Tom Steyer (makes the Koch bros look like saints)

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[h=2]Steyer to Double Down on Failed 2014 Strategy[/h]

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Tom Steyer / Wikimedia Commons​

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
April 6, 2015 3:57 pm

The Super PAC founded and funded by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer plans to employ the same political playbook in the 2016 cycle that failed to win key races during last year’s midterms.
NextGen Climate Action will hit Republican candidates on climate and energy issues and their supposed ties to libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch, its top strategist said on Monday.
The strategy is similar to the one employed by NextGen last year, which produced disappointing results. Four of seven NextGen-backed candidates lost, and polls moved in the Republican direction in all but one race after Steyer’s group got involved.
Steyer spent more than $73 million on the midterms, making him by far the largest contributor to independent political groups during the 2014 election cycle.
NextGen strategist Chris Lehane said on Monday that the group will spend “whatever it takes” during the 2016 cycle, National Journal reported on Monday.

“2016 is a crossroads election when it comes to climate,” Lehane said, warning that without public policy to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions, “the climate change apocalypse will be unleashed.”
According to Lehane, NextGen will work to elevate climate to the status of a top-tier electoral issue and make climate change a wedge issue on the road to the White House in 2016. The climate push known as “the Hot Seat” will operate out of San Francisco, with satellite offices in D.C. and across the country.
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[h=2]Stanford Conservatives Call for Charles Koch as 2016 Commencement Speaker[/h]

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Charles Koch / WBJ​

BY: Daniel Bassali
April 6, 2015 2:31 pm

The unofficial conservative community at Stanford’s Graduate School of Businessreleased a letter calling for the school to welcome a successful businessman heavily involved in financing political campaigns to speak at their graduation ceremony—just not the one the school picked out.
Stanford’s GSB is planning to celebrate the MBA Class of 2015 by having climate activist Tom Steyer address the graduates this spring. The group of conservatives, Students for a Deregulated Society (SDS), did not write the letter to protest the overwhelmingly partisan speaker selection, however.
“Unlike most campus political activists today, we plan no walk-outs, boycotts, or divestitures in response to a speaker with whom we disagree,” the letter said.
Instead, the group asked for the faculty to welcome another billionaire to balance the slate of speakers for their big day next year.
“We ask only that the non-partisan administration of the GSB invite a similarly successful businessman—one with a track record of civic engagement and philanthropy that meets or exceeds Mr. Steyer’s—to speak next year. We suggest Charles Koch, whose political views and priorities would balance this year’s selection of Mr. Steyer. We believe Charles Koch’s selection would be met with applause from the open-minded and politically diverse faculty and administration here at Stanford,” SDS said.
The group assured the members of Stanford’s administration that they were not bothered by the impression that their own political beliefs may have played a role in their decision to invite Steyer to speak.
“We detect not even the merest hint of bias or hypocrisy in the administration’s selection of Mr. Steyer as this year’s graduation speaker,” the letter said.
The sarcastic letter celebrated Steyer’s role in the capitalist American economy SDS cherishes. Citing his management of a successful hedge fund, the student group praised Steyer’s work to create an investment vehicle to help the one percent avoid the legal burdens and restrictions placed on the 99 percent.
Steyer was the biggest political contributor in the 2014 election cycle, surpassing the Koch brothers “by a ratio of 14 to 1.” In their letter, SDS noted Steyer’s efforts to influence the midterm elections by investing $74 million to Democratic candidates failed.
The letter concluded by congratulating the school for its commencement selection.
“But while Mr. Steyer’s vision may not be fully appreciated outside of these ivory towers, no one better reflects the philosophy, culture, and worldview of the GSB administration than this billionaire political contributor (and Stanford mega-donor),” SDS said.
Note: The Washington Free Beacon actively tried to draft Tom Steyer to run for California’s open senate seat in 2016. Unfortunately, it was unable to convince him to run.

