If you’re going to read one thing today, make it Part I of City Hall’s in-depth exploration of the organization and activities of the Working Family Party/Working Family Organization.
“Money is not supposed to work like this in politics,†said Tom Halper, chair of the Baruch College political science department, when briefed on the Working Families arrangement.
This article outlines five ways in which Working Families operates in distinct and previously little known ways:
*The leadership and almost all of the employees of the Working Families operations are shared between a political party, a 501 (c)3 tax-exempt organization, a 501 (c)4 tax-exempt organization and the for-profit company in an arrangement experts say is unlike anything seen before in the political history of the city, state or country, with employees drawing salaries from several at a time;
*Unions’ voting strength in Working Families candidate endorsements and nominations is directly tied to the amount of money that the unions pay into the Working Families’ legally separate non-profit;
*The Working Families’ lobbying arm, operated by almost entirely the same staff and with the same agenda as the Working Families Party, is officially separate on tax and lobbying filings though even many of the people lobbied by it consistently say they are unaware of the distinction;
*The Party has close connections and does collaborative work with the Progressive America Fund, which both provides the supporting research for Working Families efforts in New York and the organizational help for Working Families parties in at least 10 other states;
*A confederation of Working Families entities across the country are all backed by many of the same unions and ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which also pays some operatives’ salaries. All are assisted and, in some cases, managed by Cantor and other top Party employees in New York, with help and financial assistance from the Working Families Organization and Progressive America Fund back and forth across state lines, as visible on campaign finance and lobbying records.
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That certificate lists four initial directors, starting with now-White House political director Patrick Gaspard, who was then a board member of the Working Families Party. The other three were ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis, Robert Master of the Communications Workers of America and Sam Williams of the United Auto Workers. These three also were and remain the three co-chairs of the Working Families Party.
(via Big Government)
Not surprisingly, though, it’s Andrew Breitbart who’s been summoned before a grand jury, presumably with regard to the ACORN video taken in Delaware, where ACORN isn’t registered.
Meanwhile, the SEIU gets served in Massachusetts.
