Our right-leaning friends at the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance are out with a new 2015-2016 scorecard tracking the votes of our state legislators for the session that just concluded.
Mass Fiscal, for those who aren’t familiar, is an advocacy group that has tax exempt status because it is “operated to promote social welfare.” What promotes social welfare, in Mass Fiscal’s view, is steadfast resistance to taxes, government spending and labor unions (often with an overtone of hostility toward immigrants that’s consistent with Mass Fiscal’s origins as a promoter of Voter ID laws).
Given these priorities, it’s not surprising that its scorecard ranks every Republican in the state legislature higher than any Democrat. And given the uses to which Mass Fiscal puts its scorecard, it’s not surprising that questions have arisen about the tax-exempt status it enjoys and whether it should be allowed to withhold all information about its sources of income.
This self-described electoral bigfoot specializes in communicating by direct mail. Here’s a brag about their clout in the 2014 statewide elections:
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance delivered more than 2,000,000 — that’s two million — pieces of direct mail and advocacy pieces to residents of the Commonwealth, highlighting our positions and those of lawmakers….Our campaign ran in 21 different legislative districts, with each district on average receiving 95,837 mailers. As part of our efforts, we used a strategy known as every-door direct mail, or EDDM. Through this method, we were able to contact as many residents and businesses as exist in the towns where we focused.
The Democratic lawmakers targeted by these direct mail efforts objected strenuously that their positions, as Mass Fiscal characterized them, were preposterously distorted. That objection was backed up by journalists including David Bernstein, who dismissed the scorecard’s claim “that certain targeted state legislators voted to prioritize illegal immigrants over veterans for public housing.” “That’s a crock,” he continued. “They did no such thing.”
Which brings us back to Mass Fiscal’s new scorecard, which includes House and Senate votes on a bill the legislature passed and Governor Baker signed this week that directly affects Mass Fiscal. The new law requires organizations that use direct mail for their electioneering to disclose their five biggest donors of more than $5000, just as organizations that use paid television, internet and print advertising must do.
Not surprising that Mass Fiscal opposed the bill or that its scorecard describes the votes approving it as “deterring freedom of speech.” Whether the vote will be included in Mass Fiscal’s 2016 electioneering efforts (the new law is effective immediately) is rather doubtful, though — only 16 of the Legislature’s Republicans (fewer than half) took their side.
…to construe Mass Fiscal’s activities as designed to influence elections regardless of what they say about themselves. Why can’t the IRS or DOR just say you are clearly politicking – no tax exempt status for you!
…it would drag down too many progressive c-4’s as well. Media Matters comes to mind.
…but I don’t think MM is the best example as they are a watchdog for the media as their name suggests rather than engaging in the electioneering that MFA clearly does. Obviously, the same standards would have to apply all around, though.
Including the presentation on how to frame stories at election time.
…stunts like this:
coupled with
that provoke the Mass Dem Party to circle the wagons around anybody who puts a D after his or her name and even give a bit of money to people like Colleen Garry, who was in fact a target of these shenanigans.
Perhaps it would have been better to NOT give “a bit of money” to Ms. Garry, so that her seat would be held by an actual and admitted Republican instead of a Republican posing as a Democrat. Perhaps that bit of money might have been better spent helping a more progressive candidate win in a different district.
My point here is that when extremist GOP organizations target Republicans posing as “Democrats” with “shenanigans” and provoke the Massachusetts Democratic Party to spend its campaign funds SUPPORTING those faux Democrats, the effect is to move the legislature to the right.
In the case of Ms. Garry, it would appear that the strategy of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance was successful.
If she’s conservative and the district is conservative enough to embolden a challenger, then it’s perfectly appropriate for the state committee to spend money to hold it.
Even if she doesn’t vote the way we like, we’re better off with her in the majority, helping to hold down the GOP.
We’ve discussed this elsewhere here. At some point, a “Big Tent” becomes meaningless.
I think both the Massachusetts Democratic Party and Massachusetts would be better off if the former actually MEANT something, had a 110 to 50 split (instead of the current 126 to 34), and had actual Democrats holding those 110 seats. That’s still a veto-proof super majority.
I think those sixteen new GOP seats might result in a healthier GOP, which itself would be good for all of us.
I would EAGERLY trade an actual Republican voting as an actual Republican for Colleen Garry in Dracut as one of those sixteen.
In my view, the most important thing progressive Democrats can do in Massachusetts for the foreseeable future is somehow remove Bob DeLeo as Speaker of the House. Making the Dracut seat “red” rather than “blue” — and therefore voting against Mr. DeLeo — is a huge win for the good guys.
Our “tent” is so “big” that it is meaningless. We have important work to do right now, and “Democrats” like Ms. Garry are a HUGE impediment to getting started.
as a healthy Republican Party. Not in the last 20 or 25 years.
Perhaps if they accomplished a FORTY SEVEN percent increase in their House ranks, the Massachusetts GOP might actually embrace some actual IDEAS as they grow. You know — candidates who THINK, who are grounded in reality, and who advance actual proposals instead of repeating empty dogma.
I agree with you that the Massachusetts GOP is not likely to be “healthy” any time soon. They be healthIER than they are now, though.
And I honesty hope this is where Bernie activists can look towards after the presidential race. I attended a great meeting with some experienced strategists today on how to accomplish this, and it’s a group of individuals that should be invited to the next Stammitsch (which I hope to attend for a change, sorry about that). This is about building a progressive majority in Massachusetts state government. That’s my political holy grail.