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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GOP Senator: This Obama-Congress Lovefest Must Stop

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Mar. 11, 2013 8:34 AM PDT

Here's a theory about Washington you won't hear very often.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) decried the level of dysfunction in the House and Senate, between the Democratic and Republican parties, between Congress and the White House, and so forth. What's the news? you might ask. Unlike most people, Coburn blames Washington dysfunction on too much compromise. "Members of Congress and the administration agree on too much," he said.

Here's the full quote:

"Washington is dysfunctional, but it's dysfunctional in a dysfunctional way. Members of Congress and the administration agree on too much. We agree on spending money we don't have. We agree on not over-sighting the programs that should be over-sighted. We agree on continuing to spend money on programs that don't work or are ineffective. Basically we agree on too much."

Here's the video of Coburn's comment:

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Now, this is not to say Coburn is wrong on highlighting the government waste out there. He and his staff are among the best sleuths of nonsensical government spending (a 100-year starship program? A study to see if men look taller holding a pistol versus a caulk gun?). But on the issue of D.C. dysfunction, Coburn may be just a bit out of synch with the public.

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Organizing for Action, Obama's Big-Money Muscle, Will Reject Corporate and Foreign Money

—By Andy Kroll

| Thu Mar. 7, 2013 12:52 PM PST

OFA director Jim Messina.

Liberals agree: Organizing for Action, the pro-Obama nonprofit formed out of the president's reelection campaign, has an admirable goal—helping Obama enact his second-term agenda, which includes gun-control measures, immigration reform, and new action on climate change. OFA's problem, in their eyes, is how it plans to meet that goal.

Early news stories revealed that OFA planned to raise $50 million, much of it in big donations, from individuals, corporations, and unions. OFA would also disclose the names of its donors and fundraisers quarterly but without saying precisely how much they'd chipped in. In response, liberal campaign finance groups howled; one, Common Cause, publicly urged Obama to shut down OFA.

OFA has heard the complaints. Today, in a CNN.com op-ed, OFA director Jim Messina laid out the case for OFA and clarified that the group would not accept any money from corporations, foreign sources, or federally-registered lobbyists. OFA will also disclose, every four months, the exact amount given by every donor who chips in more than $250.

That's more than previously expected of OFA, and the group's critics are encouraged by Messina's pledge. Common Cause president Bob Edgar praised the move, but added OFA should go even further by putting a cap on how much a single donor can give and throwing its organizing muscle behind new campaign finance regulations. "That means getting behind legislation like the DISCLOSE Act, supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and rein in runaway political spending, and developing a new, small-donor public funding system that lets candidates break their dependence on big money," Edgar said in a statement sent to reporters.

OFA, as Politico's Ken Vogel points out, has already benefited from in-kind corporate support. January's "Road Ahead" conference, where OFA was first unveiled to a hand-picked group of big-wig Democratic fundraisers, was sponsored by a group called Business Forward, which receives money from Microsoft, Walmart, and other corporations.

OFA's ban on lobbyist money may be hard to enforce. President Obama imposed a similar ban on donations from lobbyists for his reelection campaign, yet the New York Times reported in October 2011 that the campaign's corps of elite fundraisers included at least 15 people involved in lobbying. Those fundraisers were not federally registered lobbyists, but fit the description of your typical Washington lobbyist. One such fundraiser, Sally Susman, raised more than $500,000 and at the same time ran Pfizer's lobbying office; another, David Cohen, ran Comcast's lobbying shop.

Messina also used his CNN op-ed to take a stab at addressing one of the biggest criticisms of OFA: that it was a vehicle for selling access to the president. One report said that donors and fundraisers who ponied up $500,000 or more would get quarterly meetings with Obama. In his op-ed, Messina writes, "Whether you're a volunteer or a donor, we can't and we won't guarantee access to any government officials." But he adds: "Just as the president and administration officials deliver updates on the legislative process to Americans and organizations across the ideological spectrum, there may be occasions when members of Organizing for Action are included in those updates."

That's hardly a full-throated rebuttal.

More Cocaine Could Soon Be on Our Streets, Thanks to the Sequester

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Mar. 6, 2013 1:48 PM PST

Add this to the list of potential consequences of sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts totaling $85 billion this year that went into effect on Friday: more cocaine on our streets.

According to the Virginian-Pilot, the Navy is pulling back from an operation that kept 160 tons of cocaine and 25,000 pounds of marijuana out of the United States last year. The program, called "Operation Martillo," was a joint effort between the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Drug Enforcement Agency, and governmental agencies in Europe and Latin America. But now, due to sequestration, the Navy will not deploy two of its ships slated to replace two homebound Navy vessels that were participating in the program. Here's more from the Virginian-Pilot:

Officials acknowledge that, without the frigates, fighting drug trafficking in the Caribbean just got tougher.

"We are always looking for creative ways to address this problem," said Lt. Cmdr. Ron Flanders, spokesman for the Southern Command, which is responsible for the task force that works with partner countries to run Operation Martillo.

"Certainly with less gray hulls it will be more challenging," he said, referring to Navy ships.

Last year, Operation Martillo ("martillo" means hammer in Spanish) intercepted and captured $4 billion worth of cocaine, valued at $12 billion in street resale value; 25,000 pounds of marijuana, worth more than $10 million on the streets; and $3.5 million in cash, according to U.S. Southern Command.

