Category Archives: Treasury

Illegals are Covered Under Obamacare, Words Matter

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7 Years ago, Barack Obama delivered a speech declaring that Obamacare would not insure those that are here illegally. Congressman Joe Wilson yelled, ‘you lie’. Well Joe Wilson was right all along, so he deserves the apology.

CRS: The degree to which foreign nationals (noncitizens/aliens)1 should be accorded access to certain benefits as a result of their presence in the United States, as well as the responsibilities of such persons given their legal status (e.g., immigrants, nonimmigrants, unauthorized aliens), often figures into policy discussions in Congress. These issues become particularly salient when Congress considers legislation to establish new immigration statuses or to create or modify benefit and entitlement programs.

The 111th Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148), which has been amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-152) and several other bills. (ACA refers to P.L. 111-148 as amended by P.L. 111-152 and the other legislation.)2 The ACA created new responsibilities (e.g., the requirement that most people in the United States obtain health insurance) and new benefits (e.g., tax credits to help certain people purchase health insurance), and it addressed the eligibility and responsibility of foreign nationals for these provisions. One issue that has arisen during debates to amend provisions in the ACA and during discussions of immigration reform is the eligibility of foreign nationals for some of the ACA’s key provisions.

This report opens with a discussion of several different statutory and regulatory definitions of lawfully present. On the surface, alien eligibility for provisions under the ACA appears straightforward. In general, those who are lawfully present are eligible, and those who are not lawfully present are not eligible. However, due to differing definitions of “lawfully present” and the interaction between the treatment of noncitizens under tax law, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the ACA, the eligibility of individuals with certain immigration statuses for these provisions can become more complicated.

 

This report then analyzes the eligibility of foreign nationals for key provisions in the ACA that have restrictions based on immigration status: the requirement to maintain health insurance, the ability to purchase insurance through an exchange, and eligibility for the premium tax credit and cost-sharing subsidies.3 It includes consideration of the implementing regulations and the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.4 This report concludes with information on the alien-status verification process.

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Treatment of Noncitizens Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)

The following section discusses alien eligibility for the following provisions under the ACA: the health insurance mandate, the exchanges (the Marketplace), and premium tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies. In general, aliens are separated into two groups for eligibility purposes under the ACA: aliens who are “lawfully present in the United States” are eligible for these provisions, while aliens who are not “lawfully present in the United States” are ineligible.

Definition of Lawfully Present

One of the complexities of alien eligibility for the ACA stems from the difficulty of defining who is considered lawfully present. The regulations implementing the ACA define lawfully present to include immigrants, asylees/refugees, nonimmigrants, and most other noncitizens who are known to the U.S. government and have been given some type of permission to remain temporarily in the United States. (For the full list, see Appendix A.) “Lawfully present” was first defined by regulation in this context for the purposes of eligibility for the high risk pools for uninsured people with pre-existing conditions.5 Since then, all regulations regarding the ACA have referenced that definition for the health insurance mandate, the exchanges, and the premium credit and cost-sharing subsidies.6 The definition of lawfully present for the ACA is identical to the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) policy definition of “lawfully residing” for Medicaid and CHIP eligibility7 and is similar to the definition of “lawfully present” for Social Security eligibility.8

 

Nonetheless, “lawfully present” is not a term that is widely used within the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The INA divides foreign nationals into two general types of legal statuses for admission to the United States: immigrants and nonimmigrants. Under the INA, other aliens may have permission to be in the United States, but they do not have an immigration status. The term “lawfully present” in the INA is only defined in regards to noncitizen eligibility for Social Security.9 The INA also defines the term “unlawfully present” specifically for purposes of determining inadmissibility, but that definition is not equivalent to the definition of “lawfully present” for purposes of the ACA.

There are noncitizens who have temporary permission to remain in the Unites States under narrowly defined circumstances such as those with temporary protected status (TPS),11 withholding of removal,12 Deferred Enforced Departure,13 and parole14—often referred to as the “quasi-legal population.” This “quasi-legal” population is counted by researchers at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and at the Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project—the two main entities that estimate the unauthorized alien population—as part of the unauthorized (illegal) population. Although these “quasi-legal” migrants comprise a small percentage of the total noncitizen population, most are considered “lawfully present” for the purposes of the ACA.15 (For a discussion of these estimates, see Appendix B, “Estimates of the Noncitizen Population in the United States.”)

