Moving pictures

The Mayor's self-funded, sketchy, astroturfed

501(c)(4) created to pose a tax increase as grassroots popular (2012):

Hizzoner's failed attempt to dedicate rapid transit to West End hotels & Downtown tourist stops (2013-14):

The extension of the Dean administration by other means (2015):

Flunkilicious

When last we saw former "progressive" council member Erik Cole, he was having what looked like a celebratory dinner with Hizzoner and facing questions about his "grassroots" efforts to help the Mayor pass a budget. That capped a council track record of carrying the Mayor's water and polishing his apples and running media interference at Dean critics (including comparing, and speciously so, the banal project of building a new convention center with Civil Rights Movement nobility).

"Fealty with love .... Disloyalty with vengeance."

Now Mayor Karl Dean is showing how important unquestioning loyalty is to him by hiring Mr. Cole to run a new office funded by a foundation connected to controversial New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. No word on whether Mayor Dean held a formal job search and interviews with multiple candidates, but that is not the MO (including the previous hiring of Mr. Cole's wife to a prominent post in his office).

After Mr. Cole tottled off the public service radar at the beginning of last fall, I let drop my own questions about his leadership of a "grassroots" organization to support the Mayor that seemed primarily funded by the Mayor (Cole has yet to divulge Moving Nashville Forward's donor list). Now that he is back with the administration, and set up to work on future Dean campaign efforts, I believe it is entirely fair to pose questions again: what happened in Moving Nashville Forward that prompted such a lack of transparency on Mr. Cole's part?

Money, influence, Will Pinkston, and Metro Public Schools

Want to see something interesting? Take a look at a spreadsheet that a source put together to help me illuminate some interesting things about the donors of District 7 school board candidate Will Pinkston, who was also one of former Governor Phil Bredesen's hired goons. For my part, I would draw several things out as voters go to the polls tomorrow:

• Bredesen and the Bredesenistas have dumped nearly $10,000 into the campaign of a school board candidate (of all things) in what appears to me to be a naked attempt to prop up the former governor's influence across Nashville's power structures
• 96% of Pinkston's obscene total amount of campaign donations ($52,750) came from outside of District 7, further reinforcing my opinion that the District 7 race is more of a power grab from the outside than a good faith effort to improve our kids' education
• The teachers union and Michelle Rhee's PAC essentially cancel out each other's influence by each giving Pinkston $3,000. The history of union organizing is replete with ironies big and small, so there is no reason to overthink the self-defeating moves of the local teachers union except to point out that they put themselves in the same Pinkston boat with Michelle Rhee, who is consumed with eliminating teachers unions from the education equation 
• The Nashville Chamber of Commerce, which is pro-charter schools and pro-privatization, is going all in on the Pinkston poker game, their PAC splurging with $7,100 and various CofC principals parlaying $3,000. If money is power, then the Nashville Chamber is the power broker here
• An astroturf group with connections to Mayor Karl Dean is also linked to this donors list. Neighbors for Progress, a group designed to aid the Mayor's bid to flip the State Fairgrounds to private developers and to demolish its public facilities, donated $100 to Mr. Pinkston (who also worked for the Dean for Mayor re-election effort). NFP once provided an in-kind donation of over $3,000 on behalf of the council campaign of Bredesen pick Sarah Lodge Talley, for whom Mr. Pinkston provided black ops. Pinkston himself was an adviser to NFP and he donated $1,000 to them. Ms. Talley and her campaign treasurer have donated to Mr. Pinkston. The attorney representing NFP has also donated to Will Pinkston's campaign. Is all of this feeling a bit incestuous yet?
• While Moving Nashville Forward, another astroturf group with Dean connections, has not donated to Will Pinkston's campaign, the lawyer who set them up has donated. MNF received $26,000 from Karl Dean to grease the wheels toward passage of his latest budget
• Prominent state Democratic Party leaders put themselves knee-deep in the muck by donating to this hit man in a race in which they have no obvious investment. For instance, why should a Democrat running for Chattanooga Mayor care to try and help out a Nashville school board candidate?

