Because I’ve written extensively on Dark Money in Oklahoma elections, it felt like a truly amusing way to pass what little free time we all have left as we try and navigate today’s skyrocketing inflation, making up titles and concepts for the Dark Money mailers sure to inundate our mailboxes right before the June 16th Primary Election.
But first, let’s take a poll:
Maybe some of our political consulting friends will opt in to the poll!
Here’s a clip of the ROPE Report podcast from Wednesday, May 6th, where Michael and I had fun making jokes about this very thing:
So, if you’d like to join in on the fun, make sure to drop YOUR idea for a dark money mailer against Jenni in the comments below! (PS: please make them clean, funny and not gross or mean – we’re just having fun here!)
The Ward 3 City Council race is beginning to blow up as it heads into the stretch for the finish line with voters going to the polls on Tuesday, February 11th.
Two candidates are vying for the Ward 3 seat, the incumbent, Barbara Peck and her challenger, Katrina Avers.
Ward 3 contains the City of Mustang and the Will Rogers International Airport.
Candidate positions aside, when former ROPE Board Member Julia Seay sent me the direct mail piece published at the top of the article, it felt important to look into exactly who was funding both candidates.
The address of the direct mail piece is 6608 N. Western Avenue #1392, Oklahoma City, OK 73116. There is a phone number listed as 405-534-4870, but it is clearly a Google number with a generic “leave a message” voice note. The card says it is “authorized and paid for by The Revitalization Project”.
The address goes to the Nichols Hills Pack-n-Ship. If you’ve read any of my articles on Dark Money in Oklahoma, you’ll know that this is an often-used address in the Dark Money world. It was used to knock out Ronda Peterson in Edmond’s HD39 election. In addition, it was also used for numerous other PACS during the 2022 election cycle.
Consequently, I looked up The Revitalization Project. Here’s what I found:
There is no listed entity for them as an Oklahoma registered PAC in the Guardian System on the Oklahoma Ethics Commission website.
There is no listing for them as a PAC on the FEC website (Federal Election Commission).
Consequently, we know that The Revitalization Project is NOT A PAC, it is a 501C-4 organization that is OPERATING AS A PAC.
The Revitalization Project was begun with a Dayton, Ohio address and in 2010. This is the year the Citizens United court case opened the door for dark money funding of political campaigns. I am going to paste a copy of the Dark Money flow chart I made in 2022 below for reference.
For the first several years, there were no expenditures and post cards were filed as the organization had less than $50k in filings. The organization has changed it’s structure several times over the past decade, but in 2017 and 2018, Demetria Gill was identified as the President, Norma Church was the Secretary and Evan Handy the Treasurer.
Evan Handy is the manager of South Creek Group (SCG), a political consulting group linked with numerous Dark Money PACS/501C-4’s in my 2022 research – as with the Advance Oklahoma and Build and Protect PACs above. In 2020, only Alex Mendez was listed as Director, with no one else associated with the organization and in 2022 the address for The Revitalization Project changed from Dayton, to Springfield, Virginia.
Looking through the organizations 990’s, several names identified with Dark Money PACs in 2022 were listed. In 2020, the C4 received $160k from America’s Values First. In 2021 they received money from the Commonwealth Conservative Fund and in 2022, they donated to Americans United for Values ($100k), Affordable Energy PAC ($155k), A Public Voice ($72k) and $750k to the American Exceptionalism Institute to name a few.
Why in the world, is an organization like this involved in an Oklahoma City Council Race?
Up to now, Barbara Peck has spent a little over $47 thousand dollars.
She’s received money from the Oklahoma Realtor’s PAC ($2500), OMCA PAC (Oklahoma Municipal Contractors $2500) and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber PAC ($4000), Oklahoma Firefighters Association PAC ($5000)
In individual contributions, she’s had $2500 contributed by Terry Zerby (a developer), PB Odom – a developer – $1000 and a bit over $1000 by Xavier Neira – a Norman developer – and 2 donations from Tyler Media for $800. There are other $500 from developers and contractors as well
Then, there’s this rather large donation:
KATRINA AVERS
Dr. Avers has, up to now, spent a bit over $7600.
Her largest donations have been individuals: Dr. Warren G. Low ($3300) and his wife Peggy ($3300). The second highest have been 2, $1000 donations from Randy and Lana Elliott Construction Unlimited.