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Tax Treatment of Noncitizens

For purposes of the ACA, understanding the U.S. income tax treatment of noncitizens may be important for several reasons, including that any noncitizen who is a nonresident alien—which is a tax law term—is not subject to the individual mandate.22 Also, some might be interested in understanding the tax liability of noncitizens in light of the fact that the IRS may face difficulty in enforcing the mandate against any taxpayer (citizen or resident alien) who does not receive a tax refund.

For federal tax purposes, foreign nationals are classified as resident or nonresident aliens.23 These terms are used in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) but do not exist in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).24 As a result, the specific immigration statuses under the INA do not align directly with the terms resident and nonresident alien.25

In general, an individual is a nonresident alien unless he or she meets the qualifications under either residency test:

Green card test: the individual is a lawful permanent resident of the United States at any time during the current year, or

 Substantial presence test: the individual is present in the United States for at least 31 days during the current year and at least 183 days during the current year and previous two years (counting all the qualifying days in the current year, one-third of the days in the prior year, and one-sixth of the days in the earliest year).

There are several situations in which an individual may be classified as a nonresident alien even though he or she meets the substantial presence test. For example, an individual will generally be treated as a nonresident alien if he or she has a closer connection to a foreign country than to the United States, maintains a “tax home” in the foreign country, and is in the United States for fewer than 183 days during the year.27 Another example is that an individual in the United States under an F-, J-, M-, or Q-visa—students, teachers, trainees, and cultural exchange visitors—may be treated as a nonresident alien if he or she has substantially complied with visa requirements.28 This treatment generally applies to foreign students (most foreign students are on F visas) for their first five years in the United States and to teachers and trainees for the first two years. (You can read the full report here if you can stand it.)

 

Hillary accepts cash from Hamas-linked CAIR

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Islamist Money in Politics, Donations from Individuals Associated with American Islamist Groups

Recipient Name: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Donations History

**** 

Hillary Clinton accepts cash from Hamas-linked CAIR, leads 2016 list of pols getting money from Islamic supremacists

“Hillary Clinton Accepts Cash From CAIR, Leads 2016 List of Islamist Donations,” by John Hayward, Breitbart, October 27, 2016:

The Middle East Forum’s “Islamist Money in Politics” project compiles an annual list of politicians who receive campaign contributions from Islamist groups and “individuals who subscribe to the same Islamic supremacism as Khomeini, Bin Laden, and ISIS.”

The top-ranking recipient in the 2015-2016 list is Hillary Clinton, who raked in $41,165 from prominent Islamists, says the report:

This includes $19,249 from senior officials of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates on November 15, 2014. For example, Mrs. Clinton has accepted $3,900 from former CAIR vice-chairman Ahmad Al-Akhras, who has defended numerous Islamists in Ohio indicted – and later convicted – on terrorism charges.

The top ten list includes nine Democrats, one independent (who just happens to have been Clinton’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders) and zero Republicans.

Donald Trump received no Islamist money, and neither did Libertarian Gary Johnson. Jill Stein of the Green Party accepted $250 in such donations.

“While the amounts of Islamist donations are relatively small, the information: (1) holds politicians accountable for accepting funds from soiled sources; (2) signals the Islamist lobby’s affections and intentions; and (3) tells voters who takes money from individuals linked to enemies of the United States and its allies,” the Middle East Forum argues.

CAIR has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding operation.

CAIR is closely entwined with Islamists and with jihadis that court documents and news reports show that at least five of its people — either board members, employees or former employees — have been jailed or repatriated for various financial and terror-related offenses.

Breitbart has also published evidence highlighted by critics showing that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas-based criminal effort to deliver $12 million to the Jew-hating HAMAS jihad group, that CAIR was founded with $490,000 from HAMAS, and that the FBI bans top-level meetings with CAIR officials. “The FBI policy restricting a formal relationship with CAIR remains … [but] does not preclude communication regarding investigative activity or allegations of civil rights violations,” said an Oct. 2015 email from FBI spokesman Christopher Allen.

