Disclosure & Transparency

“Because Sanders set up Our Revolution and they have raised and spent money in candidate elections, Our Revolution is required to comply with contribution limits, register with the FEC and discloses its donors — but it hasn’t,” said Paul S. Ryan, an attorney for Common Cause. “It’s his establishment of the group that triggers these laws. That means a $5,000 limit, full donor disclosure and no contributions from prohibited sources.”

Today, Common Cause filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging reason to believe that Our Revolution, a nonprofit political organization established by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2016 and now supporting his 2020 presidential campaign, violated the federal ‘soft money’ ban. Sen. Sanders has been a longtime critic of super PACs and so-called “Dark Money” groups. The complaint documents that Our Revolution has solicited contributions explicitly to elect Sanders president, received contributions far in excess of the applicable $5,000 contribution limit and spent funds in connection with federal elections, including current voter mobilization efforts supporting Sanders in Iowa.

“Voters don’t get the information they deserve, simply as a result of a group creating its own disclosure regime it imposes on itself,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause.

“The narrowly-tailored questions seem to provide plenty of opportunity to shield relationships, say by routing funds through an intermediary,” said Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause Illinois.

In recent weeks, President Trump ran an ad on Facebook with discredited allegations about former Vice President Joe Biden's relationship with Ukraine. Despite requests from Biden's campaign to take down the ad, Facebook refused, stating the ad didn't violate its policies on political advertising. Facebook's new policy exempts politicians' political ads from third-party fact-checkers. The exemption effectively allows any politician to run ads on the platform that contain deceptive, false or misleading information. Given the president's propensity to lie, it's easy to understand why many are calling this the "Trump exemption."

On the other side of the political divide over Koch, Beth Rotman of the government watchdog group Common Cause said the Kochs and their network of like-minded wealthy donors “undermined so many important American values over the past several decades as part of the Kochs’ attempted corporate takeover of American politics.”