Andy Kroll

Reporter

Andy Kroll is Mother Jones' Dark Money reporter. He is based in the DC bureau. His work has also appeared at the Wall Street Journal, the Detroit News, Salon, and TomDispatch.com, where he's an associate editor. He can be reached at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. He tweets at @AndrewKroll.

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This Is What a Multimillionaire Calling In His Chits Looks Like

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Jun. 14, 2013 8:19 AM PDT

ferret111/Flickr

Art Pope is the conservative mega-donor in North Carolina whose millions helped usher in Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature in 2010, and who dropped millions more in 2012 to elect Republican Gov. Pat McGrory. Perhaps to say thanks, McGrory promptly named Pope, a former board member of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity group, the state's new budget director.

One of Pope's pet causes has been killing North Carolina's public funding program for judicial elections, an aim of his when he served in the state legislature. The NC Public Campaign Fund, as it's known, provides judicial candidates with taxpayer money to fund their campaigns so long as they collect 350 or more small donations from registered voters and also abide by campaign spending limits. The program is popular: Since its launch in 2004, 80 percent of judicial candidates in contested race for state Supreme Court and North Carolina Court of Appeals have used it. In May, 14 of the 15 judges on Court of Appeals, judges who represent both parties, urged state lawmakers to preserve the program. "Our current system of nonpartisan judicial elections supplemented by public financing is an effective and valuable tool for protecting public confidence in the impartiality and independence of the judiciary," the judges said.

North Carolina's judicial public financing program gets its money from a $3 check box on state tax forms and a $50 annual fee paid by attorneys. The budget proposed by North Carolina Republicans would suck all the money out of the elections fund and eliminate its funding sources, a death blow to the program. But as Chris Kromm of Facing South writes, state Rep. Jonathan Jordan, a Republican, had a fix. He offered a budget amendment that would preserve the $50 attorney fee while still sucking out all the fund's money and eliminating the taxpayer check-box. Although Jordan's amendment would hurt the fund in the short term, the attorneys fees would replenish it over time. Other Republicans liked this idea.

That's when Art Pope called in his chits:

Soon after Jordan's amendment was filed the next day, the multimillionaire GOP donor and budget director for Republican Gov. Pat McCrory made a rare visit to the General Assembly and took Jordan aside. When the impromptu meeting with Pope ended, Jordan made an abrupt U-turn and dropped the amendment.

The amendment died—and with it chances of saving North Carolina's pioneering judicial program.

Art Pope took a direct role in killing the landmark election reform measure even though his presence as budget director wasn't needed, since Jordan's amendment was revenue-neutral. His involvement highlights the unique power Pope holds as both a top campaign donor to state lawmakers and the highest ranking member of McCrory's cabinet.

It also marks the culmination of a more than decade-long crusade by Pope to dismantle judicial public financing and other reforms that aim to curb the clout of big donors like himself in North Carolina politics.

Why, you might ask, would Jordan so easily abandon his amendment? Well, the money trail is a good place to start:

When Jordan first ran for office in 2010, he was one of two dozen Republicans that benefited from a flood of money Pope poured into elections, helping the GOP capture the state legislature.

That year, Jordan received $16,000 in campaign contributions from Pope and his close family, the maximum allowed by law. On top of that, three groups backed by Pope—Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Action, and Real Jobs NC—shoveled more than $91,500 into election spending on Jordan's behalf, bringing Pope's total investment in launching Jordan's legislative career to more than $107,000.

But Pope's connection to Rep. Jordan goes back even further. In the late 1990s, Jordan spent two years as research director at the John Locke Foundation, one of a network of conservative groups in North Carolina largely funded by Art Pope's family foundation.

In an email to the News and Observer newspaper, Pope declined to comment on his talk with Rep. Jordan. "Of course the governor's recommended budget proposed to stop giving taxpayer dollars to political campaigns," Pope said. "That position has not changed, and I have stated this to the legislators, members of the public, and organizations such as Common Cause when they have asked about the issue."

Episodes like these are what make North Carolina such a fascinating case study. On the one hand, you have Pope, an ideologue who gave handsomely to conservative causes for decades and now controls North Carolina's budget. On the other, there is a progressive groundswell pushing back against Pope, McGrory, and the Republican majorities in the legislature. But in this case, the imminent death of North Carolina's judicial funding program shows just how much clout a single donor can have.

