Posted on 12/30/2013 7:06:02 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The Republican Main Street Partnership has emerged as an outspoken, deep-pocketed player in pro-business GOP plans to beat back tea-party challengers next year. But the group's new super PAC has an unexpected source for its seed money: labor unions.
The super PAC, called Defending Main Street, has not yet submitted a major donor disclosure to the Federal Election Commission. But documents filed by other groups show that two labor organizations, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Laborers' International Union of North America, directed a combined $400,000 to the Republican group in September and October.
Main Street says it has raised roughly $2 million total between its super PAC and an affiliated nonprofit group so far—and that means labor has supplied at least 20 percent of those funds.
For the unions, this is not a surprising move. While both labor groups direct most of their millions to Democrats, they have consistently given smaller amounts to friendly Republicans.
But the scale of these six-figure donations—$250,000 from the Operating Engineers and $150,000 from LIUNA—makes this effort distinct. Plus, the money is coming as the Main Street group has been publicly declaring its intent to crush tea-party challengers in Republican primaries, going head to head with conservative bankrollers such as the anti-tax Club for Growth.
"Hopefully, we'll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them," Main Street President Steven LaTourette told National Journal in October.
That puts these labor groups on the front line of the GOP's intra-party ideological conflict, a battle where the affiliation to unions won't be considered advantageous, to say the least.
Take Idaho, for example, where LaTourette and Main Street have vowed to help Republican Rep. Mike Simpson win his primary against club-backed challenger Bryan Smith.
The Club for Growth has already criticized Simpson for earning union endorsements in past elections, and it has turned other groups' support back around on Simpson, too. When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a TV ad backing Simpson on Thursday, Club for Growth president Chris Chocola said in a statement, "I guess pro-bailout, pro-Obama stimulus spending, pro-debt birds of a feather flock together."
LaTourette has pledged that Main Street will seek to match the Club's spending in that contest.
"We don't care about where Main Street gets its funding from," said Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller. "But it's not surprising that Mike Simpson, who is anti-school choice and was backed by the Idaho teachers' union six elections in a row, would get backing from groups that are supported by labor unions."
Certainly, labor is not alone in funding Main Street. The group's money is "coming from business folks, from private donors," said spokesman Chris Barron. "It has a wide range of folks who are interested in supporting the governing wing of the Republican Party."
Barron rejected critiques of Main Street's funding and positioning. "If the money came from Mother Teresa, the Club for Growth would attack where it came from," Barron said.
Both the Operating Engineers and the Laborers' Union have given millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and millions more to the party's quasi-official House and Senate super PACs over the last few years. Only one other PAC gave more to Democratic candidates than the Operating Engineers' in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
But both unions have also consistently invested in the campaigns of friendly Republicans, including LaTourette's (when he was in Congress). Earlier this year, LIUNA endorsed New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie for reelection, and its PAC gave $300,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which ran pro-Christie advertising in the Garden State.
The Operating Engineers' PAC has given 23 percent of its donations to federal candidates to Republicans this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and it supported a super PAC called "Lunch Pail Republicans" last year. At the AFL-CIO's national convention in September, the Operating Engineers and another group offered a successful resolution urging "that the AFL-CIO take practical steps ... to cultivate and nurture relationships with members of all parties" and "encourage moderate candidates" in Republican-leaning congressional districts as part of a "pragmatic, bipartisan approach" to its political giving and advocacy.
"Especially with this crazy political atmosphere, this is a place where we need to be lending support to middle-of-the-road Democrats and Republicans both, and this is part of that effort," Jeffrey Soth, the Operating Engineers' political director, said.
Defending Main Street will file its next financial disclosure with the FEC in January.
Not surprised.
Infiltrators.
Pro business PAC my butt.
Pro cronyism, pro corporate welfare
Tea Party sold out by Republican RINO traitors.
