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Tag: campaign money
Former Rep. David Rivera’s Ally Sentenced To 6 Months Of House Arrest

Former Rep. David Rivera’s Ally Sentenced To 6 Months Of House Arrest

By Marc Caputo, The Miami Herald

MIAMI — The federal investigation into former Congressman David Rivera took another major step Wednesday when his close friend and political ally was sentenced for her role in allegedly helping him break campaign finance laws.

“I took responsibility,” Ana Alliegro said in court before she was sentenced to six months of house arrest and two years of probation after serving six months in jail.

“I owe the voters of Florida … a huge apology,” she said.

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola indicated he would have sentenced Alliegro to more time in prison — at least 18 months total and as much as five years — if she had gone “rogue” and not coordinated with Rivera.

Scola suggested Rivera wasn’t acting like a man.

“Some might call it sexism, (but) the man should come forward and not let the woman do time,” Scola said.

Scola pointedly insisted that Rivera be named in open court.

Alliegro last month made a surprise admission of guilt in open court and named Rivera as the mastermind of the 2012 scheme to steer more than $81,000 to a political unknown to help fund fliers and other items to campaign against the Republican’s rival, current U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia.

“Those fliers were designed by Ana Alliegro (and) David Rivera,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Mulvihill said in court, implicitly citing prior statements Alliegro had made to prosecutors. Before that disclosure in court, Rivera had denied wrongdoing and falsely claimed he was never under investigation. Rivera couldn’t be reached.

Court records and testimony indicate that Alliegro has told authorities that Rivera not only set the conspiracy in motion, but he also helped her flee the United States to Nicaragua when she was supposed to cooperate with prosecutors instead.

Alliegro was informally extradited to the United States in March and has been in jail ever since.

Her father, Anselmo Alliegro, said Rivera has been calling him. But, he said, Rivera needs to take responsibility.

“He says he’s concerned about her well-being,” Alliegro said of Rivera’s calls to him.

Alliegro is the second person convicted in the case. Her co-conspirator, no-name former Democratic candidate Justin Lamar Sternad, pleaded guilty in 2013 for accepting the illegal campaign contributions and making false statements about them when he ran as a Democrat in the 2012 primary against Garcia and others.

Garcia won that race and went on to wallop the scandal-plagued Rivera in the general election. In this election, however, federal investigators are now examining whether Garcia’s former top consultant and chief of staff, Jeffrey Garcia (no relation to the congressman), helped prop up yet another ringer candidate two years before in what appears to be a precursor to Sternad’s case.

Garcia has denied wrongdoing or knowledge of the crime and said he’d cooperate with prosecutors, and no witnesses have said he’s culpable — a stark contrast to Rivera’s case in which two campaign vendors told The Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald that the Republican was involved in the 2012 campaign finance scheme from the start.

Rivera tried to mount a comeback to run against Garcia this year. But the onetime political power broker, nagged by scandal and his repeated misstatements reported in the press, came in fourth place in a five-way GOP primary on Aug. 26.

Rivera received just 2,209 votes — which is 647 less than the no-name Sternad received just two years before when his campaign was propped up by illegal money.

Photo via WikiCommons

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Tea Party PAC Funding Increases While Candidates Falter

Tea Party PAC Funding Increases While Candidates Falter

The Tea Party’s really been struggling this primary season. They’ve failed to unseat a single Republican incumbent in the Senate primaries, and haven’t won many victories in House primaries, either. But, as Patricia Murphy points out in The Daily Beast, fundraising for Tea Party SuperPACs continues to increase.

The right’s top three Washington-based SuperPACS — the Senate Conservatives Fund, Club for Growth Action, and FreedomWorks For America — have recently experienced some of their best fundraising months, according to the Federal Elections Commission.

Club for Growth raised the most money, with a 73 percent increase in fundraising from May to June. The SuperPAC spent more than $3 million on its failed attempt to defeat Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) in his June primary.

FreedomWorks had its third best month of the election cycle in June, even though its favored candidate, Matt Bevin, had just lost his primary to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). And the Senate Conservatives Fund saw its funding increase by 46 percent in June, even though over 65 percent of its spending went towards failed Senate candidates.

As Murphy points out, these SuperPACs had nothing to do with the biggest primary upset of the season, Dave Brat’s victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). But she notes that it doesn’t matter who wins or loses.

“The fact that McConnell had to think about his primary for even a minute, and then adjust his agenda in Washington while he did it, made anyone who gave Matt Bevin $25 feel pretty good,” she writes.

It’s important to remember that these organizations aren’t just funded by $25 donations. There are also people and corporations with deep pockets who are very committed to seeing the Tea Party succeed.

