Something Smells At Pew. Inside Its Manipulative, Big-Money Campaign for “Campaign Finance Reform”

Capital Research (link is to pdf file) ^ | June 2005

[John Jorsett]

Summary: A bombshell revelation by a former officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts revealed the charity giant’s surreptitious but successful effort to manipulate the Congress into passing the McCain-Feingold Law. Here’s how they did it.

The March 12, 2004 seminar panel at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication had a very dull title: “Philanthropy and Public Policy: Foundation Strategies for Social Change.” But the remarks by Sean Treglia were incendiary.

Treglia, a former vice president of the Pew Charitable Trusts, was supposed to be addressing a roomful of reporters attending an academic seminar on how the news media should cover issues in philanthropy. But a year later, courtesy of the Internet, the nation was learning a lesson in how big foundations use money to influence politics. Treglia revealed how the Pew Charitable Trusts distributed over $20 million in grants to a network of twenty-two tax-exempt nonprofits. Their assignment? Promote new legislation to stop tax-paying individuals from spending their own money in order to participate in the political process. On a streaming video that is available online ( http://www.rhsager.com/mo/2005/03/full_treglia_vi.html), Treglia can be heard saying, “The reason why I’m telling you this—because I’m gonna tell you a story I’ve never told any reporter. And now that I’m several months away from Pew and we have campaign finance reform I can tell this story.”

Treglia had no idea that his comments would create a firestorm of controversy. In an exclusive interview with Capital Research Center, he argues that he has been intentionally misrepresented. “I made some remarks that were purposefully taken out of context by a group of individuals opposed to campaign finance reform to advance their political agenda. I have maintained all along that they are at best confused in their interpretations of my remarks.” (A portion of the interview appears on page 6. The full interview is available at the Capital Research Center website, http//:www.capitalresearch.com, under “CRC Highlights.”)

However, at the seminar Treglia was not shy about describing the foundation’s efforts to spur passage of the 2002 McCain- Feingold law against “soft money.” He described what might be dubbed the “Grassroots Potemkin Strategy,” a deliberate effort to fool members of Congress into believing that there existed broad grassroots support for specific legislation. Treglia stated, “The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot. That everywhere they [members of Congress] looked, in academic institutions, in the business community, in religious groups, in ethnic groups, everywhere, people were talking about reform.”

Without violating the tax laws requiring that its grants be publicly disclosed, how would Pew make this movement appear genuine and spontaneous? Said Treglia, “The strategy was designed not to hide Pew’s involvement…This strategy, I advised Pew that Pew should be in the background. And by law, the grantees always have to disclose. But I always encouraged the grantees to never mention Pe w, and I’ll explain why in a second.” Treglia never did say why he discouraged mention of Pew’s name, but perhaps that was obvious to the reporters.

The campaign finance incident gave Pew a big black eye. But it was hardly the first effort by the charitable behemoth to sway politicians by using its grants to create an impression on them and the news media.

[Very long article. Click here (this is a PDF file) to read the whole thing]

[Alia]

bookmark

[mewzilla]

FWIW, Pew gets some of its money from the Tides Foundation. I don't know how much, but I'd like to.

[mewzilla]

More on the Tides Foundation and its ties to Pew: Click here.