 

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[h=2]Read the Memo on Jack Lew’s Meeting with Tom Steyer Treasury Tried to Keep Secret[/h]Document reveals that Jarrett and Podesta were slated to attend meeting with billionaire Dem donor


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Tom Steyer / AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
April 8, 2015 5:00 am

Federal officials in February disclosed a document detailing ways in which the Treasury Department might cooperate with billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer.
The document, a previously unreported briefing memorandum provided to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew released after months of unsuccessful efforts to prevent its public disclosure, lays out the agenda of a June meeting on U.S. climate policy with Steyer and a number of White House officials.
The event focused on the Risky Business Project, a joint effort by Steyer, former treasury secretary Hank Paulson, and other public figures to get the business community on board with restrictions on carbon emissions.
The memo suggested that Lew ask how the project could “best help the Administration generate support for its climate initiatives” and what federal policies could force “investors and other private actors internalize the risks that are outlined in this report.”
According to the memo, “expected U.S. government participants” in the meeting included senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and John Podesta, the president’s senior climate and energy aide and the former president of the Steyer-backed Center for American Progress.
Four other White House officials were expected to attend. It was not immediately clear which of the officials ended up at the meeting. The Treasury Department referred requests for comment to the White House. The White House did not respond to a request for comment by press time. The Risky Business Project also did not respond to a request for comment.
Treasury initially refused to release the memo when the conservative Patriots Foundation requested it under the Freedom of Information Act last June. The Foundation sued in September to force its release.
In January, Treasury agreed to furnish the document, but it redacted the entire memo. After additional legal wrangling, the department released another copy that also included significant redactions, including suggested questions for Lew to pose to Steyer and other attendees.
It blacked out Steyer’s headshot.
On February 18, Treasury finally produced a less-redacted version of the memo that the Foundation said satisfied its FOIA request. It settled with Treasury and the suit was dismissed.
The document’s release provides additional details on a meeting that drew criticism even from Democrats over the optics of inviting a high-dollar Democratic donor to a closed-door meeting with senior White House staffers.
“If a Republican president did the same thing with the Koch brothers, we would skewer them,” a House Democrat told the Washington Examiner in June. “If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.”
At the time of the meeting, Steyer was racking up more than $73 million in political expenditures designed to maintain Democratic control of the U.S. Senate. He was by far the largest contributor to independent political groups during the 2014 cycle.
While Steyer put up big bucks to support the president’s party, he received extensive access to Obama and other White House officials. Logs show that he has visited the White House 14 times since 2009, including a number of visits in 2014.
“It shows Tom Steyer has not just got the ear of the president, but he clearly has the president’s attention,” Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the left-wing group Public Citizen told E&E News in January. “That’s what money does buy; it buys access.”
Steyer is expected to be a financial force during the 2016 election cycle. His Super PAC, NextGen Climate Action, will spend “whatever it takes” to achieve its political goals, according to Chris Lehane, Steyer’s top political strategist.

 

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[h=2]Steyer Nonprofit Owns Stake in Green Energy Investment Firm[/h]BrightPath Capital Partners invested in stimulus-backed solar company under federal investigation


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Tom Steyer / AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
April 15, 2015 5:00 am

Billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer’s vehicle for environmental grantmaking has a stake in a private equity firm that is invested in green energy companies, the group confirmed last week.
The TomKat Charitable Trust was “[e]stablished in 2009 with funding from Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor,” according to a spokesman, who said that the nonprofit foundation is a limited partner in BrightPath Capital Partners, L.P.
Kat Taylor is Steyer’s wife.
The firm is invested in at least three green energy companies. One of those companies has received federal subsidies and was under investigation as late as February into whether it misrepresented financial information to obtain those subsidies, documents obtained by the Washington Free Beaconreveal.
Steyer and Taylor put up nearly $175 million to start TomKat in 2008. Since that initial cash infusion, most of TomKat’s revenue has been investment income—more than $72 million, compared with just $2 million in contributions to the group.
Some of TomKat’s investments are run by Farallon Capital Management, the firm Steyer founded and helmed until his political foray in 2013. However, unlike Farallon, BrightPath is listed on TomKat’s annual filings with the Internal Revenue Service as a “controlled entity.”
TomKat listed more than $21 million in contributions to BrightPath on its 2012 and 2013 IRS filings. It reported receiving more than $7 million in distributions from the firm that, according to those filings, shares an employer identification number with TomKat.
“It’s not uncommon for a 501(c)(3) to acquire assets and build an endowment which it then invests in order to spin off income in furtherance of the exempt purpose of the (c)(3),” said Dan Backer, an attorney specializing in campaign and nonprofit tax law.
“It is, however, very surprising that the (c)(3) would do so ‘in-house’ as opposed to using an outside, independent agent for such work,” Backer added in an email.
Steyer and Kat Taylor, his wife, do not draw income from the firm, according to TomKat. Returns from its stake in BrightPath “are directly re-invested into the Trust’s charitable endeavors,” the spokesman said. “Neither Steyer nor Taylor personally benefit financially from any of the Trust’s investments.”
The funds recycled into TomKat’s charitable operation support a grantmaking operation that in 2013 doled out nearly $35 million to some of the nation’s top left-wing environmental policy and advocacy groups.
They included $2.3 million in grants to the Center for American Progress, where Steyer is a director, and contributions to the Sierra Club, the Natural Resource Defense Council, and the League of Conservation Voters.
TomKat has also passed along contributions to some of Steyer’s other nonprofits, including the Center for the Next Generation, the 501(c)(3) sister of his political outfit.
Next Generation recently announced that it would shutter its climate policy operation. But that operation was alive and well as TomKat poured millions into BrightPath.
On September 22, 2009, according to technology industry website CrunchBase, a Steyer-backedventure capital firm called Greener Capital invested $6 million in California solar company Sungevity. At the time, both Steyer and Sungevity were working to prevent a rollback of California’s aggressive carbon emission restrictions.
Steyer was the undisputed leader of the campaign to defeat the measure, known as Proposition 23. He co-chaired the No on 23 effort, and donated at least $5 million to help defeat the measure.
“Someone had to be in charge, and Tom stepped up and really played the CEO role,” Michael Kieschnick, CEO of CREDO Mobile, a phone company with an activist arm that worked to defeat the measure, was quoted as saying.
Sungevity employees also donated to an anti-Prop 23 political committee. The company hosted Steyer and other well-heeled environmentalists at its offices for a fundraiser for anti-Prop 23 groups.
Sungevity CEO Danny Kennedy would credit Steyer with leading the successful charge to defeat the measure. Kennedy would also speak at a Next Generation event on the tremendous amounts of money to be made in green energy.
“Renewable energy will be many, many times more profitable than fossil fuels in a very short amount of time,” as Next Generation described the panel.
A month later, after Prop 23’s defeat, BrightPath invested in Sungevity. It was the first of five funding rounds in which the firm would participate, according to CrunchBase. Greener Capital would join in two of them.
A month after BrightPath’s second equity investment in Sungevity, the company began receiving green energy subsidies from the federal government. Since February 2012, it has receivedmore than $12 million in grant money through the Treasury Department’s stimulus-funded 1603 grant program.
A conservative group called the Patriots Foundation last year requested copies of all Sungevity applications for 1603 grants that resulted in an award. In a January response to that request, Treasury suggested that the scope of federal support for the company could be massive.
“An initial query within the Office of the Fiscal Assistant Secretary identified approximately 1,067 potentially responsive applications. I estimate that there are more than 53,350 potentially responsive pages,” a department FOIA officer responded.
Asked to clarify whether those were grant applications that actually resulted in an award, the department responded that it had found “1,067 applications and supporting materials submitted by Sungevity, Inc for Section 1603 awards.”
Sungevity did not respond to questions about its applications for 1603 grants, or the federal investigation into how it obtained those awards.
Treasury’s Office of Inspector General, which is responsible for investigations, would not comment on the status of that one specifically, suggesting that it is still ongoing. “Section 1603 is a high-impact and high-visibility program involving a significant amount of public funds,” said OIG spokesman Rich Delmar. “Thus it has a high priority in our audit and investigative plans.”
Reportedly, Treasury’s investigation is probing whether Sungevity and two other solar companies accurately reported the costs of installing solar panels when applying for grants. Sungevity, SolarCity, and SunRun were subpoenaed in 2012 for documents related to their 1603 applications.
Additional documents obtained by the Patriots Foundation reveal that the investigation was still ongoing in February of this year. The group’s FOIA request for documents concerning that investigation was denied in its entirety due to an exemption to the law that allows federal agencies to withhold documents that “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”
“I am withholding all records, documents, and/or other material, which if disclosed prior to completion [of the investigation], could reasonable be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings and final agency actions related to those proceedings,” Treasury wrote in its February 13 letter.
The investigation was first reported in December 2012, but BrightPath has participated in three more funding rounds for Sungevity since then.
BrightPath managing partner Rob Davenport referred questions to TomKat, which insisted that its stake in the firm supports its charitable endeavors and does not benefit Steyer.
“It’s like a closed loop of cronyism,” said William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute specializing in energy and environmental policy.
“Steyer’s political giving fuels policies that enrich his friends, while at the same time it also bolsters the resources used by advocacy groups that lobby for these same policies,” Yeatman said in an email.
In addition to its ties to TomKat, BrightPath is also affiliated with Beneficial State Bank (formerly One PacificCoast Bank), founded by Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor. The bank listed BrightPath as a “partner provider” in its 2012 annual report. Davenport sits on its board.
“We seek market rates of return on a risk adjusted basis, but we have a very rigorous screening process,” explained Davenport at a 2012 event on “socially responsible” business. “If we can’t identify and ultimate measure social impact delivered by the businesses that we consider, then we probably don’t do it.”
Also on the panel was Kat Taylor, the bank’s chief executive, who said that it works to be financially sustainable while also serving social and ideological goals.
Davenport, who also sits on Sungevity’s board, agreed with the importance of socially responsible investing, but stressed the need to produce returns for its investors.
“We seek to get a return on capital such that we can go back to our limited partners and prospective limited partners and say, ‘Hey, this is a profitable activity, and we need to do more of it, so invest in our fund so we can put that money back to work in the marketplace.’”