There are enough lawyers and lobbyists donating to Will Pinkston to make my skin crawl; but much worse is the probability that the political connections of influence across this donors report reflect a concern not so much with the future of our kids as with the consolidation by the powers-that-be.

Anyway, that's my part. Go read the donors list yourself and let me know what you think. District 7 voters go to the polls tomorrow.

Karl Dean, Super PACman

Nashville City Paper writer, J.R. Lind observes that the Mayor Karl Dean's budget never really needed the help in Metro Council that Moving Nashville Forward, for which Dean was the major donor, provided. Then Lind wonders what former CM Erik Cole (co-leader of MNF, married to a Dean appointee) will tell us about his operation as well as how that operation could help Hizzoner realize some future aspirations:

There were, Cole insists, other donors. Who are they? Well, he’ll tell us. Eventually.

Or will he?

Cole said he intends to create Moving Nashville Forward as a 501(c)(4) — the Jan Brady of the 501(c) portion of the tax code. These types of groups are, under the law, “operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare” and, unlike their more famous sister the 501(c)(3), can lobby for legislation.

For years, 501(c)(4) groups were forgotten, beloved only by the persnickety secretary-treasurers of neighborhood associations. But, thanks to a handful of judicial decisions, they have a fancier name — Super PACs. And that gives them a special status: They are under no obligation to release the names of their donors.

If Cole follows through on his promise to create this 501(c)(4) — and it’s curious Moving Nashville Forward wasn’t organized before now — Hizzoner will have sown the seeds indeed: not just for grassroots tax-increase support, but for unlimited expenditures for any future political aspirations.  

It is curious that there is no record of MNF's organization as a 501(c)(4) previously. How long were they going to let that go on after receiving such a large donation from Karl Dean, thus threatening the legality of their machine-like politics?

A familiar ring in this politics of non-profits

I have been reflecting on an interesting parallel, which I assume is purely coincidental, between the question of whether Moving Nashville Forward is a non-profit or a political action committee and confusion expressed here in 2011 over Stand for Children's (a non-profit) endorsing Karl Dean for Mayor.

According to MNF leader Erik Cole, his group is pursuing non-profit status that would permit them to keep the $26,000 that "Dean for Mayor" donated to their efforts to market Karl Dean's budget proposal in the run-up to the Metro Council vote earlier this summer. Cole told reporter Joey Garrison yesterday that his organization is listed as a 501(c)(4). Garrison could not find confirming evidence of MNF's non-profit certification. A source told me that according to the Tennessee Secretary of State's records, Moving Nashville Forward is not certified here as a 501(c)(4).

501(c)(4) is exactly the non-profit status that permitted Stand for Children to endorse Karl Dean for Mayor in the last election. Last year readers were wondering how a non-profit can endorse political candidate and keep its tax exempt status. SFC does it by maintaining two organizations under one roof: their 501(c)(3) cannot campaign; their 501(c)(4) can.

Incidentally, Moving Nashville Forward's co-principal, Francie Hunt, is the former Nashville Director at Stand for Children.


UPDATE: I cannot find Moving Nashville Forward listed in the Internal Revenue Service's Exempt Organizations Master File for Tennessee. That list includes 501(c)(4) organizations reporting to the IRS.

Ronnie Steine tries to pierce the rotten one more time

The Mayor's Office has long enjoyed the services of Ronnie Steine on the Metro Council. He has been Hizzoner's apologist and gofer. So, of course, he is defending Karl Dean's donation to Moving Nashville Forward, as if his words alone can cut through the fishy smell:

The mayor has a campaign fund that he has the right to spend however he wishes .... Generating public education about an issue seems to me a perfectly appropriate use of that money.

First of all, this is a paternalistic defense. CM Steine takes it upon himself to assume that we are looking for education instead of seeing influence and prerogative for what they are in the game of local politics.

Second of all, it is disingenuous. Calling a public relations blitz "public education" truly dumbs down the meaning of education. Although in an era where "public education" can mean almost anything, including the newspeak-opposite of its traditional meanings, I guess the CM feels free to apply it where convenient.

