No on 2 Fueled by Dark Money Kept off OCPF Books

I have no affiliation with the Yes on 2 campaign other than being an unabashed cheerleader for this necessary reform to our broken political system. They have consistently run a positive and Fact based informative campaign, unlike their opposition which deserves to be exposed here

The Mass Fiscal Alliance is the official opposition to No on 2. This means the write the explanation in the Red Book, they are funding all the ads you’ll see on the and the internet, and they want to oppose expanding voter choice to help continue electing corporate friendly Republicans and Democrats to the state legislature.

The Mass AFL CIO ran an expose on the dark money and shady accounting behind the shadowy group No on 2 is counting on for its support.

 

https://www.massaflcio.org/news/right-wing-organization-massfiscal-exposed

 

The foundation — along with MassFiscal founder Rick Green, who was an unsuccessful 2018 Republican congressional candidate for the Third District — also helped fund a legal challenge to the state’s century-old ban on corporate donations to political candidates.

 

Allowing such corporate contributions would create “a serious threat of quid pro quo corruption,” Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants wrote in the decision rejecting MassFiscal’s argument.

 

But what about the corrupting effect of donations from persons unknown to a shell nonprofit that funds yet another nonprofit that has played fast and loose with election-related fliers? Those “electioneering communications” — as the Office of Campaign and Political Finance calls them — when made within 90 days of an election, can trigger disclosure of contributors.

 

So it’s perhaps no surprise that, in a public comment about new OCPF regulations, MassFiscal actually proposed that its expenditures for “electioneering communications” — those fliers it’s so fond of distributing — be exempt from any financial disclosure rules.

Yes, Yes on 2 has accepted one large donation from a single person. That donation is perfectly legal and transparent on the OCPF website for all to see. We cannot say the same thing for the Koch Brothers and other billionaires backing minority rule behind the dishonest No on 2 campaign.

While No on 2’s official arguments wrest on the stupidity of voters and town officials to conduct a more proportional election system that the vast majority of the worlds democracies already  and the City of Cambridge already have used for decades, Yes on 2 believes Massachusetts voters are smart enough to know how to rank their choices and that they will demand this right at the polls in the fall. They are also smart enough to support a grassroots Bipartisan campaign to change our election system endorsed by former governors, Elizabeth Warren, and Maura Healey over a campaign lead by Trump backing Republicans fueled by corporate money.