In 2009, a federal judge concluded that “the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR… with Hamas.”

Awad has a long history of pro-HAMAS statements, according to critics. CAIR has posted its defense online.

Now Loretta Lynch Pleads the ‘Fifth’ in Iran Ransom Investigation

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H. R. 5931, a bill in Congress is designed to stop all future payments of any sort to Iran.

Senator Grassley’s letter to Loretta Lynch demanding answers to 5 questions is here.

Congress: Attorney General
Lynch ‘Pleads Fifth’ on Secret Iran ‘Ransom’ Payments

Obama admin blocking congressional probe into cash payments to Iran

Attorney General Loretta Lynch is declining to comply with an investigation by leading members of Congress about the Obama administration’s secret efforts to send Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, prompting accusations that Lynch has “pleaded the Fifth” Amendment to avoid incriminating herself over these payments, according to lawmakers and communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) initially presented Lynch in October with a series of questions about how the cash payment to Iran was approved and delivered.

In an Oct. 24 response, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik responded on Lynch’s behalf, refusing to answer the questions and informing the lawmakers that they are barred from publicly disclosing any details about the cash payment, which was bound up in a ransom deal aimed at freeing several American hostages from Iran.

The response from the attorney general’s office is “unacceptable” and provides evidence that Lynch has chosen to “essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries regarding [her] role in providing cash to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism,” Rubio and Pompeo wrote on Friday in a follow-up letter to Lynch, according to a copy obtained by the Free Beacon.

The inquiry launched by the lawmakers is just one of several concurrent ongoing congressional probes aimed at unearthing a full accounting of the administration’s secret negotiations with Iran.

“It is frankly unacceptable that your department refuses to answer straightforward questions from the people’s elected representatives in Congress about an important national security issue,” the lawmakers wrote. “Your staff failed to address any of our questions, and instead provided a copy of public testimony and a lecture about the sensitivity of information associated with this issue.”

“As the United States’ chief law enforcement officer, it is outrageous that you would essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries,” they stated. “The actions of your department come at time when Iran continues to hold Americans hostage and unjustly sentence them to prison.”

The lawmakers included a copy of their previous 13 questions and are requesting that Lynch provide answers by Nov. 4.

When asked about Lynch’s efforts to avoid answering questions about the cash payment, Pompeo told the Free Beacon that the Obama administration has blocked Congress at every turn as lawmakers attempt to investigate the payments to Iran.

“Who knew that simple questions regarding Attorney General Lynch’s approval of billions of dollars in payments to Iran could be so controversial that she would refuse to answer them?” Pompeo said. “This has become the Obama administration’s coping mechanism for anything related to the Islamic Republic of Iran—hide information, obfuscate details, and deny answers to Congress and the American people.”

“They know this isn’t a sustainable strategy, however, and I trust they will start to take their professional, and moral, obligations seriously,” the lawmaker added.

In the Oct. 24 letter to Rubio and Pompeo, Assistant Attorney General Kadzik warned the lawmakers against disclosing to the public any information about the cash payment.

Details about the deal are unclassified, but are being kept under lock and key in a secure facility on Capitol Hill, the Free Beacon first disclosed. Lawmakers and staffers who have clearance to view the documents are forced to relinquish their cellular devices and are barred from taking any notes about what they see.

“Please note that these documents contain sensitive information that is not appropriate for public release,” Kadzik wrote to the lawmakers. “Disclosure of this information beyond members of the House and Senate and staff who are able to view them could adversely affect the diplomatic relations of the United States, including with key allies, as well as the State Department’s ability to defend [legal] claims against the United States [by Iran] that are still being litigated at the Hague Tribunal.”

“The public release of any portion of these documents, or the information contained therein, is not authorized by the transmittal of these documents or by this communication,” Kadzik wrote.

Congressional sources have told the Free Beacon that this is another part of the effort to hide details about these secret negotiations with Iran from the American public.