The rest of her donations have been under $500.
CLOSING
Look, I understand that Peck is the incumbent in an Oklahoma City Ward with a lot of growth and growth potential, but there is an ENORMOUS difference in these two candidates in terms of their fund raising. It is apparent that Peck’s supporters are hoping (nay, expecting) to see quite a bit of work in the Ward.
Is that all that good governance is about? Creating growth and jobs? In this Ward – after the million dollars worth of amphitheater was voted down by residents – I don’t think so.
No general Oklahoma voter can exercise their vote for one of the most important political positions in the legislature – Speaker of the House. Why, you might ask? Though that’s an excellent and reasonable question, I honestly don’t know, but as long as I’ve been aware, we’ve had to rely on our elected House Representatives to do that for us – often in secret vote.
What, you might say? How can the leader of the House – the one that picks the Committee Chairs, the one that decides what bills are heard, the one that sets the tone for the House of Representatives and can break a tie with their vote on any contentious legislation heard in committee – not be voted on by Oklahoma voters, though he or she would lead one entire half of the body of our legislature? Well, again, that’s a really excellent question.
Here’s what it says about the process in the article announcing Hilbert’s election – because there is nothing on the Oklahoma Legislature website that explains how the Speaker of the House is elected.
Under majority caucus rules, the speaker-designate for the upcoming Legislature is selected through a caucus election on the first Monday in March during election years. The 60th Legislature will be seated after November’s elections and convene for its first session in 2025. The entire body of the House will formally vote on its next speaker on organizational day for the 60th Oklahoma Legislature in early January 2025.
Majority (Republican) caucus rules can change every year, so that’s a comforting notion.
But not so fast. There is at least one other vote for House Speaker, so Hilbert’s ascendancy isn’t written in stone.
And why shouldn’t there be another vote? Some of the members of the House at the time of the first vote were either term-limited, or voted out in the primaries. Some still face a candidate in the November 5th election. Why should Representatives who won’t even be seated in the House during the 2025 session vote on the Speaker position instead of the newly elected Representatives who will serve in that legislature?
Recently, representative Tom Gann of Inola has thrown his hat in the ring to challenge Kyle Hilbert for Speaker. (Here’s a bit about Tom Gann from Ballotpedia.)
I thought it might be interesting to compare the two candidates, so I went through the Oklahoma Ethics Guardian System and pulled their Ethics reports from January through August – the first three quarters of the filing year. To make it easy to read, I loaded both Contributions and Expenses data for each candidate into an Excel spreadsheet.
Here is Tom Gann’s. Representative Gann has been in the House since 2016.
Here is Kyle Hilbert’s. Hilbert has also been in the Oklahoma House since 2016.
Totals are at the bottom of each column, but let me recap:
Tom Gann had no contributions for the first three reporting quarters. He had no real expenses other than the loan he repaid himself from 2023.
During that same time period, Kyle Hilbert took $1900 from individuals (including former legislators), $5750 from lobbyists, $61,151.32 from 38 different PACs (9 originating out of state), $20,657.67 from individuals associated with some kind of a business (the entry was John Smith, CEO of XYZ Corporation) and $2950 from two separate tribes – for a total of $92,408.99.
Hilbert’s expenses are not fully listed here. I picked out his payments to other House members – a total of $97,200.00). He also paid CAMP and James Martin Company for his political needs. Both often work together in the world of Oklahoma political consulting.
This is a video of Kyle Hilbert from a KFOR political program on Sunday mornings. Please note. According to him, his job is to get Republicans elected to office.
Clearly, he’s not read the Constitution. That is NOT his job. His job is to protect the liberty of his constituents. Please also note – he was convinced that former Chair of the House Appropriations Committee Kevin Wallace would be re-elected. In a stunning victory for LIBERTY in Lincoln and surrounding counties, citizens came out during a hot July primary to UNELECT Kevin Wallace because he was more interested in special interests than his own constituents – kind of like Kyle Hilbert.
The Hilliary family are big political donors, including to Governor Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent Ryan Walters. We looked at the Hilliarys’ political contributions since 2015 and found they donated $705,803.20 to candidates and PACS that support them. $249,315.60 of that came directly from Hilliary Communications co-CEO Dustin Hilliary. In April, Dustin was appointed by Governor Stitt to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, even though Dustin, himself, does not hold a college degree.