Finally, I guess if money can be speech and corporations can be persons, political donations that serve to advance a short but happy political career can be education. However, it is no less a cynical claim on CM Steine's part.

Oh, and by the way, we still do not know whether the Dean for Mayor campaign donated to a non-profit or a PAC. The difference seems lost to Dean Team apologists.

Is Moving Nashville Forward a non-profit organization or a PAC?

The Nashville City Paper caught wind of Karl Dean's $26,000 contribution to Moving Nashville Forward, which greased the Mayor's agenda by rebranding it as popular. The journos focus on the question of whether MNF is a non-profit organization (which would legitimate the huge Dean contribution) or a political action committee (a.k.a. "PAC", which would make the Dean donation dubious):

Moving Nashville Forward did not organize as a political organization [PAC] and is therefore not required to submit its list of contributors to the Davidson County Election Commission. None of its membership registered as Metro lobbyists either.

Rather, [Erik] Cole said the group is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit and would be filing a financial report with the Internal Revenue Service at the appropriate time ["would be" filing a financial report after the questions are posed?!]. He was unable to provide The City Paper with a full list of Moving Nashville Forward donors but said it represents the various stakeholders who publicly supported Dean’s tax increase. (Efforts by The City Paper to locate the group’s nonprofit certification online were unsuccessful.)

Moving Nashville Forward originated on May 14 with a press conference hosted by three of its members, including Cole, who issued an “invitation to any and all who want to join the effort.”

Leading up to the council’s definitive tax hike vote, the group’s activities included encouraging citizens to email council members to vote for the mayor’s property tax increase. The coalition also rallied supporters to pack the council chambers for the budget’s public hearing.

We're in line-blurring territory here, with non-profits-that-are-not-yet-non-profits packing council chambers in a fashion that that either PACs or grassroots organizations would with supporters to lobby Metro Council on a controversial budget proposed by a Nashville mayor whose political aspirations for higher office in Tennessee necessitate as many wins as he can notch.

Here are conditions, according to the state's Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance, under which Karl Dean is allowed to contribute his campaign funds to other organizations:

Whether an expenditure of campaign funds by a candidate is made for a political purpose depends upon all the facts and circumstances surrounding the expenditure.  An activity engaged in between elections by a candidate which is directly related to and supports the selection, nomination or election of that individual to public office is considered political activity.  An expense which would be incurred by an individual regardless of that person’s candidacy for public office is considered an expenditure for a nonpolitical purpose, except as allowed for the expenditure of surplus contributions.

ALLOWABLE USES.  A candidate with surplus campaign funds from an election shall allocate unexpended funds to one (1) or more of the following:

a.)    The funds may be retained or transferred to any campaign fund pursuant to Tennessee’s reporting requirements, except a candidate for local office shall not transfer surplus funds from such an account to a campaign account for the General Assembly or governor.  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(1)

b.)    The funds may be returned to any or all of the candidate’s contributors as set forth in a formula or plan specified in the candidate’s disclosure of the allocation.  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(2)

c.)     The funds may be distributed to the executive committee of the candidate’s political party.  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(3)

d.)    The monies may be deposited by the candidate in the volunteer public education trust fund.  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(4)

e.)     The funds may be distributed to any organization as described in 26 U.S.C.  170(c).  (Examples - church, schools, school booster clubs, veterans organizations.)  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(5)

f.)     The monies may be distributed to any organization which has received a determination of exemption from federal income taxation pursuant to subsection (3) or (4) of 26 U.S.C. 501(c), if such organization is currently operating under such exemption.  (Section 501(c)(3) includes any non-profit organization that operates exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, public safety testing, literacy, or educational purposes, or to foster national or amateur sport competition, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.  Section 501(c)(4) covers any non-profit civic organization operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare and also includes certain local employee associations when the associations’ net earnings are devoted to charitable, educational or recreational purposes. [emphasis mine])  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(6)

g.)     The funds may be used to defray any ordinary and necessary expenses incurred in connection with the office of the officeholder.  Such expenses may include, but are not limited to the cost of advertisement, membership fees, and donations to community causes.  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(7)

h.) The funds may be distributed to any institution of public or private education in the state for the purpose of supplementing the funds of an existing scholarship trust or program. Please remember that state law requires that the organization to which you are making a contribution must have an up to date exemption from the Internal Revenue Service, in order for your contribution to be proper under this provision.  T.C.A. § 2-10-114(a)(8)