One senior congressional source familiar with both the secret documents and the inquiry into them told the Free Beacon that the details of the negotiations are so damning that the administration’s best strategy is to ignore lawmakers’ requests for more information.

“Every Obama administration official and department involved in the Iran Deal appear to be running for cover,” the source said. “Like we feared, the [Iran deal] is turning out to be a disaster and Iran is emboldened in its aggression. Evidently Attorney General Lynch and the Department of Justice have decided ‘refusal to cooperate’ is their best strategy. But this is dangerous and ultimately won’t protect them from anything.”

Update: The headline has been updated to more accurately characterize the story.

***

In part testimony on the House side:

The deal – as well as the interim agreement known as the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) – provided Iran with substantial economic relief that helped the regime avoid a severe economic crisis and return to a modest recovery path. The lifting of restrictions on Iran’s use of frozen overseas assets as part of the interim agreement returned about $11.9 billion to Iran. The final agreement provided Tehran with access to a further $100 billion, including over $50 billion in unencumbered, liquid cash, according to the Obama administration.2 These funds gave Tehran badly needed hard currency to settle its outstanding debts, begin to repair its economy, build up its diminished foreign exchange reserves, and ease a budgetary crisis, as well as providing the regime greater resources for the financing of terrorism and other illicit activities.

The nuclear deal did nothing to address the full range of Iran’s malign activities, including ballistic missile development, support for terrorism, regional destabilization, and human rights abuses. Iran also still owes American terrorism victims and their families more than $55 billion in unpaid, outstanding damages awarded by American courts. (…)

A key driver of these threats remains the Islamic Republic’s ability to bankroll and finance a host of terrorist groups, militias, and proxy forces throughout the Middle East,6 including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and designated Iraqi Shiite militias, as well expanding the existing asymmetric military capabilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its elite Quds Force. Iran remains the world’s largest and most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism, according to President Obama’s State Department.7

Iran’s ability to access cash outside the formal banking system is crucial in supporting these activities. Tehran also cash for other malign activities that it aggressively supports: WMD procurement, missile and heavy weaponry procurement, as well as aid to the murderous regime of Bashir al-Assad in Syria, designated Shiite militias, the Houthis in Yemen, and other malign actors.

 

He Warned the WH and Democrats About Obamacare

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He Predicted Obamacare Wouldn’t Be ‘Affordable.’ Democrats Didn’t Listen.

DailySignal: Robert Laszewski is a policy adviser and analyst for the health insurance industry. He’s correctly predicted Obamacare’s pitfalls since Day One.

Heritage

In an interview with “Full Measure” this Sunday, Laszewski says he warned the Obama administration and other Democrats not to call it the “Affordable Care Act.” Earlier this week, the administration announced Obamacare premiums are spiking 25 percent.

Here’s a transcript from our interview:

Laszewski: The future is not good. The fundamental problem is not enough healthy people have signed up to pay for the sick, and not enough healthy people have signed up because the insurance plans that people are being offered just simply aren’t of good value.

Attkisson: What do customers see as wrong with the insurance product?

Laszewski: The insurance products consumers see are still too expensive in terms of premium. And the deductibles and copays are too high.

Attkisson: Can you explain in simple terms how the insurance companies are losing so much money if they’re charging so much for premiums and if deductibles are so high?

Laszewski: It’s real simple. If you only provide a health insurance plan that the sickest people buy, you can’t charge enough. You can never charge enough.

Attkisson: At it’s core, it was supposed the provide affordable insurance for everybody who needed it.

Laszewski: Yes. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to ensure that whether you were employed or unemployed or self-employed, you would have access to affordable health insurance. For someone who’s not getting a subsidy, who’s paying the full cost of the insurance, it’s likely they are now paying about double what they paid before under the old market, where only healthy people could get in.

>> Find out when and where you can watch “Full Measure”

 

DailySignal

**** Either way, taxpayers are in fact on the hook to offset costs regardless of how they are applied. Socialized payment system for a broken system.

****

Minnesota could spend up to $300M to offset ObamaCare hikes

TheHill: Minnesota’s Democratic governor wants to pour as much as $300 million into a relief fund for people facing massive premium hikes under ObamaCare in his state next year.