Here is an invitation for a fund-raiser for the PAC. Note, that James Martin Company – who is paid many multiple thousands of dollars by Hilbert’s campaign account – is taking RSVPs.
The main donations to the PAC are other PACs, lobbyists and individuals associated with companies or corporations – many of which are the same ones donating to Hilbert’s campaign.
The main expenditures from the PAC fund the campaigns of Oklahoma Representatives – including Hilbert. Why? Aren’t people from their own districts supposed to be supporting their office? Aren’t they to be Representatives of the People, not PACs or other candidates or legislators? If a candidate is receiving money from the campaign of a ‘leadership’ PAC or the Speaker Designate, what does that say about the independence of those Oklahoma Representatives? What happens when a bill is run and the Speaker needs votes? (Notice, not every legislator is on either Hilbert’s or WolfPAC’s list). Some Oklahoma legislators don’t take funds like those described above, thus circumventing any of the questions posed about their consequences.
Don’t Oklahomans have the right to wonder what happens during the next vote for Speaker? Do legislators who got checks feel the need to vote for the person who gifted them of his campaign funds? It surely does beg the question and an answer should be carefully considered.
In contrast, here is a video of Tom Gann during an October 8th Interim Study held at the capitol which described how Oklahomans can lose a host of their Constitutional rights when police officers pull over cars and use data captured by Automatic License Plate Readers.
Hmmm…is it just me, or is there really no comparison between Gann and Hilbert now that we’ve had the chance to look at them side-by-side?
Gann is funded by NO ONE – Hilbert is funded by PACs and lobbyists and individuals who represent/work with large corporations and businesses within the state – people who could very well have a stake in any legislation run through the legislature.
NOW, if any of the issues I’ve brought up concern you, contact your House Rep RIGHT NOW and ask them to vote for Tom Gann for Speaker of the House! (If you don’t know who that is, please slap yourself and then go here) It’s the only way to put government back in its box – the one that exists solely of PROTECTING OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.
List of PACs Contributing To Kyle Hilbert’s Campaign January through August, 2024
Advance Freedom PAC
Amber Integrated PAC
American Electric Power Committee for Responsible Government
American Fidelity Corp PAC
Architects Political Action Committee
Associated Builders and Contractors Oklahoma PAC
AT&T Oklahoma PAC
Beer Distributors of Oklahoma Political Action Committee
Bondsman Political Action Committee
Brightspring PAC (KY)
Boeing Company PAC
CARE PAC
Cox PAC
Delta Dental of Oklahoma For Oral Health PAC
Dentaquest PAC (MA)
Enterprise Holdings Inc. PAC (MO)
IP-PAC (DC) (also an International Paper PAC)
International Paper PAC (DC)
Invenergy Political Action Committee (IL)
Marathon Oil Company PAC (TX)
OK Beef PAC
Oklahoma Academy of Physician Associates
Oklahoma Committee of Automobile Retailers
Oklahoma’s Electric Cooperatives PAC
Oklahoma Funeral Directors Association PAC
Oklahoma Optometric Political Action Committee
Oklahoma Pharmacists Association PAC
Oklahoma Society of Certified Public Accountants Political Action Committee
On our podcast Friday, May 17th, Michael Grande and I took election data that had been provided by former HD31 candidate Karmin Grider, and went through it on air – live. It wasn’t pretty, I can assure you, but you can see the full video for yourself on our Rumble and YouTube channels. If you’ve ever wanted to see how to look up candidates on the Oklahoma Ethics website, you can forward to 1:11:20 on the live video where I walk you through the process.
We began our video with state Senator Jessica Garvin. She was elected to SD43 in 2020. This year, Senator Garvin is being challenged by McClain County Assessor, Kendal Sacchieri. We interviewed her about school financing April 3rd of this year and it was a fascinating interview – if not frustrating as a taxpayer.
Senator Garvin has some very low contribution stats when it comes to donations from her district. So where DOES her money come from if it isn’t coming from people who would elect her in her district? Here is the YouTube link to this short.
We talked briefly about Senator Greg McCortney as well, though we’ve talked about him with Karmin before in February of 2024. McCortney is being challenged this year by fellow Republican Jonathan Wingard.
This video is a bit over 2 minutes, but it’s very well worth the watch to see who funds Greg McCortney’s Senate campaigns – very instructive.