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New York's Gov. Cuomo Unveils His Own Bill to Battle Big-Money Politics—But Does It Matter?

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Jun. 12, 2013 9:23 AM PDT

Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

With less than a week before New York State lawmakers go home for the summer, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) unveiled his own bill on Tuesday to curb Albany's streak of political corruption scandals and battle the state's big-money politics. Cuomo's bill would make it easier to convict someone for bribing public officials and ban anyone convicted of public corruption from ever again working in government. It would expand the state's voter registration period, beef up the enforcement of election laws, and let 16- and 17-year-olds pre-register to vote.

But it is the third piece of Cuomo's bill that campaign reformer types care about most. That piece calls for a public financing system for all New York State elections in which small donations up to $175 would be matched $6 to $1 with public money. The intent here is clear: Nudge candidates running for state Assembly and Senate to collect more two- and three-figure donations as opposed to courting wealthy donors who can legally give five- and six-figure donations under New York's lax election laws. "Governor Cuomo's proposal builds upon a small-donor matching fund system that has proven effective in New York City," says Michael Malbin, the director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. "CFI's research shows the incentives work to get candidates to make low-dollar donors the financial backbones of their campaigns."

Foes of super-PACs and big-money politics see public financing as the best fix to today's money-soaked political system. And since a divided Congress won't take up public financing, public financing supporters believe the states give them the best shot at new reforms. Fair Elections for New York, a coalition of unions, good-government groups, and more, have invested heavily in passing a statewide public financing bill in New York, which they see as the marquee fight in the today's political money wars. "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere," was how Nick Nyhart, president of the reform group Public Campaign, put it last year.

By introducing his own bill, Cuomo is signaling to resistant Republican lawmakers that he wants public financing before the current session ends. The governor is also showing his liberal allies that he's still entrenched in this fight, at least publicly.

Yet the prospects for reform in New York are not good. The Democratic-controlled state Assembly has already passed a public financing bill like Cuomo's, but the state Senate is run by a motley coalition of Republicans and so-called independent Democrats, and Senate Republicans have no interest in public financing. Despite several analyses showing a modest price tag for public financing of statewide elections, state Sen. Dean Skelos, the Senate GOP's leader, said he'd rather invest the money in "education, infrastructure, job creation, child care—there are a lot of areas that we can use that money for."

Even Cuomo questioned whether major corruption or campaign reforms could pass before the legislature adjourns next week. Calling his bill "needed" and "overdue," he added: "I would not say that I see an especially easy glide path to passage for this bill."

The action around public financing isn't just in New York. On Wednesday morning, 10 leaders of liberal groups pressed top Democratic lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to unite behind a national public financing bill for Congressional elections. Read their full letter here.

Community College Says NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Took No "Cyber-Related Classes"

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Jun. 10, 2013 2:29 PM PDT

Edward Snowden Image courtesy of The Guardian.

In its story unveiling National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Guardian reported that the 29-year-old attended "a community college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework." The Guardian did not name the community college. But a spokesman for Anne Arundel Community College (AACC), located in southeastern Maryland, tells Mother Jones a student with Snowden's name and birthdate attended the college from 1999 to 2001 and then again from 2004 to 2005. He did not receive a certificate or degree, the spokesman, Daniel Baum, says.

But here's an interesting wrinkle: Baum says Snowden took no "cyber-related courses" at this college. Nor did he take any classes in the college's NSA-certified "Information Systems Security" program, which focuses on safeguarding computer data and networks, though he went on to work in a related field for the government and in the private sector. It's unclear whether Snowden studied computing elsewhere.

Ken Cuccinelli's Running Mate Is More Moderate Than Him on At Least One Thing: Banning Gay Sex

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Jun. 10, 2013 7:24 AM PDT

E.W. Jackson, the Virginia GOP's pick for lieutentant governor.

