Power Grab - Jason Chaffetz Page 0,19
assaulters Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein—against whom there was corroborated evidence as well as due process. They were the kind of ads that can get you condemned by the ACLU.
As Scott Bledsoe deftly explained in an October 2018 Federalist piece, “The ACLU is less interested in ensuring a fair process—and more keen on joining in the liberal firing squad against a judge who will solidify a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. It is no secret that the ACLU has a liberal bias, but their recent attack efforts against Kavanaugh show that they are willing to put partisanship above their core principles of defending civil liberties and due process.”
Normally a nonprofit would be loath to take a position that might offend the donor base who presumably joined the organization to promote its mission. Why didn’t the ACLU worry about that? Is the ACLU’s donor base really filled with civil libertarians? That brings us back to Grassroots Campaigns.
There is no indication that the ACLU uses Grassroots Campaigns for fund-raising purposes like some of the other nonprofits we looked at. But it did hire them for consultancy services totaling more than $10 million from 2014 to 2016. It gave more than twice the consulting fee to Grassroots Campaigns than to the next consultancy service listed in their 990 report.
Like the other left-leaning charities who use consulting services from Grassroots Campaigns, ACLU has seen huge influxes of revenue during the time they’ve received these services. In these same reports for these years, the ACLU has gone from $10 million in debt in 2013 to $118 million in net assets in the 2016 report, three years later. Most of this increase occurred in the year 2016. The ACLU reports that most of its funding comes from membership dues.
Who are these members? Are they people who genuinely care about civil liberties? Go back and look at ACLU. Their target audience is obvious—and it’s not necessarily civil libertarians. When the numbers are released for 2018, it will be interesting to note the impact of the Kavanaugh position on the ACLU’s fund-raising. If civil libertarians are funding the ACLU, we should see a significant drop in support post-Kavanaugh.
Describing the Kavanaugh hit job as “the final nail in the ACLU’s coffin,” famed civil libertarian and longtime ACLU supporter Alan Dershowitz lamented the loss of America’s premier defender of civil rights. Writing for the Hill, Dershowitz said:
[T]he core mission of the ACLU—and its financial priority—is to promote its left-wing agenda in litigation, in public commentary and, now, in elections. If you want to know the reason for this shift, just follow the money. ACLU contributors, including some of its most generous contributors, are strong anti-Trump zealots who believe that the end (getting rid of Trump) justifies any means (including denying Trump and his associates core civil liberties and due process).
More recently, Dershowitz criticized the ACLU for failing to speak out on a judge-imposed gag order against Trump confidant Roger Stone. Partisan interests seem to be the driving force for the organization. Has civil liberties become nothing more than a side hustle for the ACLU?
Other Fund-Raisers
Grassroots Campaigns is not the only political group in this category. It’s not even the only such group owned by Colorado’s Douglas Phelps. Phelps has built a network of nonprofit organizations, each with the stated mission of furthering progressive causes. His biography says his organizations seek “a coordinated strategic approach to getting things done.” Coordinated is right. It seems many of the progressive groups are tied together.
Among Phelps’s organizations are Telefund, Public Interest Network, the National Association of Organizations with Public Interest, US PIRG, the Fund for the Public Interest, and Environment America. Phelps remains the president or chairperson of each of them. In particular, Telefund is known for aggressive telemarketing tactics. Once someone donates to one of these charities, they can expect to be called by many more—often looking for ongoing monthly contributions.
Former president Barack Obama got some of his community organizing experience at one of these groups. He referred to his time employed by US PIRG in the year following his graduation, saying, “I used to be a PIRG guy. You guys trained me well.”
Most of Phelps’s nonprofit organizations are 501(c)4 advocacy organizations rather than 501(c)3 charity organizations. A review of public disclosures shows a close connection between these organizations. The 990 form for Environment America showed that it gave the Public Interest Network control over the selection of its board in 2016. Donations have been made between these organizations as well.
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