Bob Stannard. VTD/Josh Larkin
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
That’s the logic Priorities PAC is applying. The new group made its way onto the Vermont political scene today as the first Super PAC in the state’s history, a landmark the group’s founders are not happy with at all.
Their mission: Get Super PACs out of Vermont.
Priorities PAC is an offshoot of Vermont Priorities, a 501(c)4 group advocating for liberal agenda items like universal health care, clean energy and a progressive tax system that will pay for more government programs.
Vermont Priorities launched what they hope will be the Super PAC to end all Super PACs after a recent court decision opened the door, they say, for the groups.
Bob Stannard, chairman of Vermont Priorities and the treasurer of the new PAC, said the group can accept unlimited donations and making unlimited expenditures on political advertisements supporting or opposing candidates as long as they do not coordinate with or donate to the candidates. In January, Stannard started Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Today, a national Super PAC inspired by Stephen Colbert.
Stannard said the only way to rid the state of Super PACs, which he says will be detrimental to the state’s progress on a variety of issues over the last 40 years, is to beat them at their own game.
“If you don’t participate in the process, you don’t get a chance to change it,” he said.
An Independent Expenditure Campaign PAC or Super PAC is, a Political Action Committee that does not donate to or coordinate with any political candidate, but may accept unlimited donations and dedicate unlimited spending in support of or opposition to political candidates. Independent Expenditure Campaign PACs have been prominent in national politics since 2010, when the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission that individual contributions to PACs could not be limited.
Super PACs have not been a part of Vermont politics up to now because of the state’s stringent campaign finance rules, but Priorities PAC says that changed last month after Sessions’ ruling in the Vermont Right to Life Committee v. Sorrell case, which stated that the court “reiterates that the State has not offered a persuasive basis on which to limit contributions to PACs that only make independent expenditures.”
However, Attorney General Bill Sorrell’s office is reviewing the group’s submission in the context of current Vermont law to see if Super PACs are legal.
“We’re going to be meeting internally tomorrow,” he said, “we’re already doing research on these issues and we will come up with our opinions on what the current state of Vermont law is and what our actions are going to be. My guess is that we’ll have come to closure on that … with a public opinion probably sometime next week. We’re going to expedite it. We’re in campaign season so we’re not going to just let this drag on.”
Secretary of State Jim Condos said his office was working with the Attorney General on the filing.
“We just received it,” Condos said. “We’re going to review it to see how it fits within state laws, and when we’re done that review, we’re going to make a statement of some kind.”
If the Attorney General decides the group is operating within the context of state law, they will be able to start taking donations and could work toward the election of their choice candidates this year, though Stannard said the board is still deciding on how to work within the 2012 elections.
Persuading Vermonters who are against Super PACs to donate is going to be no easy task, Stannard said, but he thinks Vermont faces a do or die moment when it comes to the groups.
“Of course it’s going to be hard,” Stannard said. “There are people who I find myself intellectually and ideologically in sync with in Vermont [who oppose Super PACs], but when push comes to shove, it’s the new game, it’s the new paradigm, and you either participate in it or you wish you participated in it.”
Because the ruling that Priorities PAC says opened the door for Super PACs is so recent, Vermont doesn’t even have a system in place for Super PACs to register with the state said Todd Bailey, a consultant for the group. Instead, Bailey said, they filed with the Secretary of State’s office using the guidelines set forth by the Federal Election Commission.
Whether it works or not, Stannard says he’d rather get a Super PAC working against Super PACs before others with “a different frame of mind” start operating in the state.
“I’ve done a lot of strange things in my life,” Stannard said, “and this is one of the oddest things I’ve ever done.”
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I find it hilarious that Bob Stannard’s idea for is for a Super Pac to repress free speech just because he doesn’t agree with a “different frame of mind”. How noble of him to stand up and admit that free speech is only acceptable if you agree with him. So much for upholding the ideals of tolerance!
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As expected – swoosh! right over your head.
