Independent expenditure groups continue to shower Oklahoma politicians with millions as the state eyes ways to reign in the secretive groups’ spending.
The financial support from these shadowy groups added up to more than the candidate spent through their own campaigns during the June 18 primary, Oklahoma Ethics Commission records show.
Former Secretary of State Brian Bingman, who won the Republican primary in the race for a seat on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, was the largest beneficiary of independent expenditures and dark money in state races. The three-member Corporation Commission regulates much of the state’s oil and gas, telecommunications and utility industries in the state.
Four groups backed by the energy and communications industries spent a total of at least $471,845 in support of Bingman. That’s $84,000 more than Bingman’s own campaign spent on the primary, Ethics Commission records show.
Bingman did not return a phone message from The Frontier seeking comment.
The dark money group Alliance for Secure Energy spent $294,745 in support of Bingman.
Alliance for Secure Energy is led by former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud, and bills itself as supporting “policies and regulations that impact infrastructure expansion and upgrades, new electric generation, environmental stewardship, economic development, sustainability and affordability.” Bingman was the only candidate the group supported in the primary.
Bingman will face Democrat Harold Spradling and Libertarian Chad Williams in the Nov. 5 general election.
Governor Kevin Stitt’s Task Force on Campaign Finance and Election Threats issued a report in March with recommendations for new campaign rules. The task force recommended some new rules for independent expenditure groups, such as requiring them to have a working phone number that is answered for at least five hours a day. But most recommendations were geared toward allowing larger direct donations to candidates and political parties.
If adopted, the recommendations would significantly increase the ability of political parties to transfer funds and coordinate with candidates and create a less regulated campaign finance system similar to those of Virginia, Texas, Utah and Nebraska, task force chairman Anthony Ferate told an Ethics Commission working group on July 11. Other recommendations include relaxing donation limits and de-regulating campaign coordination and monetary transfers between candidates and political parties.
“It would put us in a less-regulated system than most states,” Ferate said. “But, again, all of the states are beginning to deal with this independent expenditure element.”
Relaxing campaign rules would give candidates a “free market opportunity” to draw donors away from independent expenditure groups, Ferate said. The hope is that doing so would shift the balance of monetary power and the ability to control campaign messaging away from those groups to state political parties and candidates, he said.
“That’s really the route that our task force tried to go down the road of, is if we can’t stop expenditures, how do we make campaigns more competitive to control the messages, and so that’s what we did with our recommendations,” Ferate said.
But removing donor limits and coordination bans will likely result in state elections becoming more expensive, with little added clarity on who is trying to influence voters, said Elizabeth Shimek, senior counsel for campaign finance for the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group that advocates for enforcement of campaign finance laws and transparency in elections.
“Policy like campaign contribution limits and coordination bans are some of the few mechanisms that are in place to prevent wealthy special interests from spending unlimited money in elections and rigging the political system in their favor,” Shimek said. “Removing these policies doesn’t result in less money in elections, it results in a free-for-all where the voices with the most money often end up being the loudest in the room.”
Independent expenditure groups, and specifically nonprofit “dark money” groups have been involved in numerous political corruption and bribery cases since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed them to participate in elections in 2010. The groups have had an increasing presence and influence in elections at all levels, from local school board races to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In recent years, other states have adopted stricter requirements on dark money disclosure that have so far survived legal challenges.
Montana’s Legislature passed the DISCLOSE Act in 2015, which requires nonprofits spending in elections to register with the state as political committees and report contributors. Arizona voters passed the Voters Right to Know Act in 2022, which requires nonprofits that meet certain conditions participating in elections to disclose the true source of their funds.
Shimek, who is one of the attorneys defending the Voters Right to Know Act in court challenges, said the law gives Arizona voters the ability to parse out who is trying to influence their vote.
“Giving people more information about that message lets them better assess who is asking them for their attention,” Shimek said.