This entry was posted in Politics and tagged Democratic Donors, Green Energy, Tom Steyer. Bookmark thepermalink.

 

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[h=2]Dem Dark Money Group Attacks Kochs for Lobbying Against Koch Subsidies[/h]American Bridge is upset that a Koch group is not padding its benefactors’ bottom line


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Koch Industry headquarters / AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
April 17, 2015 1:15 pm

A leading Democratic dark money group this week attacked libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch for advocating policies that run counter to their own financial interests.
The dark money arm of Democratic Super PAC American Bridge criticized the Koch-backed Freedom Partners for opposing the U.S. Export-Import Bank despite the bank’s prior support for Koch companies.
“In the end, the Koch brothers are hiding their potentially $16 million slice of the pie to hurt U.S. workers and our economy,” the group wrote on its website, referring to the amount of Ex-Im financing obtained by Koch Industries and its subsidiaries over the years.
Koch, which is owned by the fraternal billionaires, says it is not hiding anything, and that its opposition to an agency that has supported Koch companies underscores its principled opposition to what it characterizes as a hotbed of cronyism.
“We oppose ALL subsidies, whether existing or proposed, including programs that benefit us,” wrotePhillip Ellender, Koch’s president of government and public affairs, in a March letter to members of Congress.
“Using taxpayer dollars to subsidize corporations rarely results in benefits for society at large,” Ellender wrote.
His position mirrors American Bridge’s attack: the Kochs are fighting subsidies that pad their company’s bottom line. In contrast, the American Bridge Super PAC’s top donor, billionaire George Soros, is heavily invested in Ex-Im beneficiary Loral.
The group’s attack runs counter to the usual critique of the Kochs—leveled by American Bridge, among others—that their political activism is purely self-interested.
Also complicating that line of criticism is the company’s recent campaign to do away with ethanol mandates that benefit its business interests.
Ellender urged senators in letters sent on Wednesday to oppose a bill that would preserve the renewable fuels standard (RFS), which requires the blending of ethanol in all gasoline sold in the United States.
Koch subsidiary Flint Hills Resources is a large ethanol producer and therefore benefits from the RFS, Ellender said. Nevertheless, the company is urging the mandate’s complete repeal.
Flint Hills “just closed on the purchase of its seventh ethanol plant,” Ellender wrote. “We bought these ethanol plants despite the RFS, not because of it. Let us compete in the free market. Repeal the RFS—all of it.”

This entry was posted in Politics and tagged George Soros, Koch Brothers. Bookmark the permalink.