Bob Stannard isn’t opposed to free speech, he’s opposed to extremely expensive speech, available only to extremely wealthy organizations, drowning out free speech.
It’s not a difficult concept to grasp, or imagine. It’s happening before our eyes. Lift your head.
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Not really. Professional Lobbyist Stannard is using the convenient excuse of “they made me do it” to justify “accept(ing) unlimited donations and making unlimited expenditures on political advertisements supporting or opposing candidates”. It’s a bid to buy political relevance using other peoples’ money. Perhaps legal, but in no way is it the high minded moral crusade you would like to portray it as.
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The problems is not only the unlimited spending but the secret of it source.
This allows the few, extremely wealthy to secretly buy a great deal of media time ( the media love it $$$$) and put their views ( some would say propaganda) in from of Americans over and over and over.
The wealthy’s influence is far more than one vote. Is this Democracy? is this what the authors of the Constitution would want?
If these wealthy .1% were Russians we would call then Oligarchs. Maybe we should call a spade a spade.
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If we protected individual free speech (think the brutal assaults against the Occupy Wall Street and other movements) as assiduously as we protect money generated speech it wouldn’t be so bad.
By the way – the right to vote is the ultimate in free speech. Dump the likes of Peter “I’m proud of attacking low income advocate group ACORN” Welch, and insist on true free speech (aka voter) protections.
You do remember ACORN, don’t you? This was the organization that worked hard all across this country to empower those who were the most politically dis-empowered. Welch decided he would actively assist the assault on this group basing his decision on a series of videos that turned out to be nothing more than lies.
‘They edited the tape to meet their agenda’ was the money quote from a source associated with the Brooklyn (NYC), New York prosecutors office. That office had been charged with performing a criminal investigation into alleged wrong doing by ACORN staffers after heavily and misleadingly edited tapes hit the internet (http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-03-01/news/27057678_1_acorn-offices-o-keefe-and-giles-prostitution).
According the then California Attorney General (now Governor) Brown’s report that wound up his criminal investigation of ACORN: ‘there is no evidence that any of the ACORN employees had the intent to aid and abet such criminal conduct or agreed to join in that illegal conduct,’ and ‘O’Keefe stated he was out to make a point and to damage ACORN and therefore did not act as a journalist objectively reporting a story. The video releases were heavily edited to feature only the worst or most inappropriate statements of the various ACORN employees and to omit some of the most salient statements by O’Keefe and Giles.’ (http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/press/pdfs/n1888_acorn_report.pdf)
The Congressional Research Service also performed an extensive review of many of the allegations of wrong doing regarding ACORN (http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/CRS-ACORN091222.pdf), and their findings are well summarized by Congressman Conyers of Michigan:
‘There were no instances of individuals who were allegedly registered to vote improperly by ACORN or its employees and who were reported “attempting to vote at the polls.” Memorandum from the Congressional Research Service to the House Judiciary Committee, “ACORN Investigations” (December 22, 2009), at 1.
As of October 2009, there have been 46 reported federal, state, and local investigations concerning ACORN, of which 11 are still pending. “ACORN Investigations,” Table 1.
No instances were identified in which ACORN “violated the terms of federal funding in the last five years.” “ACORN Investigations,” at 1.’
(http://judiciary.house.gov/news/091222.html)
More recently the Government Accounting Office performed an exhaustive investigation into the allegations of voter fraud, money misuse and other claims against ACORN, and that report too clears ACORN of wrong doing. (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10648r.pdf)
Despite all of this exculpatory evidence Welch has doubled down on the lies …
Welch on Mark Johnson Show 07/12/2010 – http://ramabahama.com/public/welch_acorn_mjshow_100712.mp3
Welch on Mark Johnson Show – (where I mistakenly call Welch a Senator) http://ramabahama.com/public/welch_acorn_mjshow_110502.mp3
Welch is not part of the solution – he is part of the problem.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if long time attorney Welch had actually investigated the evidence instead of leaping to right wing talking point conclusions?