A2POLITICO: Tapping MI GOP Donors to Fund a Millage Campaign
CAMPAIGN FINANCE forms often make interesting reading if you can connect the dots and take a little time to find out who’s who. It’s actually the who’s who part that tells the story. A donor name is nothing without the story. On the Partners For Transit campaign finance forms, there was JM Jung. Never heard of JM Jung? I hadn’t. I’m a Democrat and don’t donate to political campaigns for obvious reasons. JM Jung is a donor who had $25,000 to give to a Michigan SUPER PAC in 2012 to help Republican Clark Durant take on Senator Debbie Stabenow. I’m not a giant fan of Senator Stabenow who only seems to show up in Michigan around re-election time, but I don’t want her seat in the Senate flipped. It’s the same reason I’m pulling for Gary Peters. With a Republican House, a Democratic Senate provides a good balance.
Not to focus solely on JM Jung, there were plenty of other reliable Republican donors listed on the Partners For Transit campaign finance forms. In fact, with a couple of notable exceptions, the Partners For Transit funding is heavy with support from Michigan GOP donors. Getting close to 80 percent of your funding from just a few donors is common. The Koch Brothers provide 100 percent of the funding for some of their front groups. The Washington Post spent months combing through tax returns to put together an amazing resource that connects the dots between the Koch brothers and their various front groups and PACs. This campaign has used the front group strategy, as well.
However, the public was repeatedly told by Partners For Transit folks that support of the AAATA proposed millage was a “grassroots” affair. Grassroots implies public support from the ground up. However, the campaign finance forms showed that not only did the group spend $2,500 on a political strategist in Lansing, there were paid staff, as well. A small number of politically-connected mega-donors coupled with paid staff and spending on a paid political strategist suggests top-down, slick, political manipulation.
How does top-down, slick, political manipulation funded by a small number of donors who support GOP issues and candidates qualify as the definition of a liberal “grassroots” movement? I don’t think it does. In fact, I think selling a top-down, slick, political machine’s story to voters by using the disabled, poor and elderly as fodder smacks of the kind of political shenanigans Americans find so very distasteful and disturbing.
AAATA CEO Michael Ford is fighting for his job. Ok. After the county-wide transit fiasco, there were politicos who demanded Ford get sacked. After all, AAATA had spent millions of dollars on staff time, consultants, surveys, marketing and PR in order to sell voters a $500 million county-wide transit plan dreamed up by John Hieftje and his political supporters. Political and municipal leaders throughout the county withdrew from the plan as soon as they possibly could (after having been opted in by default by AAATA). Ann Arbor City Council and John Hieftje voted to opt out of his own transit scheme.
I ride the bus regularly. My kids ride the bus regularly. But I can’t support the use of public money to subsidize private business owners, such as the AAATA goPass! and getDowntown programs do by offering downtown employers $10 annual bus passes. The AAATA wants more money to expand services. AAATA can’t get me from my home on Pontiac Trail to Ypsilanti (8 miles) in less than an hour. That’s not the kind of service that requires more money. It’s the kind of service that calls for a new CEO and a plan to serve all the people and not just business owners.
