The basics of the new center are laid out in CommonwealthMagazine in New Tufts Center to Offer Independent Analysis of Legislation, Ballot Questions. Nearly everyone agrees that the public and legislators could use reliable analysis of legislation. The two known funders are Blue Cross Blue Shield and Emergent Ventures, and there’s the rub. As Dana Drugmand of DeSmog wrote recently in Koch Academic Influence Returns to Massachusetts With New Tufts University Think Tank Koch funnels money through Emergent Ventures of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Koch takes spending to influence American universities very seriously and Mercatus may be the crown jewel of Koch’s power on American campuses. (Emergent Ventures also got $1 million in seed money from Trumpy billionaire Peter Thiel). Charles Koch is emeritus board member on Mercatus, which is deeply enmeshed in climate change denial. Koch Industries has major holdings in oil refining and other fossil fuel industries.
Mercatus was co-founded by Rich Fink, a former executive vice president and member of the board of directors of Koch Industries, a director of the Charles Koch Foundation, and a Mercatus board member. Fink is an interesting figure because as Jane Mayer reports in Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, he devised a three prong strategy for Koch to take over American politics: 1. investment in intellectuals. 2. investment in think tanks to turn ideas into marketable policies. 3. Astroturf and special interests to pressure politicians. Part of the scheme is to establish beachheads on American campuses, like Mercatus. The plan has worked very well.
The new center at Tufts arrives as Koch is increasing his investment in Massachusetts politics (or at least I’m noticing it more). Since I wrote The Growing Koch Presence in Massachusetts, Charles Koch has dramatically boosted his intervention in #mapoli by deploying Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance as his cat’s paw in attacking Governor Charlie Baker’s emergency public health powers; and in underwriting the National Parents Union (tied in with Massachusetts Parents United).
Koch has not had an easy time of it on Massachusetts’ campuses. When the Globe wrote about Koch’s Freedom Project at Wellesley College, Koch critics including Jane Mayer rose up in protest, forcing the project’s director to resign and the school to seek a reconfiguration of the office. And Suffolk University booted the Beacon Hill Institute off campus, apparently over concerns of Koch’s influence.
Beacon Hill Institute continues to limp along though, being commissioned to produce reports for the Koch allied dark money operation Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance. Recently, BHI produced a report for MFA (actually its sister dark money front Fiscal Alliance Foundation) on the Transportation and Climate Initiative. TCI “seeks to improve transportation, develop the clean energy economy and reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector, a regional pact that would address emissions.” TCI would be a direct threat to fossil fuel interests, such as Koch.
And according to CommonwealthMagazine’s story back in February, the Center for State Policy Analysis was already targeting the Transportation and Climate Initiative for a priority study.
As I said in the first paragraph, good news, bad news. It’s good there’s an outside evaluator of public policy. It would be much better if Tufts would UnKoch its campus.
And while we’re at it, let’s UnKoch our commonwealth.
“In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest and evil in every shape, have full swing. . . . Publicity is the very soul of justice.”—Jeremy Bentham
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money.]