After seeing the Dean donation, an Enclave reader checked with the Tennessee Secretary of State and found out that Moving Nashville Forward is indeed not currently registered (as required) as a non-profit organization. If, in fact, MNF had been interested in the "promotion of social welfare", why would they have failed to register with the state in advance of the highly publicized campaign to pass the Mayor's budget? And, given the ethics rules, how do they qualify as a non-profit organization eligible to receive Karl Dean's $26,000 donation in the first place?

Look what leaps out from Mayor Dean's mid-year finance report

Moving Nashville Forward, the astroturf organization promoted most vigorously by former CM Erik Cole as a grassroots, organic community effort to support Mayor Karl Dean's tax increase, received over $25,000 from the Dean campaign to advance his mission:

That's a slab of simoleons.

I wonder who sprung for pizzas at Mafiaoza's earlier this month? Machine politics is alive and well in Nashville.

HT: Mike Peden

Mafiosi a Mafiaoza's

Boss Tweed, an American symbol
of machine politics.

The day before yesterday we stopped off at Mafiaoza's for pizza on our way to the Sounds baseball game and Independence Day fireworks show. During our dinner, we noticed that Mayor Karl Dean entered and joined a table of around 8 to 10 others we could not see from our table. We finished our meal and exited for the short drive to Greer Stadium. Curious myself but trying not to be to conspicuous as I left, I glanced around the table and spotted principals from the pro-Dean lobby group, "Moving Nashville Forward", including former Council Member Erik Cole and former Stand for Children staffer Francie Hunt.

Despite insinuations that Moving Nashville Forward was a grassroots effort of support for the Mayor's tax increases bubbling up from the community, I've tended to believe that they are a more cosmetic attempt to project the Dean Machine (which includes the Nashville Chamber of Commerce in my book) agenda as organic and hyper-local. I also concluded that MNF is an astroturf attempt to influence public opinion top-down without the appearance that the branding is engineered like a campaign. The endgame: clear any popular brush that might inconvenience Hizzoner.

The fact that Karl Dean was out celebrating with Moving Nashville Forward came as no surprise to me. Seeing the group festively together after easy passage of the property tax increase also seemed natural to me. Karl Dean should be breaking bread and giving thanks with the minions. The machine of Nashville politics is chugging along nicely for the man who aspires to offices higher than Mayor.

The Mayor's property tax hike proposal navigated rough seas during last night's public hearing

Watching the Metro Council's public hearing debate over the Mayor's proposed budget last night (on the second of three readings) was not different for me than any of the previous years' debates. Most of the advocates for Karl Dean's budget were Metro employees and outside agencies that would benefit from the proposal. That is typical and not at all inappropriate. The main difference for me was that for once the Mayor, who no longer is subject to Metro elections, is finally proposing a tax increase to fund services and payroll rather than pitching his usual slew of budget cuts. That energized a large group of public opponents, mostly conservatives encouraged by Republicans, who seemed to at least match the proponents in numbers.

I am not opposed to Mayor's property tax proposal, but for reasons too numerous to list here, I'm not a zealous advocate either. While more sympathetic with those who say we need more revenues to address our budget challenges, I also believe that the Mayor has not done much over most of his tenure to stop the free fall Metro services while committing to historically large capital projects and helping to sell off public education. So, I am both for raising taxes and sympathetic with the populist backlash that keeps reeling at the Mayor's Office.

Therefore, you may be able to guess where my impression of last night's meeting ended up. If not, I'll clarify. While I disagreed with most of their misplaced shots at government and their ridiculous calls for selling off and privatizing more government entities, I thought the opponents of the Mayor's budget were strongest where they articulated populist options to Dean's plan. One I heard several times was that council should formulate amendments to the budget that would only hike pay for police officers and teachers; a corollary to this was the argument that amendments should allow raises in pay of those workers at the bottom end of the Metro payroll, but not of the ones at the top of the Courthouse pyramid.

