Koch Brothers’ Budget of $889 Million for 2016 Is on Par With Both Parties’ Spending
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
NY Times JAN. 26, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/politics/kochs-plan-to-spend-900-million-on-2016-campaign.html
(Subscription required beyond 10 views monthly -- was 20 in 2012)
The political network overseen by the conservative billionaires Charles
G. and David H. Koch plans to spend close to $900 million on the 2016
campaign, an unparalleled effort by coordinated outside groups to shape
a presidential election that is already on track to be the most
expensive in history.
The spending goal, revealed Monday at the Kochs’ annual winter donor
retreat near Palm Springs, Calif., would allow their political
organization to operate at the same financial scale as the Democratic
and Republican Parties. It would require a significant financial
commitment from the Kochs and roughly 300 other donors they have
recruited over the years, and covers both the presidential and
congressional races. In the last presidential election, the Republican
National Committee and the party’s two congressional campaign
committees spent a total of $657 million.
Hundreds of conservative donors recruited by the Kochs gathered over
the weekend for three days of issue seminars, strategy sessions and
mingling with rising elected officials. These donors represent the
largest concentration of political money outside the party
establishment, one that has achieved enormous power in Republican
circles in recent years.
While almost no Republican Party leaders were invited to the Koch
event, it has become a coveted invitation for the party’s rising stars,
for whom the gathered billionaires and multimillionaires are a
potential source of financing for campaigns and super PACs. Officials
said this year’s conference was the largest ever.
At least five potential presidential candidates were invited this year,
and four attended, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. On Sunday
evening, three of them — Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of
Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas — took part in a candidate forum on
economic issues.
The Kochs are longtime opponents of campaign disclosure laws. Unlike
the parties, their network is constructed chiefly of nonprofit groups
that are not required to reveal donors. That makes it almost impossible
to tell how much of the money is provided by the Kochs — among the
wealthiest men in the country — and how much by other donors.
The two brothers and their aides have begun to take steps to relax the
strict secrecy that has long surrounded much of their political
efforts. After spending the 2012 campaign as the Democrats’ favored
punching bags, Charles and David Koch have each granted a series of
interviews to explain their views and philosophy. Their privately held
firm, Koch Industries, has mounted a soft-focus advertising campaign
called “We Are Koch,” featuring the company’s employees.
Last summer, Freedom Partners established the network’s first super
PAC, allowing it to run more openly political advertising in the run-up
to the 2014 midterm election. The move also required disclosing some of
the network’s other donors. Trusts controlled by the Kochs provided
about $4 million of the super PAC’s $25 million budget.
This year, Koch aides also provided — for the first time — limited
access to the winter conference events and allowed reporters to view
live video of the candidate forum on Sunday night.
As the three senators addressed the audience of rich donors —
effectively an audition for the 2016 primary — they dismissed a
question about whether the wealthy had too much influence in politics.
At times they seemed to be addressing an audience of two: the Kochs
themselves, now among the country’s most influential conservative power
brokers.
Mr. Cruz gave an impassioned defense of his hosts as job creators and
the victims of unfair attacks by Democrats, while Mr. Rubio suggested
that only liberals supported campaign finance restrictions, so as to
empower what he said were their allies in Hollywood and the news media.
[A version of this article appears in print on January 27, 2015, on
page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: ’16 Koch Budget Is
$889 Million.]