OUT-OF-STATE DONORS ARE BIG PLAYERS IN TAX CREDIT DEBATE
Salt Lake Tribune - By Paul Rolly [12/26/2004]

"Legislative races in Riverton and Taylorsville would not figure to be high on the radar screen of political trend-setters in Virginia and Ohio, but they were.

Certain Republican incumbents in the Utah House of Representatives were the targets of aggressive and sometimes vicious campaigns funded mostly by out-of-state donors.

Three Utah political action committees -- married by one issue -- were financed generously by All Children Matter (ACM), based in Alexandria, Va.

In fact, ACM's $ 252,000 combined with $ 50,000 from Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne accounted for 86 percent of the $ 355,000 taken in by Parents for Choice in Education, the main Utah advocate for tuition tax credits for parents who enroll their children in private schools.

The principals and major local contributors to Parents for Choice in Education overlap considerably with those involved with Education Excellence and Children First, which also promote tuition tax credits.

Those three organizations, made up mostly of Republican Party supporters and contributors, tried mightily to defeat Rep. Dave Hogue, R-Riverton, despite Hogue's credentials as a proven conservative and the support he received from most of his colleagues in the House Republican caucus. The reason? Hogue has voted against tuition tax credit legislation.

Letters were sent to Republican delegates just before the Salt Lake County Republican Convention and on the eve of the Republican Primary, urging delegates and voters to eliminate Hogue in favor of his GOP opponent, George Holling.

The first letter was signed by Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who is president of the Utah Taxpayers Association., and Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, who has unsuccessfully sponsored tuition tax credit legislation. Buttars refused to sign the second letter, however, so Stephenson's signature was joined by that of Senate President Al Mansell, R-Sandy.

Rep. Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, another respected conservative in the House, was the subject of a last-minute telephone campaign from pro-tax-credit forces who called Republicans in his district and urged them to vote for his Democratic opponent.

Despite the attacks, Hogue and Dunnigan were re-elected.

The thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to pro-tax-credit candidates from Parents for Choice in Education and its sister groups have come largely from All Children Matter, whose own donor list is an exclusive group.

According to a summary compiled by the National Education Association, ACM was started by Michigan's Dick and Betsy Devos of Amway fame to "recruit, train and fund candidates committed to vouchers, tax credits and other reforms."

The PAC raised nearly $ 1 million from just 13 donors in the first half of the year to affect state and local races. Those donors, says the NEA, "represent the nation's hard-core voucher and pro-privatization elite."

Those chosen few include Caxton Corp.'s Bruce Kovner, "a leader in the Manhattan Institute think tank (and) a frequent source of pro-voucher research; Club for Growth founders Richard Gilder and National Review President Thomas "Dusty" Rhodes; Wal-Mart heir John Walton, who contributes "some $ 50 million a year to school choice groups and schools (and) has contributed to privatization campaigns from school board races, to judges, legislators, governors and ballot initiatives," says the NEA.

Another member of the little club with the big stick is Ohio for-profit school operator David Brennan, "who has been eyeing new states to expand his charter school and online school operations."

Brennan hails from the same state as Majority Strategies, based in Columbus, which enjoyed $ 38,000 in contracts to print direct mailers for Parents for Choice in Education, and Lovette Peters of Cincinnati, a $ 20,000 donor to Parents for Choice in Education.

The local contributors of Parents for Choice in Education, Education Excellence and Children First also are an exclusive club whose boosters include Jordan Clements, Royce Van Tassell, Doug Holmes, Elisa Clements Peterson, who is Clements' daughter and is paid about $ 50,000 a year as Parents for Choice in Education's executive director, and a small cluster of neighbors in and around Farmington.

Parents for Choice, it seems, doesn't involve very many parents. Only 12 people were counted as $ 50-or-less contributors. Their contributions totaled $ 290.


"

Back