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 Smear Machine Targets Elizabeth Warren

The progressive favorite hasn't even officially launched her Senate campaign, but the mud is already flying.

—By Andy Kroll

| Wed Aug. 31, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren has yet to officially declare whether she'll challenge Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in 2012—but already Massachusetts Republicans are flinging mud in her direction and previewing their attack plan if she does jump into the race.

Since Warren formed an exploratory committee on August 18, Brown's staff and the Massachusetts Republican Party have branded Warren a carpetbagger, an elitist, and a candidate too liberal to represent the Bay State. Using press releases, public statements, and even an anonymous Twitter account, GOPers have depicted Warren, a Harvard professor and middle-class champion who launched the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as a political nonentity and "another Martha Coakley." The latter refers to the state's Democratic attorney general who, despite greater name recognition and the advantage of running for a seat controlled by Democrats for more than 50 years, was upset by Brown in a 2010 special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy. "If the first few days of professor Warren's campaign are any indicator, Massachusetts Democrats will soon be yearning for the golden days of Martha Coakley," sniped Jennifer Nassour, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts GOP in August.

Kevin Franck, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, says Republicans are attacking Warren to shift the debate away from Brown's Senate record. Franck points to Brown's votes to undercut the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill, limit the power of the Environmental Protection Agency, and cut millions of dollars in funding for summer youth jobs programs in Massachusetts. "The reason that Scott Brown, his allies, and the Massachusetts Republican party is throwing mud all over the place is because they don't want to talk about how Scott Brown's been voting since he's been in the US Senate," Franck says.

[Read the full article]

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Rick Perry: Transparency Is Good—Except When I'm in Charge

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Aug. 29, 2011 6:55 AM PDT

Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

In a visit to New Hampshire earlier this month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now the frontrunner in the GOP presidential field, urged the Federal Reserve to open up its books to the public and "be transparent so that the people of the United States know what they are doing and how they are doing." If only Perry would do the same for his decade as the governor of Texas.

Despite paying lip service to transparency and open government, Perry has gone out of his way to mask his activities in the Texas governor's office. As the Houston Chronicle reported, Perry is unlikely to hand over the kind of information—travel and meeting records, schedules, donor contacts, and more—that George W. Bush provided, more than 3,000 pages in all, when he left the Texas governor's mansion for the White House. "He has been governor longer than anyone in Texas history," the Chronicle said, "but there is a lot the public does not know about Rick Perry."

Perry and his administration have withheld information in 100 public-records requests during his time in Austin, and on occasion failed to respond on time to other records requests as required by state law. His administration has also refused to hand over notes and records about how the state's two honeypots for economic growth, the Emerging Technology Fund and the Texas Enterprise Fund, decided to dole out grant money, including on one occasion to a company owned by a Perry donor. The Chronicle went so far as to sue the Perry administration for refusing to hand over notes on its decision not to grant clemency to Cameron Todd Willingham, a man who was executed in 2004 after being convicted of multiple murders on the basis of flawed arson pseudoscience.

Perry also closely guards records of his own travel as governor:

In contrast to Bush's extensive appointments records, Perry has left the country without it being reflected on his public schedule. Reporters learned that he took a 2004 trip to the Bahamas with San Antonio businessman James Leininger, a Perry campaign donor, and anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist after being spotted scuba-diving by a tourist. The trip did not appear on his schedule released under the state Public Information Act. At the time, press secretary Kathy Walt acknowledged that Perry had begun releasing a far less complete report of his time after hiring a new scheduler. She also noted that "the Open Meetings Act and the Public Information Act have certain exemptions."

Most of Perry's travel is paid by campaign funds and detailed reports are not required to be disclosed. After the Bahamas trip, newspapers requested and got copies of the expenses paid for Perry's Department of Public Safety security detail—and noted that the state picked up the tab for scuba equipment to accompany the governor. Since then, Perry has blocked public viewing of his security detail's travel expense reports.

The Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News have sued for the records. Two lower court rulings favored the newspapers, but the Texas Supreme Court in June agreed with Perry that his personal safety concerns were grounds for withholding the information.