Now let’s jump to the Oklahoma House.
We’ll start with Oklahoma Representative Kevin Wallace. Representative Wallace has been in his HD32 chair in the legislature since 2014. He is the head of the Appropriations and Budget Committee in the House – a very important assignment. So important in fact, that over the course of his 10 years in the House, he’s run almost ONE MILLION dollars through his campaigns.
From there, let’s talk about Representative Mark McBride. He was elected to the Oklahoma Legislature HD53 in 2012. In Oklahoma, Representatives are only allowed to serve 12 years (thank goodness!), so Representative McBride will not return to session in 2025. Four candidates are running for that seat – all Republicans: KATHREN STEHNO (who ran against McBride last term), JASON BLAIR, NICK POKORNY and HEATHER BOSS. HD53 will need to do their DUE DILIGENCE on each candidate.
It might be interesting to know who funded Mark McBride’s campaigns over the course of a dozen years in the legislature because it surely wasn’t people in his district.
Our next House member is John Talley from HD33, who was elected in 2018. Talley has been challenged by fellow Republican Brice Chaffin twice and this year, former ROPE Board member Molly Jenkins is running to take his seat.
Only 1.2% of Talley’s campaign financing comes from INSIDE his own district. Maybe that’s why Jenkin’s campaign motto is NO LOBBYIST MONEY? Find the ROPE Report Short here on YouTube.
Next, we’ll talk about Cynthia Roe from HD42, elected in 2018. Hers is one of the lowest funded campaigns from inside her district. Roe couldn’t even garner a tenth of one percent of her campaign finances from her own district. Why? Maybe the answer explains why she has two challengers this year – Matt Huggins and Tony Bowen.
The last House District member we profiled in our Friday’s ROPE Report Live podcast, was Representative John Pfeiffer from HD38, elected in 2014. Representative Pfeiffer had absolutely the worst rating of all the legislators we reviewed for Friday’s podcast for in-district donations. In fact, according to data assimilated by Karmin Grider from Oklahoma Ethics Commission data,
John Pfeiffer had only NINE PEOPLE IN HIS DISTRICT DONATE TO HIS CAMPAIGN OVER 10 YEARS
Who in the world could John Pfeiffer serve if for over 10 years, only 9 people financially supported his campaigns?
Interestingly, part of Pfeiffer’s district happens to be Blackwell, a town which our V1SUT Vantage Substack author and podcast regular has hammered numerous times in numerous different articles from allowing drag queens to perform in a public park and associated issues with their city council and city attorney, to GIVING Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower to a group of what look to be BitCoin scammers.
This year, Pfeiffer does have a CHALLENGER in Marven Goodman. If you are in the district, look him up. It would certainly appear that HD38 could use a Representative of the PEOPLE and not the corporate.
In closing, I’d like to point out – for those who think it’s really no big deal that these elected officials are bought and paid for by corporatists – how the election cycle actually works and how the educated voter gets screwed.
Here’s how it very often works: Campaign consultants (or legislators themselves), find people in districts who they believe can win an election because they have some kind of name recognition – usually they own a business. The candidate then raises money through his/her candidate campaign and their consultant may tap into a direct network of PAC’s funded in great part by 501C4’s (dark money) to buy items like mailers – sometimes two a week at approximately $6 thousand a pop – push polling through text messages, Facebook/social media ads and, if possible, radio and TV.
Because they know that most people have no idea where to get information on voters (even though the thing in their hand they use to watch incessant cat videos on social media uses Google and could pull up a candidate’s website with a basic search) and because they know that most people believe something they read due to personal confirmation biases, they know that putting together slick mailers and ads that stick to specific talking points and misuse, or misinform readers about candidates, will win votes.
So yes, people in their district may elect candidates, but the process is highly suspect and works only because people remain (willfully?) ignorant of how to vet candidates.
So what is the answer to getting representation in the state capitol that care about their district and not their corporate sponsors?
SHARE THE INFORMATION YOU GATHER ABOUT CANDIDATES WITH OTHERS; neighbors and friends are more willing to believe you than an ad. SET THEM STRAIGHT. Post to social media, call, stop by – whatever works. This is really the only way. We’re never going to beat these people with money – they’ll always have more than us. The only way to beat the game is by waking up others and getting information directly to them that they can use to vote – and in turn influence others on their own.
