Gather `round, sisters and brethren: I have been to the Main Stream of Media and I bring back news. For months, and longer, a stalwart few of us have been peering through a glass darkly to map Howard Rich's reach into our states and our lives, but we've largely been alone, unaided, unsheltered, unprotected by our pedigreed kin in the world of national commercial journalism. Small papers or regional outlets have seen flickers of light reflected in bits of Rich's nationwide web, but not many statewide or national newspapers have shone their light on Howard Rich by name. Closest anyone has come so far was the Wall Street Journal, and its light slipped right through the web's silky strands, seeing only the mask of the man and not the man himself. Friends, that is changing.
Meanwhile, one of Rich's gab-happy friends spilled the beans willingly to a reporter in Boise, Idaho, `bout his buddy's penchant for writing checks willy-nilly for causes like TABOR. You will NOT want to miss this. But FIRST:
It isn't the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or the Los Angeles Times, or even the Chicago Tribune or the Miami Herald. But it is The Oregonian, a statewide newspaper, and surely its articles are posted to some newswire or another, so it's possible that statewide papers in other parts of the country can access it too. But the bottom line is that if the Oregonian can publish a report like this, and connect the dots for national reporters, then nothing but timidity or August languor stops the national outlets from recognizing a national story and running it.
Dave Hogan and Betsy Hammond, hereafter to be known as Oregon's Woodward and Bernstein, followed the money and came back to tell us where it's from and where it's going. I couldn't have written their report better myself if I had two degrees from Columbia and a third from the school of hard knocks. This, ladies and gentlemen, is reporting on Howard Rich and his connections to the national drive to enact economy-strangling TABOR initiatives where he can: http://www.oregonlive.com/.... I have to warn you: the road ahead is strewn with facts. Take your time. Step lightly.
Howard Rich poured money into 12 states this year to get his Taxpayer Bill of Rights on the ballot. Grassroots initiative? Yeah, right. His ESTIMATED contribution - because he's hidden behind shell groups and his own mask, Americans for Limited Government - and ANOTHER organization he runs, called U.S Term Limits - is $7.3 million.
TABOR is one of two ballot initiatives that qualified for the November ballot in Oregon, and 85 percent of the funds to pay signature gatherers came from? Give you one guess. Howard Rich.
Wait a sec. What is TABOR? Check out a brief explanation of it here:
Hogan and Hammond consulted John Matsusaka, president of the Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. His quote tells the tale: "When you have almost all the money coming from out of state, it raises questions voters might want to think about, like, `Is this really going to do what it says it's going to do?'"
So, to edify their Oregonian readership, Hogan and Hammond did their homework. Rich is 66, they learned, and he's known as `Howie' by his friends. Howie. I did not make this up. He and a cabal of compatriots tried to take over the National Libertarian Party until they were overthrown in the early 1980s.
From their article, I don't get the impression that Rich spoke to them by phone, only through email. Here's a nugget: "Rich declined to answer any questions about money, including how he decides how much to give in each state and how much comes from his personal wealth, saying he wants the focus on the issues."
That's rich. Let me paraphrase: "Don't ask me how much I'm spending to tell people what to think and how to vote, just write down what I tell you." Man, if Stephen Colbert could read this.
Roll up your cuffs, readers, this EMAILED quote from Rich gets deep: "Oregon has a tremendous group of dedicated people who wanted to work to put these initiatives in front of the voters, and I was more than happy to lend them a helping hand."
That Howie. Generous to a fault. Always lending a helping hand. You think he'd throw some of that largesse our way if we asked him real nice?
One thing I love about Hogan and Hammond is that they recognize this for the national story it is, and they appropriately claim credit. Other media - and bloggers, naturally - have made the case that Rich was somehow connected here, and there, and over yonder, but - well, let them tell you for themselves: "An analysis of public records by The Oregonian, however, is the first to connect Rich to more than $7 million in contributions to initiatives this year."
What does Emeril say? Bam! There it is. National, not local. Conspiracy, not coincidence. Agenda, not mere generosity.
"That spending makes this a breakout year for Rich and his political organizations, which have never spent so much trying to shape state policies," they write.
Why? What is it that Rich wants so badly? "...[S]tate spending caps and property rights measures in the West and Midwest, led by $2.9 million to fund a now-derailed effort to get both causes on the ballot in Missouri," they say. Rich's TABOR initiative in Oregon would "curb spending on schools, human services, universities, roads and public safety in Oregon by limiting spending increases to inflation plus population growth."
No, says Rich in an email to them: You got it all wrong. I'm just a nice guy, I got a little spare change, people need my help, so I give it to them. I'm the little guy's biggest faaaan... Or, as he put it, "We want to help put hardworking taxpayers and voters back in charge of their state governments."
(Deep breath.)
Here's an interesting tidbit. Rich's shell committee, Americans for Limited Government handed out only $151,000, across the nation, in 2004. But ALG must have gotten a steroid injection in the meantime, because, Hogan and Hammond report, "This year, it has spent four times that much in Oregon alone."
H&H remind us that ALG isn't required under Oregon law to tell where its money comes from. But they name names from other sources: Rich's partners include the Walton family (the one from Bentonville, Arkansas, not the one from Walton's Mountain) and a pair of Kansans named David and Charles Koch who sit with Rich on the board of the Cato Institute (Hey, isn't that a Washington-based activist group? Somebody should mention this to Chris Cooper of the Wall Street Journal). Wait - H&H tell us that the Kochs are "oil billionaires." You don't think.... Nah... Real American patriots wouldn't gouge their fellow citizens with $3-a-gallon gasoline just for profits...
Another one of Rich's buddies, Laird Maxwell, isn't named in H&H's accounting, but we'll get to him in a minute, and I bet Rich will, too, when he reads today's edition of the Boise Weekly.