 

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[h=2]Top Donors Help Steer Democracy Alliance’s 2016 Strategy[/h]Documents reveal the inner workings of the left-wing donor club’s new state-level campaigns


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AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
April 21, 2015 1:00 pm

Wealthy liberals who “make significant investments” in Democracy Alliance-backed projects will help guide strategy in 2016 and beyond for the left’s most powerful network of political moneymen, documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveal.
High-dollar donors to a new Democracy Alliance effort focused on building Democratic power in the states will be appointed to a panel that will help direct millions in contributions to state-level political and advocacy groups, those documents state.
Alliance president Gara LaMarche said in an email that the group has not yet determined what the contribution threshold will be for a spot on SEI’s advisory board, saying “we have not determined answers to those governance questions yet.” He declined to address questions about disclosure of the group’s donors.
The names of those donors will likely remain a secret, even as the Alliance tries to drum up populist opposition to the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape that it blames for corrupting American democracy.
The Alliance is ramping up its efforts to win back governorships, state legislatures, and, eventually, federal policymaking positions ahead of key elections and the 2020 congressional redistricting process.
“As an alliance of donors across the country, the DA is uniquely positioned to … help to direct resources from out of state donors to key parts of the country, in partnership with local funders,” according to documents obtained at the organization’s biennal conference last week in San Francisco.
The new push involves five initiatives dubbed “2020 State Funds.” The Democracy Fund will focus on voting rights, the Inclusive Economy Fund will push for minimum wage hikes and other liberal economic policies, the Climate Change Fund will push carbon restrictions and green energy subsidies, the New American Majority Fund will target key electoral demographics, and the State Engagement Initiative will work on state-level elections.
According to briefing materials provided to partners at last week’s conference, the strategy will target a dozen states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
All 12 “have important federal and state races on the ballot next year,” according to briefing materials handed out at the conference. “They will be front and center in 2016” and “could benefit from added capacity and resources in this critical election.”
Four of the State Funds are new efforts, rolled out at last week’s conference. The SEI, headed by DA consultant Frank Smith, was created in 2013 through a partnership with the Committee on States, a DA-aligned group that aims to spend $100 million annually by the end of the decade to advance Democratic candidates and policies at the state level.
The SEI’s investment recommendations will be devised in part by the executive directors of the Committee on States and DA-backed groups State Voices, Progress Now, and America Votes, according to Alliance documents.
High-dollar DA donors can also have a say in how the money is distributed. “Donors who make significant investments can join the SEI advisory committee and participate in decision making,” the documents note.
The SEI is a 501(c)(4) “dark money” group, meaning the names of those donors will likely not be made public. While the Alliance has pledged to reduce the opacity of its work in steering hundreds of millions of dollars to political, policy, and advocacy groups, it has also taken steps to keep the identities of its donors secret.
“The Democracy Alliance has assured its Partners from the beginning that their participation will not be made public by us, and our legal structure was designed, among other reasons, to protect that promise,” the group told its donors last year.
Alliance partners, as its donors are known, must contribute at least $200,000 annually to its portfolio of nearly 200 groups. The Alliance never handles the money—it just recommends organizations for partner support—making it difficult to trace the group’s role in financing those groups.
The Alliance’s portfolio of supported organizations grew this year, but it encouraged partners to steer funds to a select few organizations focused on state-level fights, including the 2020 State Funds.
Dark money will be increasingly prominent in the Alliance’s work on the state level, even as that work decries the corrosive influence of money in politics, according to internal documents.
The New American Majority Fund (NAMF), which will register and turn out young people, single women, and people of color in key elections, will also do much of its work by way of groups that do not disclose their donors.
“There will be a particular intentional focus on growing and strengthening c4 organizational capacity,” according to Alliance documents. “The development of c4 capacity in these constituencies has lagged.”
The NAMF will itself have 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) arms, as will every State Fund but SEI, which will only have the latter, according to DA documents.
The Funds’ structure was devised by DA’s board and a number of “Partner Advisory Panels.” The group met with “dozens of progressive thinkers and leaders” and organized “seven forums around the country in which more than 80 percent of the DA Partnership participated” to come up with its five-year strategy.
Alliance documents also credit the group’s 2020 Vision Committee, which includes DA board members Patricia Bauman, Farhad Ebrahimi, Paul Egerman, and Weston Milliken, and Kathleen Welch, a Democratic consultant who has worked with the DA on climate and energy issues.
An advisory board governs each Fund. Representatives from the five Funds will meet periodically to discuss strategy and coordination. They have all “met at least once and been consulted individually and by email multiple times,” according to those documents.
DA staff will help align their activities and promote the Funds among the group’s donors.
“Although donors may have different points of entry into state work, we need all of the infrastructure that will be supported to be strong, well-resourced, and aligned,” Alliance documents state.
Update: The story has been updated with comment from the Democracy Alliance.