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In February, Rep. Cody Maynard, R-Durant, who faced attacks from an independent expenditure group in 2022, proposed an ethics rule based largely on the Arizona law. But he withdrew that proposal before an Ethics Commission meeting, saying the issue was complex. He said he wanted to review feedback he had received and possibly come back with a new proposal later.
Maynard declined to comment on the task force recommendations.
The Ethics Commission held three working group meetings this summer to consider the task force recommendations and draft proposed campaign finance rules.
Citizens are rapidly losing faith in the system in the face of tens of millions in untraceable political contributions from anonymous organizations, one state lawmaker said.
“I can tell you that people are concerned. They’re almost fed up to a point of no return with money in politics. That’s what we hear all the time when we’re talking to our constituents,” Rep. Tom Gann, R-Inola, said at a June 25 working group meeting in Tulsa.
“I think the key is less money, more transparency,” he said.
What are ‘independent expenditure’ groups?
- Super PACs are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on a candidate, but must report their spending and donors to the campaign finance regulatory agency.
- 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit groups are often referred to as “dark money” groups because of their secretive nature, can raise and spend unlimited funds on politics and are not required to publicly reveal their donors, but under IRS rules cannot spend a majority of their funds on politics.
Sham websites, fake organizations and unreported spending
The dark money group Catalyst Oklahoma was the biggest spender in June primaries, dropping more than $379,000 in support of seven candidates around the state, mostly spent on mailers, canvassing and digital ads, Ethics Commission records show.
Catalyst was formed in 2013 and has ties to the State Chamber of Commerce and the conservative think tank Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. Catalyst’s treasurer and registered fundraiser is an Oklahoma political operative named Allen Wright.
Wright also helped create the Foundation for Unity and Leadership, a dark money group that campaigned against District 15 Republican State House candidate Tim Turner during this year’s primary.
Turner overcame attacks from multiple dark money groups to beat four other candidates in the Republican primary for House District 15, which includes most of Haskell County. There was no Democrat in the race, so Turner will be the next representative for the district. Some of the dark money groups didn’t file reports on the spending or incorporation paperwork that would reveal some basic information.
Catalyst did not report spending money in Turner’s race, but the candidate posted a picture of a mailer on his personal Facebook page that shows a disclaimer stating it was paid for and created by Catalyst Oklahoma.
Catalyst and Foundation for Unity are listed as having the same address of an Edmond real estate business owned by Wright’s wife and sister-in-law.
Wright blamed the unreported Catalyst mailer supporting Turner on a vendor error and said he was working with the Ethics Commission on the issue.
Turner also faced attacks from a sham website that attempted to pass as the page for the official Oklahoma Republican Party. The website is a near-replica of the party’s actual page but many of the links don’t work, and one leads to the fundraising arm of the Democratic National Committee.
The fake site also includes a page titled “The Real Tim Turner,” which accuses Turner of mismanagement, corruption and self-dealing when he was the Haskell County Sheriff from 2016 to 2022. The site also has a disclaimer at the bottom stating it was created by a group named “Citizens for Honest Politicians.”
No group by that name filed any reports with the Ethics Commission or Federal Election Commission. A search of incorporation records across several states did not reveal any registered nonprofit corporations by that name.
There are few mentions of Citizens for Honest Politicians online, except for a handful of posts by a citizen-created Facebook group called City of Stigler News and More, which bills itself as a parody page.
The Facebook group’s administrator said Citizens for Honest Politicians is not actually a corporate entity but was used to keep the identity of the person who created the site a secret. The group administrator said they knew who created the site, but declined to provide their name.
Oklahoma Republican Party officials told The Frontier they had not seen the website and did not know who was behind it, but planned to bring it to the attention of party leadership and their attorneys.
Turner said he didn’t know who was behind the website.
“When you have groups like this right here, I think transparency is key,” Turner said. “If you’re going to hold candidates accountable, you need to hold the other groups that are producing information that is false accountable as well.”
At least two independent expenditure groups also supported Turner during the primary.
Turner also said he did not know who was behind those groups.