(Addendum – Per Julia Sublett, 2.12.24, “Charles Sublett does not work for Catalyst and [sic] not supporting any candidates”.)
Today I received a text message:
In case you can’t read the fine print circled in red:
I hope ANYONE who might have gotten this text had the first question that popped into their mind be simply, “Why?”.
That was mine. Why would a group called “Catalyst Oklahoma” want to send me a text to call Senator McCortney and tell him how much he means to me – even though he’s not even my Senator. I guess because I’ve been told he’s “conservative”, I should be honor-bound as a conservative to call him and thank him for all the “conservative” things he’s done for me?
For those who aren’t familiar with the “inside baseball” happening at the capitol right now, there is a 3-way race for leadership of the Senate this year. Current Pro-Temp, termed-out Senator Greg Treat, will be replaced by either Senators David Bullard, Casey Murdock, or Greg McCortney. Interesting timing on the text message rallying support around this particular, “conservative” in the Senate I would say.
During the 2022 elections, I wrote several articles about the use of “dark money” in Oklahoma elections. One article, dealt with Catalyst Oklahoma donations to Kristen Thompson, challenger to seated senator at the time, Jake Merrick. Thompson won that election.
So who/what is Catalyst Oklahoma? According to information I collected in 2022, Catalyst Oklahoma is a 501C4 (dark money) organization which included ties to both Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs (through OCPA board member [according to the OCPA website as of 12.12.24] and President of Catalyst Oklahoma, Charles Sublett) and the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce (through Chamber board member Allen Wright and Director of Catalyst Oklahoma).
Catalyst Oklahoma has no 990 (which are to be public documents) tax form available on the IRS website (use the EIN#46-4126174) after 2020 – why?
Cause IQ has information indicating that Catalyst Oklahoma made a 50K donation to the State Chamber in 2022, but there is no linked 990 so I’m uncertain from where that information came
Cause IQ lists Catalyst Oklahoma 2022 revenues at $773,120
Cause IQ lists Catalyst Oklahoma 2022 expenses at $704,193
their website is still listed as okunited.org, but it no longer has information that opposes closed primaries as it did in 2022 (check out the popup from the wayback machine when you navigate to the site)
Also of interest is the fact that Catalyst Oklahoma spent a total of $40,000 against Dusty Deevers – conservative Republican – in the District 32 (2023) special election for state senate (Oklahoma Ethics Guardian System Independent Expenditures search 2.10.24).
For conservatives, Catalyst Oklahoma suddenly sending out loving texts about Greg McCortney, should send you a message. If you get that message, please contact YOUR SENATOR and ask them to vote NO for McCortney as Pro-Temp on Monday.
While ROPE does not support candidates as a group, I can say that I’ve known David Bullard for several years and have found him to be (excepting a vote for our state’s educational voucher bill) very conservative, if you’re interested in an alternative.
PS: This little text messaging stunt is just another reason why we need to get
In the now on-going saga of candidate Ronda Peterson running for a seat in HD39, I received a text message after yesterday’s article publication from Peterson, who sent me a screenshot of a candidate ‘push’ poll she received from a friend dated November 27th.
Here are a couple screenshots Peterson took of the poll.
NOTE: This text says “Ronda Peterson WAS removed…” from her position, but it does NOT SAY from what school system she was fired. This kind of a poll hopes to trap uneducated voters into NOT paying attention to the fact that the name of the school from which Ronda was presumably fired IS NOT LISTED, hoping that readers will tend to believe it’s the school where she is currently employed. As the Ballotpedia definition for push polling points out, this is VERY, VERY bad stuff.
Here’s why:
Yup, not only did someone BELIEVE the lie in the push poll, that person in turn SPREAD THE LIE on her Facebook page (and most probably other places) to influence other people about her candidacy.
Ronda asked Edmond Public Schools Administration to make a public statement – not on her behalf as a candidate – but about her employment status. Though Peterson has been employed with Edmond Public Schools for 22 years, she was refused on grounds that EPS policy prevents them from commenting on an employee’s employment status.
She also tried to expose the lie of the poll by taking a picture of herself on her bus with a paper showing the current date – which she posted to her Facebook page – but that was about all she could do to tamp down the nonsense.
So…is push polling legal? What about the fact that it libeled Peterson?