 

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[h=2]Dem Super PAC Seeks Dirt on Kochs’ University Donations[/h]Oppo research outfit American Bridge files an open records request for Koch communications with MSU


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Charles Koch / AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
April 28, 2015 1:25 pm

A leading Democratic Super PAC is hoping to dig up dirt on a public university after it accepted grant money from a group backed by libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch, documents reveal.
American Bridge, a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC backed by some of the nation’s wealthiest Democrats, filed an open records request with Mississippi State University last week seeking correspondence between university officials and employees of the Charles Koch Institute.
The group filed the request a day after MSU announced that it would accept roughly $365,000 in grants from CKI to fund a new Institute for Market Studies.
According to a copy of the request obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, American Bridge is seeking all correspondence since Jan.1, 2014, between the CKI and 10 MSU employees, including its president and provost.
It is also looking for communications with MSU economics professor Claudia Williamson, who is helping to form the Institute and is expected to play a key role in its operations.
American Bridge routinely attack the Kochs, who have donated more than $167 million to dozens of colleges, high schools, and other educational institutions, according to Mother Jones.
After failing to win key races for Democrats in the 2014 midterms using a strategy that painted the Kochs as evil oligarchs, American Bridge decided to double down on that strategy heading into 2016. The group did not respond to a request for comment on its open records request.
The Kochs featured prominently in promotional materials handed out at a recent conference of the Democracy Alliance donor club in San Francisco. A coalition of the left’s deep-pocketed moneymen, the group’s conference included presentations by David Brock, a high-profile Clinton supporter and American Bridge’s founder.
The Super PAC’s dark money arm recently attacked a Koch-backed group for lobbying to reduce federal subsidies for Koch Industries and its subsidiaries.
Critics of the MSU project said the Kochs are looking to line their own pockets. “I haven’t been shown another example where someone’s political and economic interests were so aligned with the centers they’re funding,” a Greenpeace spokesman told the Associated Press.
CKI brushed off that criticism. “Those accusations are false,” John Hardin, its director of university relations, told the AP. “They’re unfair. We believe that academic freedom is an absolute core value.”
David Shaw, MSU’s vice president for research, also rejected that criticism in a statement.
“We strongly support academic freedom, and accept funds to support independent research activities from a wide variety of foundations with widely divergent backgrounds and focus of their efforts,” Shaw said.
The Kochs are not the only politically active billionaires to invest in research centers at major universities.
Billionaire Democratic donor and Democracy Alliance partner Tom Steyer and his wife Kat Taylorrecently helped Stanford University form the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance.
Steyer’s TomKat Charitable Trust has also donated more than $2 million to Harvard University, including $600,000 in contributions to the TomKat Innovation Fund at the university’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

 

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from the above:

The Kochs are not the only politically active billionaires to invest in research centers at major universities.
Billionaire Democratic donor and Democracy Alliance partner Tom Steyer and his wife Kat Taylorrecently helped Stanford University form the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance.
Steyer’s TomKat Charitable Trust has also donated more than $2 million to Harvard University, including $600,000 in contributions to the TomKat Innovation Fund at the university’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.



libs are hypocrites through and through

 

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[h=2]Steyer to Hold Clinton Fundraiser After Encouraging Primary Challenge[/h]

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Tom Steyer / AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
April 29, 2015 10:42 am

Billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer will host a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton just months after he suggested he would like to see a Democratic challenger to her bid for the presidency.
Steyer told MSNBC in September that a primary opponent would be “a good thing” for Clinton. “I think it’s very hard to go into a tough competitive [general] election cold,” he said.
Now Steyer is throwing his considerable financial weight behind Clinton’s presidential run, the Contra Costa Times reports.

[Clinton] will attend two “Conversation with Hillary” fundraisers on Wednesday, May 6 in San Francisco — one in the afternoon at the home of hedge fund billionaire turned environmentalist Tom Steyer, and the other in the evening at the home of longtime friend and supporter Susie Tompkins Buell, cofounder of Esprit and The North Face.
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Buell, like Steyer, is a member of the Democracy Alliance, a network of high-dollar liberal and Democratic donors. While Democracy Alliance partners are split on Clinton’s presidential run, Steyer’s and Buell’s financial backing signals significant Alliance support for Clinton.
Steyer is a long-time Clinton supporter, but she has not taken the bold environmentalist positions that have earned past politicians the former hedge fund manager’s support.
In particular, Clinton has yet to take a position on the Keystone XL pipeline, a key issue of concern for Steyer’s Super PAC, NextGen Climate Action, during the 2014 election cycle.

