How about “fiscal watchdogs” (Boston Herald)? Or this one: “Business-minded, small government groups.” Here’s one I’ve seen often: “right-leaning.” MassFiscal is right-leaning like the pope is Catholic-leaning.
As I said, milquetoast. So let’s look at the organizations represented at MFA’s right-wing summit and try to add them all up. Information from Center for Media and Democracy’s Sourcewatch unless noted.
Yankee Institute of Connecticut is a “right-wing think tank in Hartford, Connecticut and “a member of the State Policy Network.” YI runs its own anti-union front funded by the Bradley Foundation. SI funders include far right billionaires’ foundations including Donors Trust and Donors Capital (which hide funds from Koch and others), Adolph Coors Fdn, Jacqueline Hume Fdn, Searle Freedom Trust, Thomas W. Smith Fdn (which along with Koch funds New Civil Liberties Alliance, MFA’s recent lawyer).
Americans for Prosperity “is a right-wing political advocacy group founded by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, the owners of Koch Industries.” Koch’s very own political organization.
Maine Policy Institute “is a right-wing pressure group based in Portland, Maine” and “a member of the State Policy Network (SPN), a web of state pressure groups that denote themselves as ‘think tanks’ and drive a right-wing agenda in statehouses nationwide.” Koch money, ties to Koch’s American Legislative Exchange Council. Other funders include Coors, Cato Institute (Koch), Donors Capital and Donors Trust, etc.
Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy (NH) “is a member of the State Policy Network” with further ties to ALEC and Koch funding. It issued a pro-vouchers report in NH.
Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity “is a free-market think tank and member of the State Policy Network (SPN).” Funding from Donors Trust and SPN,
New England Legal Foundation “focuses on free market principles and reduced government regulation.” Past funders include the Sarah Scaife Fdn, John M. Olin Fdn, Exxon, and Union Carbide.
Ethan Allen Institute (VT) “is a member of the State Policy Network” with funding from Donors Capital and Cato.
What about Donors Capital and Donors Trust? They are related, both dark money, both recipients of large donations from the Koch network, big funders of climate change denial. Mother Jones described Donors Trust as “the dark money ATM of the conservative movement.”
What about SPN, ALEC, and Americans for Prosperity?: “Today’s SPN is the tip of the spear of far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party. . . . SPN groups operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy and state-based support. . . . SPN shares many of same sources of funding as ALEC, including Koch institutions. . . . The Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity provides the “grassroots” boots on the ground for this agenda.”
In his masterful but infuriating book on the right-wing takeover of state politics State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy donors Reshaped the American States—and Nation, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez describes a powerful “right-wing troika” that promote corporate interests including prominently, those of Koch. The Troika: State Policy Network, American Legislative Exchange Council, Americans for Prosperity.
Here’s a map (using the LittleSis.org Oligrapher mapping tool) of MassFiscal’s ties to a number of organizations, all tied to Koch through donations form one of his foundations or one of the dark money foundations he utilizes:
The legal shops—NCLA, IFS, Goldwater, are all Koch-funded operations that have represented MFA or its founder in efforts to undo Massachusetts campaign finance laws.
That is one messy map so let’s take another look, MFA and allies and The Troika.
What were MFA and its allies coalescing over? The head of the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity stated it: “I think the purpose of this meeting is to say on notice, yeah, there might be an environmental left movement out there, but there’s a freedom, pro-energy movement forming here in New England as well.”
As Jane Mayer shows in Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, the Koch brothers have been the leading force behind climate change denialism. So it’s no surprise that MFA and friends are here to shill for the oil and gas industries.
(SPN does not list MFA as an affiliate or associate on its website. Massachusetts connections include Pioneer Institute as an affiliate and Beacon Hill Institute as https://spn.org/directory/#MAan associate. BHI occasionally provides economic analysis for MFA.)
News media are overburdened and MFA goes to extraordinary lengths to hide its donors. But MFA has been around for years now; there’s no excuse. Some news organizations won’t cover them at all. I think a meeting like MFA’s summit deserves probing examination. The public needs to know Koch and friends are in New England and growing every day.
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 a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy. My book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, is now in print.]