Yes, push polling is legal, and many people use it in political campaigns to try and ‘push’ their candidate – and not just political consultants. In fact, ANYONE could do a push poll, so where this particular libelous push poll came from is a complete mystery without some kind of lead back to the company from which it was generated. The phone number used for this poll has a DC area code and is probably Google in origin – there’s no way to tell without paying a reverse look-up service and even then the odds aren’t great of actually determining anything. The “State Election Research” title comes up in no internet search I performed, so it’s likely just a phrase used as an appeal to authority – again, to influence unsuspecting voters.
Libel on the other hand is illegal – but only if it can be proved in a court of law. Here’s the problem, more than likely it can’t and the legal process to try and prove it is quite expensive.
So what happens to candidates like Peterson who find themselves stuck at the end of this form of campaigning? Nothing. Bupkis. Nada. Zilch. You get the idea.
This gross practice needs to be exposed so voters who want to know what’s going on with the text messages they get – usually unwanted – on their cell phones, can be assured that their spidey senses are right – it’s a practice to try to trick them, not inform them.
But then, this is why I try to expose Dark Money where and when I can. It gives unfair advantage to whomever uses it for their election, by funneling tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of dollars into local races. This kind of money makes it nearly impossible for people who really want to run to help their community but have little means to mount a 100 thousand dollar political campaign, to run and become elected. The Founders of this country envisioned ‘citizen legislators‘ making decisions for the betterment of their states and their country, not people backed by large amounts of cash coming in from outside the district to seat a candidate whose interests then don’t really lie in the district to which he/she was elected.
Unfortunately, today, a large portion of Oklahomans don’t vote – in fact, in 2020, just over half of eligible voters actually voted Oklahoma’s elections – and of those half who do, few take time to really research candidates or issues. Often, these voters get their information from a push poll, a mailer, or an electronic ad and political consultants know that – it makes their job easy.
Consequently, if interested Oklahomans are going to ever see real change in Oklahoma’s elections, PEOPLE IN OKLAHOMA NOT ONLY HAVE TO VOTE – BUT BE INFORMED VOTERS.
As those of you who have followed my Dark Money posts know, Campaign Management Professionals (CAMP), run by longtime political consultant Fount Holland and his partner Mathew Parker, have worked for numerous campaigns over the years here in Oklahoma. Certainly, Mr. Holland and his colleagues have the right to work for anyone they choose here in Oklahoma, but we also have the right to publish information about candidates and their paid political consultants.
Recently, Miles Rahimi posted an amazing piece of research about Edmond HD39 District candidate Erick Harris. Clearly, the man was not only a DEMOCRAT within the recent past, but was an ACTIVE DEMOCRAT in the recent past. The photo of a smiling Mr. Harris and Nancy Pelosi at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 at the top of Rahimi’s post is a spectacular confirmation of this fact.
Note, Mr. Harris is his own Treasurer and Chairperson. No one else is reportedly involved in his campaign. This is concerning as a named treasurer (other than the candidate) speaks to transparency and should help put voters at ease when donating to the candidate’s account.
In fact, there’s nothing on Harris’ website that claims anything other than it is paid for by Friends of Erick Harris 2024.
So what in the world? This guy is running his own campaign; clearly grassroots, right? Not so fast. Here are a few mailers run in the district.
Uh-oh. What’s that I see for the indicia? Yup, you guessed it, “presort std U.S. postage PAID, CAMP”.
At a campaign event, Michael Grande (Board Member) asked Mr. Harris if CAMP was running his campaign. His comment was something akin to ‘I’m my own man. I’m not beholden to anyone.’ Well, ok. Now that we have your word on that…
But, wait – there’s more.
Because she’s sweet and wouldn’t be a pushover for anyone’s agenda, an attack mailer has surfaced against Ronda Lee Peterson.
First of all, it does crack me up! The tagline LOLOLOL. Who’s US? The DISTRICT? The political consultant class? But look at the return address – what in the world is 1907 PAC?
If you haven’t seen my Dark Money presentation, here you go. That will help you understand the screenshots I’m about to post.
The phone number for the 1907 PAC is associated with the “Free Runner Macc’s Place” a campground in Tecumseh, OK, according to an internet search. I tried the phone number – which tagged as Yukon when I placed it – and there was no specifically listed business named, just a message saying I could leave a message.