The across-the-board budget slashes took effect Friday, coming down hard on defense and forcing the services to cut operations not considered essential. With the Afghanistan war effort still a priority and the Navy's pivot to the Pacific region, commanders have warned that police and goodwill operations in South and Central America would be on the sequestration chopping block.

Operation Martillo is not the only naval operation in the Caribbean hit by sequestration.

The hospital ship Comfort was supposed to leave its new base in Norfolk early next month for a four-month humanitarian mission to eight South and Central American nations. That, too, was cut.

For more on how the sequestration is shaking things up, see MoJo's previous coverage: Kevin Drum explains what sequestration is and how it works, Erika Eichelberger outlines 12 ways it could hurt low-income Americans, and Zaineb Muhammad highlights six ways it could harm the environment.

On Election Night 2012, Obama Began Plotting Democrats' 2014 Takeover of Congress

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Mar. 4, 2013 9:06 AM PST

President Obama with House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In the past 80 years, only one president, Bill Clinton, has led his party to gain seats in the House of Representatives in the midterm election of his second term. President Obama wants to be the second. And he's flexing as much political muscle as he can to put the Democrats back in control of the House of Representatives after the 2014 elections so that he can enact his ambitious agenda on gun control, immigration, and climate change.

According to the Washington Post, Obama's mission to win back the majority for House Democrats began on the very night he was reelected, early last November. After delivering his victory speech, in which he spoke of "the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward," Obama called up House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and told them of his plans to help win back the House in 2014. "The president understands that to get anything done, he needs a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives," Israel told the Post. "To have a legacy in 2016, he will need a House majority in 2014, and that work has to start now."

The Democrats need to win 17 House seats in 2014 to win back the majority. To achieve that, Obama plans to raise big money—he'll attend eight DCCC fundraisers this year, as opposed to the two attended in 2009 in the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections. Obama's former campaign infrastructure, now flying under the banner of Organizing for Action and operating as a nonprofit, will also join the 2014 fight. Israel, the DCCC chairman, has met with Jim Messina, the head of OFA who also ran Obama's reelection campaign, to discuss 2014 plans.

Here's more from the Post on Obama's overtly political approach to enacting his second-term agenda:

In some ways, Obama is flipping the traditional script for second-term presidents.

Most have about two years to secure a domestic agenda before lame-duck status sets in. But Obama is laying out an argument for a new Congress that, if successful, could give him his last two years in office to cement his legacy.

The GOP resistance to his agenda is helping give Obama the political framework for the midterm congressional campaign—if not short-term legislative victories.

"I think six months from now, if Republican recalcitrance continues, it will become by definition a 2014 strategy," said Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist. "At some point over the next three to six months, when most of these issues will get resolved or they won't, then the Republicans will face a 2014 problem."

Some Obama allies say the president views OFA as a way of marshaling—and extending beyond the traditional two years of a second term—his political power. The organization went largely dormant after his 2008 victory, mobilized only during late-inning pushes to secure health-care and Wall Street legislation.

Obama, though, has a mountain to climb to reach the 65 percent approval rating enjoyed by Clinton in the run-up to the 1998 midterm elections. Gallup pegs Obama's approval rating at 51 percent. And it's only going to get harder for the president, with more dysfunction, brinksmanship, and acrimony between him and House Republicans as we hurtle toward Election Day 2014. Of course GOPers recognize that, the moment Obama secured his own political future, he began plotting their defeat. But, practically, that means any chance of a "grand bargain" or a compromise on a big piece of legislation is fading fast.

The 2014 elections are well underway. We're in for 20 ugly months of partisan warfare here in Washington.

Coal Giant's $10 Million Loan to Democrats Is Now a $10 Million Donation

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Mar. 1, 2013 8:49 AM PST

The Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, Va. Harry E. Walker/ZUMA Press

Last summer, with organizers struggling to raise enough money for the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, party planners turned to Duke Energy, headquartered in Charlotte, for help. Duke, the nation's largest utility company, stepped up with a $10 million line of credit for the convention. Organizers insisted Duke would be repaid after the convention.

Or…not.

A Duke Energy official told the Charlotte Observer on Thursday that Democratic officials would not repay the $10 million they owe the company. Instead, Duke Energy will write off the loan as a business expense. Shareholders are expected to absorb $6 million of the cost of the loan.

In effect, Duke Energy's "loan" has turned out to be a $10 million contribution to the Democratic convention. Duke CEO Jim Rogers hinted at this possibility in an interview with the Observer last month, when it was becoming clear the Democrats might not repay the company. "At the end of the day, we'll do our best to get our money back," he said. "But if we don't, it's just a contribution we're making I think for the greater good of our community."

The decision by Democratic organizers not to repay the loan smacks of hypocrisy. In the run-up to the convention, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chair of the Democratic National Committee, vowed that convention organizers would not accept corporate money. "We will make this the first convention in history that does not accept any funds from lobbyists, corporations, or political action committees," she said. Yet even before the Duke loan became a straight-up donation, various convention committees revealed that they had accepted corporate money. One committee took in at least $5 million in corporate money to rent Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena and a million more in in-kind contributions from AT&T, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Costco.

Asked about this hypocrisy, Democratic officials have responded by noting that their anti-corporate-cash pledge was self-imposed. Legally, they could use corporate money to fund their convention. Which, in the end, is precisely what they did.