The Koch brothers are trying to buy themselves a Wisconsin attorney general. Dont let it happen. Koch Brothers Spend Heavily to Help Schimel, an Attorney General Who Will do Their Bidding Right-Wing Billionaire Polluters Behind Last-Minute Spending to Try to Save Schimel A shadowy dark money group with ties to the billionaire right-wing Koch brothers is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a negative television commercial attacking Susan Happ and supporting Brad Schimel, to run in the final days of the attorney general’s campaign in the Green Bay media market. The organization, calling itself the Rule of Law Project, bought $184,375 worth of commercials to run in the final week, a huge buy that dwarfs any other spending by candidates or independent committees. “The Koch brothers are trying to buy themselves an Attorney General who will support their right-wing agenda,” Susan Happ campaign manager Josh Lease said in disclosing the buy. “They are major polluters who want an attorney general who will fight environmental laws. Brad Schimel has already promised that the first thing he would do if he is elected is sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).” “They also want an Attorney General who won’t defend Wisconsin’s anti-corruption campaign finance laws, and Schimel has signaled he is their man on that issue too,” Lease said. “The Koch-financed Club for Growth is at the center of the John Doe investigation into illegal campaign coordination, and Schimel has suggested he will not defend the Government Accountability Board, which enforces that law. “Remember, Schimel is the one who said that an elected acting to help his financial backers is the essence of representative democracy. If he wins, we will see a lot of Brad Schimel’s brand of democracy.” The Koch Brothers PAC also has contributed $10,000 to Schimel’s campaign. “Schimel’s campaign is in trouble, and this flood of dirty money is a last-ditch attempt to save him,” Lease said. “You can bet this is happening because of bad internal poll results showing the Koch brothers’ boy is in trouble in the Fox Valley.” The agent for the Rule of Law Project, according to documents filed with Green Bay television stations, is Adam J. White, a lawyer with Boyden Gray & Associates, a law firm in Washington, D.C. which is suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency over a fuel rule. He is a member of the Federalist Societys Administrative Law Executive Committee; the Federalist Society is also heavily funded by the Koch brothers. C. Boyden Gray, the founding member of White’s law firm, has long been tied to the Kochs. The address listed for Rule of Law Project is the same as that of Williams Gas Energy, 1627 I St NW #900,Washington, DC 20006-4057. Williams is a natural gas pipeline company that is also engaged in fracking and has operations in Wisconsin. C. Borden Gray is a founding partner of the lobbying firm Boyden Gray & Associates, where he advocates for the fossil fuel corporation FirstEnergy Corp., named one of the top 10 worst corporations in America in 2006, among others. Prior to the founding of his firm, he was a lawyer and lobbyist who represented clients facing federal sanctions for violating environmental laws. Many of his clients faced significant federal criminal prosecutions under the Clean Water Act. He counseled the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Liability Fund in litigation from the Exxon Valdez and American Trader oil spills. In 1995, the Kochs hired Gray to write federal legislation called the Comprehensive Regulatory Reform Act of 1995. This came after the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Justice Department filed a $54 million lawsuit against the Kochs over oil spills at Koch-owned refineries.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 14:01:12 +0000
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