Gov. Mark Dayton proposed Thursday that he would offer “rebates” to help offset the 55 percent increase in healthcare premiums that ObamaCare customers will face in Minnesota this year.

The money would be taken out of Minnesota’s “rainy day fund,” which got a boost from the state’s budget surplus last year.

But Dayton was clear that his state would need a longer-term solution to make ObamaCare plans more affordable.

Dayton is the first governor in the country to announce his own plan to tackle rising premiums this year, which are far steeper than any of the previous year’s increases. The state’s final plan will also include input from the state’s Republicans, who are working on their own proposals to address panic over the premiums.

With the new rebates, Dayton said the rate increase would be limited to an average of 16 percent — below the national average of 22 percent. Last year, the national average for premium hikes was about 7 percent.

Minnesota has attracted national attention this year as it faces one of the highest premium hikes in the country. Dayton himself came under scrutiny on the issue of healthcare after he declared earlier this month that the “Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable.” Under pressure from fellow Democrats, he later walked back his remarks.

In his lengthy statement on Thursday, Dayton vigorously defended ObamaCare while also acknowledging the law is “now causing very difficult financial problems” for some people.

Justice Department’s Bank Terrorism Funding Radical Orgs/Activism

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Congress held hearings, defunded several of these programs, but Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch found innovative methods to continue the funding by financial terrorism and extortion. This is all without the oversight of Congress and mostly in legal secrecy.

 

In part from the report by the Government Accountability Institute:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith took a very direct approach

in his January 25, 2012 correspondence addressed to Eric Holder. He stated:

I am concerned that the terms of the Justice Department’s recent settlement

with Countrywide Financial Corporation and certain affiliates (collectively,

“Countrywide”) will allow the Department to give large sums of money to

individuals and organizations with questionable backgrounds or close

political ties to the White House without any guidelines or oversight. If that is

to be the case, this sort of backdoor funding of the president’s political allies

would be an abuse of the Department’s law enforcement authority.85

He was specifically addressing a December 28, 2011 DOJ settlement with Countrywide,

which required that Countrywide deposit $335 million into an interest-bearing escrow

account to remedy alleged violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Fair Housing

Act.86

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The Rise and Fall of ACORN

Saul Alinsky’s influence is undeniable. Since the publication of Reveille for Radicals

in 1946 and Rules for Radicals in 1971, grassroots organizations have been launched for the

purpose of community organizing and systemic social/political change.91 As the movement

grew, organizers created several national support organizations including the Industrial

Areas Foundation (IAF) which was founded by Alinsky. Other organizations that grew out

of the Alinsky philosophies included NACA, and ACORN. One of the first was The National

Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), an activist organization founded in 1966, focused on

welfare rights.92 Both John Calkins, founder of The Direct Action and Research Training

Center (DART) and Wade Rathke founder of ACORN worked with the NWRO.93 Other

groups that appeared on the community organizing scene who modeled Alinsky’s style of

activism were groups like DART, National People’s Action (NPA) and La Raza.

One of the chief beneficiaries of this wealth redistribution by the federal

government has been ACORN. In its July 2006 report, “Rotten ACORN, America’s Bad Seed,”

the Employment Policies Institute described ACORN as a “multi-million-dollar

multinational conglomerate.”94 The report described ACORN’s hunger and pursuit of

political power:

ACORN’s no-holds-barred take on politics originates from its philosophy,

which is centered on power. An internal ACORN manual instructed

organizers to sign up as many residents as possible because “this is a mass

organization directed at political power where might makes right.”95

This sentiment aligns with the Marxist underpinnings of the Students for a

Democratic Society, a group that housed Rathke. ACORN enjoyed rapid growth facilitated

 

through government grants and contracts before, during, and after the 2008 election.