I searched the PAC’s address and – LOW AND BEHOLD – it came up at a FedEx in Nichols Hills. Below is a screenshot of the Table I created for my (still in progress) paper to include all the information listed in my video. Does anything seem familiar?
Oh by gosh, by golly; major shock…anything look familiar here? Note, this PAC was created THIS March and, of course, the treasurer is Dustin McIntyre (our favorite PAC treasurer who has no internet profile I can find anywhere).
Note also that Advance Oklahoma PAC is found at the same address.
I don’t think it takes a resurrected Sherlock Holmes to see that the 1907 PAC is associated with CAMP and other organizations that have been identified within the Dark Money ring in Oklahoma. Note the disbursements from the PAC earlier this year.
Now, note the initial AND ONLY deposit to the newly-formed PAC for the year.
It’s another favorite! The American Exceptionalism Institute C-4 DARK MONEY group. You’ll note them in the upper left-hand corner in pink. This C-4 is VERY BUSY running money in and out to different PACS that operate in Oklahoma elections but which NEVER file with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission as PACs, they only file at the federal level with the FEC.
You can look at Open Secrets to find out how much and where American Exceptionalism money goes, but again, CAMP is associated with more than one of the PACs to which they donate.
In closing, there are FOUR things we asked of legislators last session to help STOP the dark money interfering in Oklahoma elections. ROPE asks you to jot down these four and make sure YOUR legislator knows you want legislation run to stop these FOUR things – all exampled in this article.
PACS can be set up with a PO box and a Google telephone number which prevents any transparency at all for the PAC – both at the federal and state level. Many PACS that operate in Oklahoma are used by the same political consultant groups such that a political consultant is paid out of the same PAC where independent expenditures for his clients are made. PACs in Oklahoma should have to have a legitimate street address and phone number where someone can be reached during regular business hours.
I have not been able to locate any internet evidence of life for at least 2 treasurers on PACS operating in Oklahoma at the federal and state level – Dustin McIntyre and John Jude. Treasurers must be residents of Oklahoma with a valid street address and telephone number where he/she can be reached during normal business hours.
PACS can give each other unlimited funds – much of which are provided by 501C4s that don’t have to provide the names of their donors. In the ‘real’ world, this could be confused with money laundering. In addition, federal law prevents foreigners from donating funds to ANY election or candidate in America. When you don’t know who donates the money to a campaign, how do you know it isn’t foreign money? Oklahoma should stop allowing DARK MONEY donations to local Oklahoma campaigns.
PACS operating in Oklahoma must be registered in Oklahoma with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission period. There should be no loophole in the Ethics rules that allow PACS operating in Oklahoma elections to register with the FEC instead of the Ethics Commission. Right now, the rules say that if a PAC is registered with the FEC it doesn’t have to register with the Ethics Commission. That’s bogus as an FEC PAC is supposed to support federal candidates, not state or local candidates, which is what is happening now. This again prevents transparency.
We’ve all seen them; the mailers that call a candidate names, but have nothing but a PAC title to identify themselves. Who are these PACs? Who or what supports them? Why is it hard to identify PAC owners? Shouldn’t we be able to ask questions of people slamming the candidates we like with seemingly unlimited money to do so? Many of us are tired of this endless dark money SWAMP and want answers. This video will give you a start at answering some questions you may have about who is influencing Oklahoma’s elections.
This is the video from the Oklahoma House of Representatives website recorded during the Interim Study on Dark Money held by the Elections and Ethics Committee at the Oklahoma State Capitol, 9/7/22.
Only the Chair, Representative Jim Olsen and the Vice-Chair, Representative Max Wolfley were in attendance for the presentation. In addition, Ethics Director Ashley Kemp left before my presentation and was not available to answer any of the questions asked in my presentation.
Please, if you have questions after watching the video above (or the full video of my presentation to the Tulsa 912) contact the members of the Elections and Ethics Committee listed below and tell them so. We must let our legislators know that the practices outlined in the video are not ok with Oklahomans and changes must be made. Transparency in elections is paramount to the continuation of our Republic.
Please send this link and any others on this website to friends and educate them about what is going on in Oklahoma elections and who’s behind the over 5 million dollars spent on Independent Expenditures in Oklahoma over the primary and run-off elections so far this year (22).