Before that ruling was announced, proposed legislation keeping the governor's travel security expenses private drew controversy in the Texas Legislature. The bill died in a Senate committee after lawmakers objected that the public should know if a state official misused a travel security detail.

Perry leaned on lawmakers to include language in a school finance bill passed in the Legislature's special session that would keep secret for 18 months the travel vouchers of his security team. Until then, the public would be able to view only summary reports that disclose a trip's destination, but not specific businesses visited or the names of family members accompanying the governor.

A Rick Perry presidency, it appears, could deal an even harsher blow to transparency and openness in federal government than seen under President George W. Bush and, to some extent, under President Obama. In March, Ellen Miller, the director of the Sunlight Foundation, a DC-based organization committed to more open government, blasted Obama's record on transparency, saying his administration was "tremendously disappointing" in 2010 and that 2011 wasn't looking any better. Transparency and openness, Miller worried, had tumbled far down the priority list for President Obama. For Rick Perry, it appears transparency was never particularly important from the start.

Quote of the Day: All Tax Relief is Not Created Equal

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Aug. 26, 2011 11:12 AM PDT

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Buried in a New York Times story today on Congressional Republicans' opposition to extending a payroll tax cut that would mostly benefit the working and middle classes is this gem of a quote from Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor:

"All tax relief is not created equal. If the goal is job creation, Leader Cantor has long believed that there are better ways to grow the economy and create jobs than temporary payroll tax relief." [emphasis mine]

This is, on its face, an accurate statement. As the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office noted last year, some tax cuts boost the economy more than others—cutting the payroll tax cut for employers, for instance, provides more of an immediate jolt to the economy than cutting it for employees, as President Obama is now recommending. (Mind you, of all the policy options in Congress' toolkit, the CBO ranked increased aid to jobless workers as the most effective. That option is nowhere on the GOP's radar.)

Obama's payroll tax cut extension for employees would help the economy. "The increase in take-home pay would spur additional spending by the households receiving the higher income, and that higher spending would, in turn, increase production and employment," the CBO explained. Sure, households would save some of that money, but plenty more would be spent. Economist Mark Zandi (a former John McCain adviser) said in June that extending the payroll tax cut is a "reasonable" idea that would provide a much-needed short-term jolt to the economy. "Without that payroll tax cut this year," Zandi went on, "I think we'd be skirting recession now because of the higher energy prices."

Back to Cantor's flack and the GOP's "all tax relief is not created equal" talking point. So if payroll tax cuts for employees aren't the answer for tax-cut-loving Republicans, what is? Well, let's take a look at their record and their jobs plans. Looming large, of course, are the GOP's beloved 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, which mostly benefitted the very wealthy and did little to stimulate the economy. Slashing taxes also features prominently in the jobs plans of GOP leaders such as Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan. In its analysis, the CBO ranked lowering income taxes dead last in its effectiveness.

Why, then, does the GOP support these ineffective tax relief plans? Could it be because the minority of wealthy Americans who do benefit are the same people who bankroll their campaigns?

Paul Ryan Dodges Angry Cheeseheads

The GOP congressman's only town-hall style event is a $15-dollar-per-person talk outside his district.

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Aug. 26, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)

Bright and early Wednesday morning, a lively band of Wisconsinites arrived at Rep. Paul Ryan's Kenosha constituent-services office for a fifth straight day of protests and sit-ins. The protesters were demanding face time with the Republican, who has scheduled no public town hall meetings in his district during Congress' August recess. This time, however, a police officer was waiting for the protesters at Ryan's front door with a message from the congressman: Get lost.

Over the past week, hundreds of people, a mix of constituents and other angry Wisconsinites, have marched outside Ryan's Kenosha and Racine offices, angry over what they see as Ryan's inaccessibility and refusal to face his constituents in a free, public, in-person town hall. For four days, they also held sit-ins inside Ryan's Kenosha office—until police kicked them out. The only in-person event on Ryan's recess calendar is an appearance at a Rotary hall outside his district with a $15 entrance fee; by contrast, Ryan held more than a dozen town halls in 2009. "This is a jobs crisis in his congressional district, an emergency," says Scott Page, 37, an unemployed Kenosha resident. "Yet he's not even listening to his own constituents."