But even though they haven’t had the best election season, it’s not hard to see why the SuperPACs are doing well. It makes sense that fundraising would spike in June, when contested primaries were approaching. And while a June Gallup poll showed that 24 percent of Americans still support the Tea Party, a Gallup poll released on Tuesday finds that only 13 percent of Americans approve of Congress. In other words, there are plenty of voters who are ready for an insurgency.

A similar fundraising spike occurred in 2012, except from July to August instead of May to June. The Senate Conservatives Fund’s fundraising increased by 87 percent from July to August, and FreedomWorks for America had a 91 percent spike from July to August.

It’s important to note that all of this money doesn’t go to campaigns. For example, in the 2014 election cycle, Club for Growth Action spent $356,400 on fundraising, $79,200 on strategy and research, $17,450 on actual campaign expenses, and $5,113 on contributions to committees. The Senate Conservatives Fund, however spent more on contributions to actual candidates than it did on fundraising or research.

Other Tea Party groups, such as the Tea Party Express, have been criticized in the past for putting their money toward fundraising and consulting fees, instead of giving it to campaigns.

AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan

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Silicon Valley Is Becoming Bigger Player In Washington

Silicon Valley Is Becoming Bigger Player In Washington

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — California’s technology sector has booted up a bigger presence in politics in recent years, a shift for an industry that began on the outside but is fast becoming an inside player.
Silicon Valley still has some catching up to do. Tech firms are still not as big a force as Wall Street banks or health care companies. But unlike many sectors that are cutting back on such efforts, Big Tech is expanding its participation in politics, whether that’s support for particular candidates or lobbying on issues important to the industry.

“They’re no longer the little guys trying to make it,” said Paul Goodman, an attorney with the Greenlining Institute, a social justice advocacy organization in Berkeley, Calif.

California-based companies such as Apple, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have long grown out of the dorm rooms and garages where they were founded and have since become powerful corporations with policy priorities.

“They understand how the political game in D.C. is played,” said Dave Levinthal, who tracks tech sector politics and lobbying for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan investigative research group in Washington, “and they’re playing it at a high level.”

Not surprisingly, though, technology companies are accustomed to changing at a faster pace than the way usual Washington usually operates.

“There’s deep disappointment that Washington, D.C., doesn’t run at the same speed as business,” said Steve Wright, a senior vice president at the San Jose-based Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which has 400 member companies.

The industry has four basic priorities, Wright said: Immigration reform, corporate tax reform, cyber security, and net neutrality. Government surveillance, as revealed by the Edward Snowden-NSA scandal is also a concern, given the industry’s international footprint.

Though the tech sector has a left-leaning reputation, the industry has been more pretty even-handed in its political contributions. The same sector that’s been a staunch supporter of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader and a San Francisco liberal, is also a big backer of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a Bakersfield conservative who recently ascended to House majority leader.

Excluding presidential candidates, since 2001, the technology sector has given a total of $365 million to Democrats and $312 million to Republicans, according to an analysis of campaign data by MapLight, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money’s influence on politics.

“The bottom line for them is their bottom line,” Levinthal said. “They want someone, first and foremost, who’s an advocate for their issues.”

Case in point: President Barack Obama.

The success of Obama’s first presidential campaign was due, in no small part, to his early backing in 2007 by Silicon Valley. He is by far the biggest benefactor of tech sector money than any other current officeholder, according to the MapLight analysis.

MapLight showed that Obama has received more than $16.5 million from technology companies, their employees, and political action committees since 2004.

The next four officeholders who ran, unsuccessfully, for president, in the same time frame only collected half of Obama’s haul, including Secretary of State John Kerry; former Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY); Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); and former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).

Silicon Valley has some Ayn Rand fans, as well. Paul, a libertarian who mounted multiple bids for the presidency, collected more than $1.4 million from tech sector donors.

“The industry is known for liking iconoclasts,” said Sarah Bryner, research director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that compiles data on campaign spending and lobbying.

According to the group’s numbers, six of the top 10 biggest spenders on lobbying for tech sector interests in 2013 were California-based companies: Google, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, Facebook, Intel, and Apple. Goodman said they are building a presence in Washington for a reason.

“They don’t do anything without a long-term goal in mind,” he said. “They’re thinking very far ahead.”

Take immigration. Technology companies have been clamoring for a comprehensive immigration bill to increase the number of work visas for the foreign-born talent they need, but have been frustrated by Washington gridlock.

The recent surprise primary upset of former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), was considered by some observers to be a blow to those efforts. His successor, McCarthy, was thought to be less receptive to tech-favored legislation.

Not so, according to Wright, of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

He said that McCarthy held a conference call last week with several tech industry CEOs. Though he hails from the agriculture-dominated Central Valley, the new House majority leader has become a frequent visitor to Silicon Valley. Wright said McCarthy sends other Republican lawmakers there, as well, to hear the industry’s perspective.

“He clearly gets it,” Wright said.

AFP Photo/Kimihiro Hoshino

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