Folks, Hogan and Hammond deserve our thanks. Please email them your gratitude at davehogan@news.oregonian.com and betsyhammond@news.oregonian.com. I'm thankful somebody's telling the story.
By the way, in the spirit of always giving credit where it's due, Capitol Weekly published this digest of contributions made by ALG to various patsy entities in the states last month, here: http://www.capitolweekly.net/.... In light of this new national perspective provided by Hogan and Hammond, I'll recap for us:
* Missourians in Charge got $1.3 million from ALG to get TABOR on the ballot.
* Oklahomans in Action got $55,000 from ALG for an "eminent domain" measure.
* Montanans in Action got a $25,000 "loan" from ALG, then gave $600,000 (that's right) to a group in California for an "eminent domain" measure there. Montanans in Action has fought tooth-and-nail to hide where its money comes from, but High Country News got Rich to admit giving $200,000 to them.
* A group in Arizona got $650,000 from ALG for an "eminent domain" ballot measure.
* A group in Idaho got $237,000 from Rich's Fund for Democracy for an "eminent domain" measure.
* A group in Washington got $200,000 from ALG for an "eminent domain" measure.
Now, one Laird Maxwell. Folks, you probably know someone like Maxwell. Maybe it's a fella you know from the shop that you know you ought not share your secrets with, because you know he's going to tell them. Maybe it's your best friend's sister, or the hairdresser, or your chatty mechanic. Bottom line: If you want to keep a secret, you don't tell it to THIS one.
Let me introduce Laird Maxwell, thanks to Shea Anderson of the Boise Weekly.
"Maxwell said his pitch to wealthy Libertarian activist Howard Rich and other well-off conservative activists was simple: `You got the money, I got the time. We'll make this happen.'" Readers, this is a direct quote from Anderson's article, which is found here: http://www.boiseweekly.com/....
There's more.
Maxwell must be a helluva salesman, because Anderson says he's now "a conduit for hundreds of thousands of dollars, some he keeps to help fund ballot initiatives like Idaho's Proposition 2, others he sends out of state. Under the auspices of `America At Its Best,' Maxwell recently sent $450,000 to a group, `Missourians in Charge,' which is pushing a similar property-rights initiative." A conduit! A plumb conduit for Rich to use in funneling his funds from the edge of New York City's SoHo to the far reaches of Egypt, or approximately so. And Maxwell was happy to tell it!
Mind you, Maxwell has never met Rich - or "Howie," as he knows him - face-to-face, but the two are bosom buddies by phone, Maxwell told Anderson. Bosomy. Writin' checks like they're running out of `em.
And where is Maxwell's organization, America At Its Best, located? Why, it's in Montana! Heck, Maxwell might be one of Trevis Butcher's "Montanans in Action" if Trevis ever needed a second signature on MIA's bank account. He's apparently a resident, since he's listed at AAIB's treasurer there...
Why not just hitch up with Butcher's MIA? Well, says Maxwell to Anderson, "It just makes sense to start a new group." ... ... ... `Course it does! What was I thinkin'?
So in Idaho, Maxwell has a whole SEPARATE organization, this one called - I canNOT make this stuff up - "This House Is My Home."
Pardon me, I'm going to get a cold Coke and to stand on the porch a minute.
All right, so we've introduced Maxwell and his Montana organization, and his Idaho organization, and we've explained his close relationship with Howie. Anderson tells us that Maxwell himself contributed the princely sum of $50 (that's fifty bucks) to his "This House" organization. Another $100,000 came from America At Its Best - his Montana outfit - and another $237,000 came from Rich's Fund for Democracy.
Why would Rich cut such a check to Maxwell? Just ask Maxwell: "Howie's a big contributor to a lot of causes," he says, without the slightest bit of irony. "I said, `Look, these guys are working on a nationwide basis. We're kicking butt in a bunch of different states. Our effort is limiting government. That's what we're trying to do."
Any resemblance between these Maxwell quotes from Anderson's article and your memory of Tom Hanks's Academy-Award-winning performance in "Forrest Gump" is purely coincidental. That is to say, I did not put it there. (Now go back and read that paragraph again.)
Truly, that is quite enough about Maxwell, and you can read Anderson's article for yourself anyway.
One final note, and it comes from the opposite coast from Oregon. Staff writers Barbara Barrett, Dan Kane and Todd Silberman of the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, filed this snippet in their weekly "Under the Dome" feature earlier this week.
"Americans for Prosperity of North Carolina, a nonpartisan group that generally opposes tax increases, has a new pledge for legislative candidates to sign -- that if elected, they will support a measure that ties state spending to population growth and the rate of inflation. The group and other advocates call the measure a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR for short.
"The pledge states that some revenues collected above the spending limit would go to funds to protect government operations in times of emergency or budget shortfalls, while the rest would be returned to the public in broad-based tax cuts or rebates. Tax increases could be enacted only by a statewide referendum or a legislative supermajority.
"State Director Francis De Luca said the group came up with the pledge after members complained about the growth in this year's state budget. It grew by roughly $1.7 billion to $18.9 billion."
Let me get this straight. Strong economic growth leads to increased revenue, which lets a state invest in itself, its people, its infrastructure. But that's bad, because we don't want improved citizens, improved infrastructure, improved services. So we'll force candidates to sign a pledge that they'll support TABOR in their state, and that way, by God, we'll keep our state backwards. Hooray for backwards states, hooray for impeding the improvement of our people and our nation, and hooray for Howard Rich's TABOR.
Who are these people? Who are Americans for Prosperity, and exactly whose prosperity are they for?
Catch the whole News & Observer item here: http://www.newsobserver.com/...