Handwritten notes obtained from an FBI investigative file by Judicial Watch through a FOIA

request indicate ACORN’s headquarters was working for the Democratic Party.96 During

and after the 2008 election there were numerous allegations of massive fraud on the part

of ACORN.97 In 2009, several major scandals involving ACORN and its affiliated groups

broke into the national news. These included rampant embezzlement, fraud, and evidence

that ACORN and their affiliated groups were advising individuals how to break the law.98

A July 23, 2009 Staff Report for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform in its title asked, “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured as

a Criminal Enterprise?” Then offers the following findings in its executive summary:

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has

repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic fraud. Both structurally and

operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections

to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal

money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the

American electorate.

Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a

criminal investigation of ACORN. By intentionally blurring the legal distinctions

between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and taxexempt

monies into partisan political activities. Since 1994, more than $53 million

in federal funds have been pumped into ACORN, and under the Obama

administration, ACORN stands to receive a whopping $8.5 billion in available

stimulus funds.

Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District

of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use

taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract

investigators. Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is

shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated

employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act.99

One of the events described in the report was the cover-up of the embezzlement of

$948,607.50 by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.100 These and

other events led to a ban on all federal funding for ACORN affiliated groups in 2009.101

Fox News reported that the former director of New York ACORN, Jon Kest, and his

top aides renamed New York ACORN to New York Communities for Change (NYCC), used

the same office and stationary as New York ACORN and employed many of the same staff as

previously employed by New York ACORN.106 In 2013, Fox News and several other news

outlets reported that contracts for services known as Navigator grants under Obamacare

were awarded to former associates of ACORN and its affiliated organizations. Wade Rathke

had announced in September 2013 that The United Labor Unions Council Local 100, a New

Orleans-based nonprofit, would take part in a multi-state “navigator” drive to help people

enroll in Obamacare.107

****

In the most recent consent orders from Bank of America, Citigroup and

JPMorgan settlements offered credit for giving to nonprofits. These not only require banks

to make donations to nonprofits but incentivize them to give more than the required

amount. The evolution of these consent orders illustrates the growing effort by the current

administration to funnel money to these nonprofit groups.

The DOJ limited distributions to “HUD approved housing counseling agencies,” such

as the groups set to receive mandatory minimum payments under the Citigroup and Bank

of America settlements, and incentivized payments under many of these settlements. These

organizations had been preapproved by prior administrations. These included La Raza,

Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) and part of the old ACORN

network who in the wake of the scandal and congressional prohibition against further

funding restyled itself as the Mutual Housing Association of New York (MHANY). The HUD

website lists MHANY’s contact as Ismene Speliotis. Speliotis previously served as the New

York director of ACORN Housing. Furthermore, an examination of tax returns for the

nonprofit reveals that MHANY Management, Inc. maintained the EIN (72-1303737)

previously used by New York ACORN Housing Company, Inc. Between the 2007 and 2008

tax filings, only the group’s name had changed.147 This corporate entity was merely New

York ACORN Housing Company, Inc. rebranded with a new name and clothed in a new

“moral garment.” Despite the prohibition on ACORN funding from Congress, New York

ACORN Housing Company, Inc. had sidestepped congressional intent by simply changing its

name.

****

In September 2012, FHC hosted its annual conference in Orlando. The keynote

speaker for day two: Judith Browne Dianis,198 longtime liberal activist, attorney, and

scholar.199 In its 2012 post-election newsletter, FHC published Browne Dianis’s editorial on

that election.200 She did not mention the word “housing” once. Instead, she denounced what

she termed “the greatest rollback on voting rights in more than a century.” This was her

terminology for the “partisan” voter ID laws passed that year, and the subject of so much

litigation. Furthermore, as its website clearly shows, Browne Dianis’s Advancement Project

 

was in the thick of this litigation.201 In her FHC editorial, she condemned those laws at

length, and called for Election Day to be made a national holiday, and a “next generation

voting-rights movement.”202 She denounced other practices that she claimed amount to

voter suppression. She quoted the recently re-elected Barack Obama on these same issues.