In an August 18 statement, Ryan said, "I pride myself on being accessible to those I represent." Conor Sweeney, a spokesman for the House budget committee, which Ryan chairs, wrote in an email that the Kenosha protesters had been offered a chance to participate in a conference call with Ryan, and that their actions "were preventing Congressman Ryan's staff from serving other constituents." Claims that Ryan was inaccessible or avoiding angry constituents were "inaccurate," Sweeney said.

[Read the full article]

CEOs, Hollywood, and Corporations, Oh My! Meet the Super PAC Bankrollers

—By Andy Kroll

| Thu Aug. 25, 2011 6:56 AM PDT

GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry has six super PACs raising and spending cash on his behalf.

Super PACs, the relatively new breed of political action committee that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, are shaping up to be the hottest political money story of the 2012 elections. Offspring of the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, super PACs can't donate to or coordinate with political candidates. But anybody who's anybody in American politics, it seems, has an affiliated super PAC fighting on his or her behalf—Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann (two), Ron Paul, Rick Perry (six!), Ron Paul, Stephen Colbert, and more. There are also super PACs fighting for Democratic and Republicans in the House and Senate, and still others run by tea partiers and labor unions. All told, there are more than 100 super PACs in existence today.

Election Day 2012 may be 15 months away, but the number-crunchers at the Center for Responsive Politics have helpfully laid out everything you need to know about an already a cash-flush, crowded super PAC field. Conservative super PACs are so far leading the charge, having raised $17.6 million in the first half of this year; the bulk of that money—$12.2 million—went to Restore Our Future PAC, a pro-Romney outfit. Liberal super PACs raked in $7.6 million, with Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama group started by two former Obama White House aides, raising $3.2 million.

Other super PAC heavyweights include American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-inspired group that spent $21.5 million in the 2010 midterm elections, according to CRP. American Bridge 21st Century, a cutting-edge hub of opposition research conceived by Media Matters for America founder David Brock, ranked fourth in fundraising among all super PACs. The super PAC affiliated with the Communications Workers of America ranked ninth.

But there's one big takeaway from from the Center's analysis: the vast majority of the cash flowing into super PACs' coffers comes from a elite group donors including CEOs, Hollywood big wigs, corporations, and unions. The fears that the Citizens United decision would allow wealthy individuals and companies to exert more influence in American elections are quickly coming to fruition:

Liberal Super PACs

* Of the $7.6 million raised, more than eight of every ten dollars—or $6.24 million of it—came from just 23 donors.

* Of those 23 blue-chip donors, 45 percent came from the entertainment industry, including DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks

* Twenty-six percent of blue-chip donors were CEOs not in the entertainment industry

* Twenty-five percent of blue-chip donors were labor unions

Conservative Super PACs

* Of the $17.6 million pocketed, more than eight of every ten dollars came from just 35 donors

* Sixty-six percent of those blue-chip donors are CEOs

* Eighteen percent came from corporate treasuries, a company's main money pot

* Sixteen percent came from people who work at Bain Capital, which Romney founded three decades ago

Here are the fundraising totals for top 18 super PACs in the first half of 2011:

PAC	Cash Raised	Slant
Restore Our Future PAC	$12,231,700	C
American Crossroads	$3,929,381	C
Priorities USA Action	$3,161,535	L
American Bridge 21st Century	$1,562,775	L
Cooperative of American Physicians	$1,235,447	N/A
Majority PAC	$1,082,407	L
House Majority PAC	$985,000	L
Club for Growth Action	$440,693	C
Communication Workers of America	$295,000	L
Raising Red	$200,000	C
Americans for Rick Perry	$193,000	C
Women Vote!	$165,833	C
America's Families First Action Fund	$160,374	L
Faith Family Freedom Fund	$124,870	C
America's President Committee	$124,343	C
Christine PAC	$119,914	C
America Votes Action Fund	$73,061	L
Texas Tea Party Patriots PAC	$56,755	C

Conservative Super PACs	$17,612,012
Liberal Super PACs	$7,612,459