E.W. Jackson, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Virginia, holds awfully extreme views on gay rights and has no qualms about venting them. On his now-dormant personal Twitter feed, as my colleague Tim Murphy pointed out, Jackson frequently aired his hatred toward gays: When President Obama declared June "LGBT Pride Month," Jackson tweeted, "Well that just makes me feel ikky all over." In October 2009, he tweeted, "The 'homosexual religion' is the most virulent anti-Christian bigotry & hatred I've ever seen." Those kinds of comments put Jackson in step with his running mate, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative who is as hard-line as they come on social issues.

Yet there is one crusade on which Jackson says he doesn't intend to join Cuccinelli: banning gay sex.

Buried in a recent National Review profile of Jackson, who is conservative minister, is this paragraph:

After chatting with attendees, Jackson sat down with me for an interview. While his sermon ended with flair and bombast, he was soft-spoken and earnest as I questioned him about how his religious beliefs interact with his political views. Christian values make us free, Jackson told me, and people should live as they see fit as long as they don’t hurt others. While he opposes same-sex marriage, he said he wouldn’t support any sort of ban on gay sex. He also said there shouldn't be any legal sanction of a religion, and that he would oppose a constitutional amendment naming Christianity as America’s official religion. But that doesn't mean that our culture isn’t historically Judeo-Christian, he added, and influenced by the Bible. Acknowledging that isn’t an imposition of religion.

The emphasis above is mine. Jackson saying he doesn't support banning gay sex is a significant break from Cuccinelli. Remember, in 2003 the Supreme Court's ruling in the Lawrence v. Texas case struck down anti-sodomy laws at the state level. But Virginia kept its gay-sex ban on the books after Lawrence. Then, in March, the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit deemed that Virginia's anti-sodomy law was unconstitutional. A month later, Cuccinelli, who is Virginia's attorney general, raised eyebrows when he asked the 4th Circuit to rethink its decision. (Cuccinelli's office said it was defending the state's anti-sodomy law to more harshly punish a 47-year-old man who solicited oral sex from teenagers. Here's why that is a problematic response.)

Cuccinelli explained his opposition to gay sex in 2009: "My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They're intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it's appropriate to have policies that reflect that...They don't comport with natural law." This is a long-running fight for Cuccinelli. As far back as 2004, when he was a Virginia state senator, he warned of a plot by the LGBT community to "dismantle sodomy laws" and "get education about homosexuals and AIDS in public schools."

On this issue, though, Cuccinelli and his running mate appear to see things differently. Ken, you might want to call your office.

Silicon Valley's Awful Race and Gender Problem in 3 Mind-Blowing Charts

—By Andy Kroll

| Thu Jun. 6, 2013 11:11 AM PDT

Catherine Bracy moved to San Francisco from Chicago during the 2012 campaign to run Team Obama's technology field office, a first-of-its-kind project that enlisted Silicon Valley's whiz-kid engineers to build software for the campaign. (That tech savvy, of course, played a pivotal role in Obama's victory.) What struck Bracy about the tech-crazed Bay Area, she recounted Thursday in a talk at the Personal Democracy Forum tech conference, was the jarring inequality visible everywhere in Silicon Valley—between rich and poor, between men and women, between white people and, well, everyone else.

Bracy's talk featured some eye-popping charts on Silicon Valley's race and gender divide. Here are three of them.

In 2010, the latest year for which Bracy could find data, 89 percent of California companies that got crucial seed funding were founded by men. What percentage were all-female founding teams? Just three percent.

CB Insights, Venture Capital Human Capital Report, January-June 2010

Bracy looked at that funding breakdown by race—and there's even less diversity. In 2010, less than 1 percent of the founders of Silicon Valley companies were black, a figure so small Bracy didn't put it on her white-guy-dominated pie chart.

CB Insights, Venture Capital Human Capital Report, January-June 2010

And when looking at the economic winners and losers in Silicon Valley, that racial disparity really pops out. From 2009 to 2011, income for blacks living in Silicon Valley dropped by 18 percent, compared to a decrease of 4 percent nationally. Hispanics fared badly, too. The big winners were whites and Asian Americans.

Silicon Valley Foundation/Joint Venture Silicon Valley, 2013 Silicon Valley Index

Oh, one more thing: According to Bracy, women make 49 cents for every dollar men make in Silicon Valley. You don't need a chart to feel the force of that statistic.