[The group isn’t required under law to disclose its donors even
as it takes on the look of a political party ]
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NO LABELS DECLINES TO REVEAL JUST WHO IS FUNDING ITS THIRD PARTY BID
 
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Heidi Przybyla and Shia Kapos
June 23, 2023
Politico
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_ The group isn’t required under law to disclose its donors even as
it takes on the look of a political party _

While No Labels has not actually named a ticket it wants to see run,
it has privately made it evident that it has one in mind. Sen. Joe
Manchin has joined at least one regular conference call held by the
group in late April. , Francis Chung/POLITICO

 

No Labels’ bid to run a third party presidential candidate in 2024
has sparked a number of questions about political motivations. Chief
among them: Who, exactly, is paying for this thing?

The centrist group consists of a constellation of entities, some of
which disclose donor names. But the main one is a nonprofit which,
unlike political parties, does not have to reveal the names of its
funders. And in an interview with POLITICO, its CEO, Nancy Jacobson,
declined to do so, saying simply that it was a “mixed” pool of
individual contributors including “people that want to help our
country.”

Ryan Clancy, the group’s chief strategist, said the group doesn’t
discuss individual donors as a matter of protecting their privacy and
safety.

“We know how the game is played these days, which is (if) people
don’t like your organization, what’s the easiest way to destroy
it? Well, go find the donor list and go start intimidating them in
their place of work and harassing them on social media,” said
Clancy.

No Labels’ refusal to reveal donor identities has worsened tensions
in Washington, where a smattering of Democratic and anti-Donald Trump
conservatives have accused the group of potentially kneecapping
President Biden’s reelection. They say that unlike other nonprofit
groups, No Labels is essentially running a presidential campaign
without the requirements that apply to formal political parties;
namely disclosures.

Experts in campaign finance law say that the organization is walking
right up to the line of what is permissible.

“Draft efforts, generally speaking, are outside the purview of the
Federal Election Campaign Act. That goes back to the late 70s with the
labor-backed draft Ted Kennedy effort, trying to get him to run
against Jimmy Carter,” said David Mason, the former chair of the
FEC. “If they have a federal candidate, then things start to
change… Then your voter registration efforts and the other things
they do can become subject to FECA regulations.”

While No Labels has not actually named a ticket it wants to see run,
it has privately made it evident that it has one in mind. Sen. Joe
Manchin (D-W.Va.) is seen as a potential candidate and has joined at
least one regular conference call held by the group in late April. A
state official granted anonymity to speak freely said Jacobson and
Clancy both mentioned Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) as
potential candidates during a 2022 phone call about fundraising.

Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer, said that if
No Labels was floating potential candidates in its meetings with
donors, it could open the group to legal scrutiny.

“If they’re going around naming potential candidates and somebody
donates in response to that, that clearly presents” legal
concerns. Current case law
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organizations supporting or opposing a “clearly identified
candidate” may be regulated as political committees, he said.

Noti represented the FEC in a 2008 case
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decided in favor of a similar group, called Unity08, on the assumption
that “neither donors nor candidates would know at the time of the
donations which candidate would ultimately benefit from the group’s
convention.”

No Labels officials did not respond to a request for comment on this
point. But Mark McKinnon, a former GOP strategist who helped found the
group, said it is misunderstood. “The whole idea is to save the
republic from Donald Trump,” said McKinnon, who joined a No Labels
Wednesday conference call as a guest speaker.

“There is a plausible scenario where Trump and Biden are the
nominees and for reasons of age, health, economy or other factors,
Biden is diminished and Trump is beating him by double digits,” he
said, and “that’s when you break the glass in case of
emergency,” said McKinnon.

“It is my firm belief that if they get to next May or June and
Biden’s in good shape, they’ll pull it down,” he said.

Since its inception in 2010, No Labels has billed itself as a refuge
for sensible centrists, inspiring a caucus on Capitol Hill called the
“Problem Solvers.” More recently, it’s sought to assemble a
potential third-party presidential ticket.

No Labels has gotten onto the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and
Alaska, though it has not identified who would be on its ticket. No
Labels has reportedly eyed a $70 million budget
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the venture, which Jacobson has called an “insurance policy” to
protect America from extremist candidates. She said No Labels will
wait until Super Tuesday to decide whether to proceed with a proper
campaign. In the POLITICO interview, Clancy said the group would
likely drop its bid
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someone other than Trump emerges as the GOP candidate — including
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — but was noncommittal about the criteria
for pulling back if Biden remains in the race.

As the campaign has progressed, critics have grown more alarmed,
claiming that No Labels is weakening Biden’s reelection. “The plan
all along was to burn down Biden, and they’re getting on the ballot
in key states to do just that,” Rick Wilson, a founder of the
never-Trump Lincoln Project said in a June 15 tweet
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Those warning No Labels is on a spoiler mission include numerous
never-Trump Republicans and conservative columnist David Brooks
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They are united with the vanguard of Democratic liberal and centrist
groups who penned a rare joint opinion editorial in April
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the effort a “dangerous” gambit that “could help elect a MAGA
extremist.” Bill Galston, a No Labels co-founder and former Clinton
official, recently split from the group
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its plans.

Undergirding these concerns is the lack of knowledge as to who is
funding No Labels. What is known from past reporting, along with
interviews with six sources familiar with the group’s history, is
that many of the group’s donors come from the finance industry.

Its board is not listed on its web page; but a 2021 IRS filing lists
six individual board members, including Charlie Black, a longtime GOP
lobbyist, and Kenneth Gross, a former associate general counsel of the
Federal Election Commission who specializes in campaign finance and
counsels Fortune 500 corporations and trade associations. John
Catsimatidis, identified as a “recurring donor” in a 2018 Daily
Beast story
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went on to contribute more than $600,000 
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the Trump Victory Committee around the 2020 election.

