Democrats love to complain about big “dark money” donors trying to influence U.S. elections. But if their concerns were actually genuine, where is their outrage about the massive wave of out-of-state money flooding Virginia to pass their deceptively worded gerrymandering amendment?
According to figures compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), the wrongly named “Virginians for Fair Elections” has received nearly $50 million to deceive voters into supporting a legally questionable ballot measure allowing the state’s Democrat-run General Assembly to redraw the commonwealth’s congressional map. The party’s current proposal would gerrymander the state’s U.S. House districts from a six Democrat-five Republican map to a 10 Democrat-one Republican map and effectively disenfranchise millions of rural Virginians in the process.
In the months leading up to the April 21 referendum, Virginians for Fair Elections has deployed dishonest ads characterizing Democrats’ gerrymandering scheme as “fair,” and claiming it’s about protecting “democracy,” a much-needed “emergency,” and “level[ing] the playing field.” But it’s clear after examining the funds being poured into the group, however, that most of its financial support isn’t coming from the Virginians it pretends it’s trying to help, but from leftist organizations based outside the state.
A Federalist analysis of the latest donation figures assembled by the Virginia Public Access Project shows that more than 90 percent of Virginians for Fair Elections’ large contributions come from Democrat-aligned out-of-state groups.
The organization’s largest contributor is none other than the D.C.-based House Majority Forward (HMF), a 501(c)(4) that boasts ties to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrat leadership. According to InfluenceWatch, HMF — which has given $29.3 million to Virginians for Fair Elections — “focuses on climate change, social justice, economics, and democracy, and produces ads in favor of Democratic candidates and opposed to Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.”
The second largest donor ($11.02 million) to Virginians for Fair Elections is The Fairness Project. InfluenceWatch describes the D.C.-based 501(c)(4) as a “labor union-backed advocacy organization that finances and supports state ballot initiative campaigns to promote left-of-center policies such as government-mandated comprehensive paid family and medical leave, Medicaid expansion, and minimum wage increases.”
Hellbound and Down 