Conservatives rarely seem afraid to appeal to populism. That does not mean they get it right when they claim it. Liberals by and large seem uncomfortable with mass appeals. The vacuum they leave when they balk at populist appeals from the bottom is inevitably filled by opportunistic and angry conservatives. If the council progressives could ever stoop to take up the populist banner and make working class people their primary focus, they would divide and conquer. They would blunt conservative criticism of what appear to be elite commitments to public art and libraries. These don't have to be snobbish and condescending priorities. Liberals in the New Deal age were able to pull populism together with intellectual and artistic pursuits. It was never an either/or. Liberals in this age invite an either/or by shying away from populism and kowtowing to the wealthy and well-placed.

Former CM Erik Cole tried to brand his pro-Dean group, "Moving Nashville Forward" as a grassroots effort, but to me it came across as astroturf. Mr. Cole just happened to be the last one to speak in favor of the tax plan at last night's public hearing. As a CM Mr. Cole once argued that council decisions should not be subject to popular will. So, the fact that he has been blasting out emails encouraging people to wear t-shirts and pack the public gallery in the effort to lobby council to support Mayor Karl Dean looks cynical to me. Given his past ambivalence, I might call it a case of "populism envy" if not one of cynicism. In those blasts he also wrongly pointed out that Dean opponents did not offer any options (in fact, I just cited some of the more populist options that were expressed during the public hearing).

Council progressives can get all the support the want for funding the arts and the libraries if they would first be advocates for the working class and others pushed to the margins by Nashville's ruling class. Very few look comfortable doing that. The Mayor's plan is going to pass, but it is up to the council to include amendments that make a tax hike more progressive in the populist sense of "progressive" in order to bridge the gap between liberals and common people.

Former council critic of populism now embracing it to help the Mayor?

Monday morning former council member and husband of one of Karl Dean's appointees sent out an email blast across Nashville encouraging a populist effort, even though in his last term as CM he criticized populism to aid a scuffling Dean project. Here is Mr. Cole's "Moving Nashville Forward" email:

This morning, you read in the Tennessean about the Mayor's plan to move Nashville forward with a budget that invests in our schools, our neighborhoods and our city. You also read about a few folks who say no to everything , without ever presenting a plan of their own.

Now, it's time to make your voice heard. Here’s how you can help:

1. EMAIL all Council members with the subject line : "Say YES to Moving Nashville Forward." You can email them at councilmembers@nashville.gov , or find members' individual addresses here.

2. VOLUNTEER to help us turn out calls and emails to Council members. Reply to this email with your contact info.

3. JOIN US Tuesday, June 5 at 6:30 p.m. at the Metro Council Public Hearing on the Budget. Come, wear a T-shirt and show your support!

Finally, please share this email by clicking the icons at the top of this message. Don't forget to Like Moving Nashville Forward on Facebook and follow @MoveNashForward on Twitter.

Thanks so much for helping out. Your support and hard work will pay off for Nashville!

All the best,

Erik Cole
Moving Nashville Forward

You may recall the WPLN interview late in 2009 where Mr. Cole insisted that he would be unbowed by the historic turnout against the Mayor's fairgrounds plan comparing his unpopular support of the Mayor to those who marched for civil rights and to those who fought Hitler. His criticism of supporters of the fairgrounds and community-based planning came across to me as condescending when I originally listen to it, especially when thousands wrote emails and eventually showed up for the public hearing in "Save the Fairgrounds" tees to speak against the Mayor's proposal.

Apparently, what was not good for the goose is now good for the gander. I'm not saying that the people who support a tax increase are wrong. However, Mr. Cole seems to have a double standard on the question of populism and its uses; he does not seem as quick to bludgeon populist support of his issues by comparing it to the slowness of Americans to support civil rights and to fight fascism. Nope. He looks comfortable mobilizing support for his cause absent a single reference to his own past "caveats" about the popular will.