At least one major donor has been Harlan Crow, according to a former
No Labels employee who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the
group. Crow is hardly the mold of a centrist statesmen yearning for a
more moderate era of politics. Crow is the GOP mega donor who funded
lavish trips for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“I know he was one of their so-called whales,” or big donors, the
ex-employee said. It’s unclear whether Crow continues to fund the
group. The ex-employee pointed to a number of fundraising events, a
major meeting and plans for a No Labels nominating convention in April
of next year in Dallas, which is Crow’s hometown.

Clancy declined to answer a question about Crow, saying the group does
not reveal any of its individual donors. McKinnon says No Labels
operates under the same fundraising rules as “every other similarly
designated” nonprofit.

“People are desperate for a conspiracy everywhere they look in
politics,” he said, noting that No Labels is constructing a
placeholder ticket that would allow for a wide slate of possible
candidates. He mentioned a long list of hypothetical candidates like
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and Utah Sen. Mitt
Romney, a Republican. “Everybody should take an aspirin and let’s
wait until the spring,” said McKinnon.

Late last year, No Labels started a new super PAC, No Labels 2024
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required to disclose its donors. It reported raising just shy of
$7,000 through the end of last year and does not face another campaign
finance deadline until July. But it could be a future pathway for
direct spending on elections and a vehicle for No Labels’ donors to
remain anonymous. All it would take would be for the nonprofit arm to
write a check to the super PAC.

What funds the nonprofit arm currently has is not clear, however. The
group took in more than $11 million in both 2020 and 2021, according
to federal tax filings
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Its 2022 files are not yet public.

There is some reporting on who has given to No Labels in the past.
Internal documents published by the Daily Beast in 2018
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that the group’s 501(c)(4) arm and its affiliated 501(c)(3)
charitable entity had been backed by a number of business CEOs and
corporate investors. In addition, No Labels had sought, at the time,
to recruit donations from prominent GOP mega donors and Trump backers
including hedge fund manager Paul Singer, PayPal founder Peter Thiel
and Home Depot founder Ken Langone. It had also sought contributions
from a number of prominent liberal donors, including a top political
adviser to George Soros.

Insurance Policy for America, a nonprofit organization tied to No
Labels
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based at the same address as No Labels), raised a bit shy of $200,000
from three dozen individual donors last year, according to a POLITICO
review of the organization’s tax documents. While many of the donors
who gave to the No Labels affiliate had political giving histories
that included both parties, their aggregate political giving last
cycle skewed toward Republicans. At least one Insurance Policy for
America contributor was also a donor to DeSantis’s gubernatorial
campaign last year, records show.

No Labels current expenditures have focused on traditional campaign
activities like canvassing and ballot access. And it’s sparked
fierce pushback. In Arizona, where Biden beat Trump by a mere 10,000
votes, the Democratic Party is suing the state’s Secretary of State
[[link removed]] Adrian
Fontes, who is also a Democrat, for agreeing to allow the group on the
ballot — after it met the state’s minimum signature requirement
— because it does not disclose its donors.

Adding to the controversy, earlier this month Maine’s secretary of
state sent a “cease-and-desist” letter to No Labels after what she
said were numerous complaints from local clerks and voters who said No
Labels organizers misled them. Most states require a certain number of
signatures to get on the ballot.

The former employee who spoke with POLITICO said much of the early
research done within No Labels regarding a potential unity ticket
centered on “winning enough electors that they could bargain and get
(additional) electors to flip,” the employee said.

During the April 26 conference call, supporters expressed skepticism
that No Labels was doing the kind of grassroots outreach in the states
necessary to support a proper presidential campaign.

On the call, a male participant from Charlotte, North Carolina said he
was involved in a similar independent movement in 2020 that was able
to enlist 30,000 supporters in a matter of a few months. “We’re
sort of skeptical about your ability to actually build a movement,”
he said. “Is it by design or a lack of ability or knowledge?”

The original plan, said Jacobson, was that no movement would occur
unless, by next spring, it appeared there were two unacceptable major
party nominees. In that case, the movement would “be born” at an
April 2024 convention in Dallas.

But, she said, “they attacked us” and brought “us out of our
cave.”

_HEIDI PRZYBYLA is a Washington D.C. journalist. You can find her on
Twitter @HeidiReports._

_SHIA KAPOS is a reporter for POLITICO and author of POLITICO's
Illinois Playbook, the most indispensable morning newsletter for
influencers in Illinois government and politics._

_Prior to joining POLITICO, she wrote the popular Taking Names column
for the Chicago Sun-Times (and before that Crain’s Business).
She’s also had stints at Dealreporter and the Salt Lake Tribune.
Shia’s career has been built on breaking news and landing sit-down
interviews with notable names and personalities. She’s covered
billionaires on the rise and lawmakers’ precipitous falls—and all
the terrain in between._

_Jessica Piper and Sam Stein contributed to this report._

_POLITICO is the global authority on the intersection of politics,
policy, and power. It is the most robust news operation and
information service in the world specializing in politics and policy,
which informs the most influential audience in the world with insight,
edge, and authority. Founded in 2007, POLITICO has grown to a team of
700 working across North America, more than half of whom are editorial
staff._

* elections
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* Joe Biden
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* Donald Trump
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* Democrats
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* Republican Party
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* No Labels
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* campaign finance
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* Joe Manchin
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* Kyrsten Sinema
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* Big Finance
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