 

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I connected the dots to Steyer back in 2014 when I started this thread. Koch bros my ass. Steyer is a typical rich Dem and a Clinton backer all the way no matter what. The three prior posts are right on. The tards on here probably did not now Steyer existed. Typical.

 

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[h=2]Steyer Group Hit With FEC Complaint[/h]Allegations that Steyer’s Super PAC illegally bought Bruce Braley’s voter list come as group ramps up Iowa operation


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Tom Steyer / AP​

BY: Lachlan Markay
May 5, 2015 1:15 pm

An ethics watchdog group filed a legal complaint against billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer’s Super PAC last week alleging that it may be illegally obtaining information on voters in the crucial swing state of Iowa.
Steyer’s group, the NextGen Climate Action Committee, in February reported paying more than $177,000 to the Democratic Senate campaign of former Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley, whom NextGen backed with nearly $5 million in independent expenditures last year.
The payment was itemized as “list acquisition” on NextGen’s filings with the Federal Election Commission.
According to the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a conservative-leaning group helmed by former Iowa U.S. Attorney Matthew Whitaker, the purchase may have violated federal law.
NextGen is ramping up operations in Iowa, renting office space in Des Moines, paying salaries to at least four staffers in the state, and organizing events on college campuses.
Its purchase of Braley’s is by far its biggest expense in the state this year. The price tag is so high, FACT claims, that it may amount to a de facto contribution to the campaign, violating prohibitions on direct Super PAC support for federal candidates.
“If the payment was in excess of the market value of the list, it would be a prohibited contribution to the candidate,” FACT says. “The Commission must conduct an immediate and thorough investigation into this action.”
The federal law at issue is designed to prevent illicit campaign contributions disguised as payments for goods or services that greatly exceed their market value.
“A Super PAC should not be permitted to make a donation to a candidate under the guise of purchasing a voter list,” FACT’s complaint states. “If this type of behavior were permitted, the rule prohibiting Super PACs from donation to candidates would be eviscerated.”
The market value of a list such as Braley’s can be difficult to estimate without knowing its specific contents. However, experts say NextGen’s payment was unusually large.
“In a state with the number of voters Iowa has, $177,000 seems like a very high value for a voter list,” according to Jason Torchinsky, a campaign finance attorney with the firm HoltzmanVogelJosefiak.
Other groups paid Braley’s campaign far less for similar services. In 2013, the super PAC Americans for Responsible Solutions reported paying the campaign just $1,051.50 for an expense itemized as “list.”
Neither NextGen nor the listed point of contact for Braley’s campaign responded to requests for comment on the complaint.
NextGen’s purchase price was $77,000 more than Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign paid for the Iowa Democratic Party’s voter list, and more than 17 times as much as the Iowa GOP charged the presidential exploratory committee of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2011.
The lack of details on those purchases makes it difficult to know whether the contents of those lists are comparable to Braley’s.
Braley’s list “presumably…would have primarily included voter data for a single state,” FACT notes. “However, in another case, the FEC has approved the lease of a nationwide voter list for a lesser amount of $133,841,70,” suggesting that the “large amount paid for a smaller list … may be above market value.”
A FEC spokeswoman said she could not comment on any open cases or ongoing enforcement proceedings.
The complaint comes as Steyer’s group is building its political operation in Iowa. In addition to its list purchase, it has rented office space from Bluprint Strategies, a Des Moines-based Democratic consultancy that employs a former NextGen Iowa field organizer.
Steyer is already backing Clinton’s candidacy. He will host a fundraiser for the former secretary of state at his San Francisco home this week despite Clinton’s reticence to take a position on the Keystone XL pipeline, Steyer’s pet cause. He also donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation last year.
NextGen is also active on four Iowa college campuses and will hold a “day of action” in the state this weekend.

This entry was posted in Politics and tagged Bruce Braley, Democratic Donors, Hillary Clinton, Tom Steyer.