Beatcha to it, 2nd! (and that ain’t easy!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3106765/posts
Member list here!
http://www.republicanmainstreet.org/members/
RMSP Members
SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS
SENATOR MARK KIRK
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN
CONGRESSWOMAN SUSAN BROOKS
CONGRESSMAN LARRY BUCSHON
CONGRESSMAN KEN CALVERT
CONGRESSMAN DAVE CAMP
CONGRESSWOMAN SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO
CONGRESSMAN CHRIS COLLINS
CONGRESSMAN PAUL COOK
CONGRESSMAN RODNEY DAVIS
CONGRESSMAN JEFF DENHAM
CONGRESSMAN CHARLIE DENT
CONGRESSMAN MARIO DIAZ-BALART
CONGRESSMAN SEAN DUFFY
CONGRESSMAN MIKE FITZPATRICK
CONGRESSMAN JEFF FORTENBERRY
CONGRESSMAN RODNEY FRELINGHUYSEN
CONGRESSMAN JIM GERLACH
CONGRESSMAN CHRIS GIBSON
CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL GRIMM
CONGRESSMAN RICHARD HANNA
CONGRESSWOMAN JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER
CONGRESSWOMAN LYNN JENKINS
CONGRESSMAN BILL JOHNSON
CONGRESSMAN DAVID JOYCE
CONGRESSMAN MIKE KELLY
CONGRESSMAN PETER KING
CONGRESSMAN ADAM KINZINGER
CONGRESSMAN LEONARD LANCE
CONGRESSMAN TOM LATHAM
CONGRESSMAN FRANK LOBIONDO
CONGRESSMAN DAVID MCKINLEY
CONGRESSWOMAN CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS
CONGRESSMAN PAT MEEHAN
CONGRESSMAN TIMOTHY MURPHY
CONGRESSMAN ERIK PAULSEN
CONGRESSMAN THOMAS PETRI
CONGRESSMAN TOM W. REED
CONGRESSMAN DAVID REICHERT
CONGRESSMAN JIM RENACCI
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT RIGELL
CONGRESSMAN JON RUNYAN
CONGRESSMAN AARON SCHOCK
CONGRESSMAN MIKE SIMPSON
CONGRESSMAN STEVE STIVERS
CONGRESSMAN LEE TERRY
CONGRESSMAN PAT TIBERI
CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL TURNER
CONGRESSMAN FRED UPTON
CONGRESSMAN DAVID VALADAO
CONGRESSMAN GREG WALDEN
CONGRESSMAN ED WHITFIELD
CONGRESSMAN FRANK WOLF
CONGRESSMAN TODD YOUNG
Only the gullible believes what a politician says.
The rest of us believe only in what a politician does.
RINOs cave in to Socialist-Democrats, and all politicians in “both” parties spend more than we pay them.
Yup, the TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY Party is here to stay.
Deal with it.
>> Defending Main Street
Union shops on Main St... that’s a joke. Unions despise what Main St stands for.
2014 — the year to vote out the RINOs!
I note that Indiana’s newest “rock solid conservative, Susan Brooks, is member. Doesn’t surprise me. In her first year she’s voted with the RINOS, and against the conservatives, on every major vote.
No surprise here. Liberals are liberals.
Around here, the acronym for the operating engineers is MAFIA.
the left knows how to spend their bucks….almost looks the same as a Karl Rove effort….interesting huh?
No surprise that it’s a couple of scumbag, “international” unions. They are loaded down with American-hating foreigners and illegal aliens. Check out the SEIU membership. All scumbags from the get go.
My first reaction as I encountered this post was - this is part of a disinformation campaign in which Democrats hope to split Republican support.
My last reaction was - this is part of a disinformation campaign in which Democrats hope to split Republican support.
What made you change your mind? [snort]
“What made you change your mind? [snort]”
8^)
If it sports a union label, I don’t buy it.
the lesson to be learned is that Conservatives need to back candidates in selected DEM primaries. Not y’all. But them all. The rich conservatives. The ones who don’t have enough money as it is to compete even in the GOP and in the general election. BUT some day.
Caution Gentlemen:
The National Journal is a Sarcasm Site.
It is BOGUS News. Nothing they say can be taken seriously.
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