is outside their authority to amend federal campaign finance law. The U.S. Attorney's office declined to discuss the investigation because prosecutions remain ongoing. Two fired FirstEnergy executives have pleaded not guilty on related state and federal charges and await trial. Former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Samuel Randazzo, to whom FirstEnergy admitted giving a $4.3 million bribe in exchange for regulatory favors, had faced both federal and state charges. He died by suicide after pleading not guilty. Akron-based FirstEnergy — a $23 billion Fortune 500 company with 6 million customers in five states — admitted using dark money groups to bankroll Householder's ascendance in exchange for passage of the bailout bill. It agreed to pay $230 million and meet other conditions to avoid prosecution, and faced other sanctions, including a $100 million civil penalty by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. But FirstEnergy hasn't yet faced consequences from the state regulator. 'They never actually got penalized by regulators at the PUCO level,' said Ohio Consumers' Counsel Maureen Willis, the lawyer for Ohio utility customers. Testimony in four PUCO proceedings stemming from the scandal finally began last month after the cases were delayed for nearly two years, in part at the request of the Justice Department. They're intended to determine whether FirstEnergy used money for bribes that was meant for grid modernization and whether it improperly comingled money from its different corporate entities. FirstEnergy spokeperson Jennifer Young said it invested $4 billion in grid upgrades in 2024 and plans to spend a total of $28 billion through 2029. Young said FirstEnergy has redesigned its organizational structure, established a dedicated ethics and compliance office, overhauled the company's political activity and lobbying practices and strengthened other corporate governance and oversight practices. 'FirstEnergy is a far different company today than it was five years ago,' she said. The PUCO also made changes in response to the scandal. Chair Jenifer French told state lawmakers that ethics training has been enhanced, staff lawyers and the administrative law judges who hear cases now report to different directors to ensure legal independence, and she never takes a meeting alone. Ashley Brown, a retired executive director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group who previously served as a PUCO commissioner, said the commission is the only state entity with the power to order FirstEnergy to return tainted cash — including the bribe money — to customers. That largely hasn't happened. He said the Ohio commission had vast power to hold FirstEnergy accountable for its misdeeds but hasn't conducted its own management audit of the energy giant, demanded an overhaul of FirstEnergy's corporate board or pressed for public release of FirstEnergy's own internal investigation of the scandal, whose findings remain a mystery. Shareholders won some accountability measures as part of a $180 million settlement in 2022, but they continue to fight in court for release of the investigation. Willis does, too. 'How do you allow a utility to operate a vast criminal conspiracy within the utility (with) consumer dollars, and you don't even look at what went wrong?' Brown said. PUCO spokesperson Matt Schilling reiterated that the commission's probes are ongoing. He said the panel has vowed to take its proceedings 'wherever the facts lead.' The portion of HB 6 that bailed out two FirstEnergy-affiliated nuclear plants was repealed in 2021, and $26 million was refunded to customers. The scandal investigation revealed that other power distribution companies got a lucrative payout of their own added to the bill in exchange for their buy-in: subsidies for two unprofitable Cold War-era coal plants. It wasn't until April that a law was passed repealing those subsidies. Until that takes effect Aug. 14, the charges cost Ohio ratepayers $445,679 a day — and it's unclear if or when they'll get that money back. A ticker on Willis' website puts the total they've paid at more than $500 million and counting.