So who was she and how did she find her way to the editorial page of the FHC

newsletter and the keynote speaker slot at the FHC convention? Advancement Project’s tax

return for 2012 lists a grant of $25,000203 to a 501(c)(4) advocacy group known as Florida

New Majority.204 The grant was designated as “Voter Protection Program” – amounting to

nearly one-tenth of the approximately $280,000.00 in grants given out by Browne-Dianis’s

nonprofit, the Advancement Project, for such purposes that year.205 Interestingly, the

Florida New Majority’s 990 for 2012 says nothing about protecting voters, but includes

nearly half-a-million dollars to “reach and mobilize voters during the 2012 elections with

the objective of promoting progressive federal and state legislators…” (emphasis added)206

****

Asian Americans for Equality: Margaret Chin and John Choe

Margaret Chin cut her political teeth as a student activist in the Communist Workers

Party (CWP) while attending the City College in the 1970s. It was Chin who stood before

the cameras and condemned the killing of five of her party members in Greensboro, North

Carolina where the CWP had sponsored a “Death to the Klan” rally which led to an armed

confrontation with the Klan.221 The “Communist” moniker would not serve them well in

their efforts to influence politics in New York City, but a solution was forthcoming. In 1974,

protests erupted in Manhattan’s Chinatown and Asian Americans for Equal Employment

was formed to fight discriminatory hiring practices on a federally-financed construction

project. A “stunning civil rights victory” ultimately led to the founding of Asian Americans

for Equality (AAFE) and a continued focus on “civil liberties” issues.222 Chin, a founding

member of AAFE223 and other members of the CWP, found great success in identifying an

issue important to the community and wrapping themselves in it. We know this because of

the overlap of individuals involved the CWP and AAFE. Many of the founders of AAFE were

also active with the CWP. AAFE shared an address and phone number with the CWP for

several years. It seemed that CWP veterans regularly ended up as AAFE officers. Chin

served as President of AAFE from 1982 to 1986 and was associated with AAFE until 2008

when she began efforts to run for the city council. Her work at AAFE served as a launching

pad into New York politics and in 1986 and with the help of the progressive liberal group,

the Village Independent Democrats, she was elected to the Democratic State Committee

were she served two terms. The AAFE afforded Chin the kind of resources and respectable

platform from which she could chase her political aspirations.224

In 2009, AAFE announced it had joined the NeighborWorks America charter.225 With

this came the “seal of approval” from HUD and federal funding. NeighborWorks funding also

increased—from just over $250,000 in 2008, the year before the announcement, to over

$700,000 in 2013 alone. In total, since 2008, AAFE has received over $4 million in grants from

NeighborWorks.226 Some have not only lamented, but have charged that the AAFE has left

its activist routes to become no more than a “housing developer.” As the New York Times

described it:

Down from the ramparts, fists unclenched, their protest signs long ago set aside,

Asian Americans for Equality — leaders among a cadre of community groups that

brought thousands of demonstrators into the streets of Chinatown and to the steps

of City Hall in the mid-1970’s — is now a major landlord and residential developer.

That same article published the following criticisms:

“I think AAFE has aligned itself with business interests and political interests at the

expense of Chinatown’s residential and low-wage workers,” said Margaret Fung,

executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. ”They

want to acquire properties or city-owned buildings so that they can be the

developers, instead of some other group. They favor themselves.”

****

A Rising New Star

In January 1993, an article in Chicago Magazine described how “a huge black turnout

in November 1992 altered Chicago’s electoral landscape-and raised new political

star.”243 Leading up to the election George Bush had been making gains on Bill Clinton in

Illinois. Carol Moseley Braun who had previously been seen as “unstoppable” was on the

ropes amidst allegations regarding her mother’s Medicare liability. Even so, she was able to

win her seat and Bill Clinton won the state. The article attributed their success to “…the

most effective minority voter registration drive in memory…” which was the result of the

efforts of Project Vote. At the helm of Project Vote was a young lawyer named Barack

Obama.

Sandy Newman, a lawyer and civil rights activist who founded Project Vote

explained the work of the nonprofit organization in the election as follows:

Project Vote! is nonpartisan, strictly nonpartisan. But we do focus our efforts on

minority voters, and on states where we can explain to them why their vote will

matter. Braun made that easier in Illinois. (emphasis added)

Project Vote’s work in voter registration was hailed as the reason Braun was elected

drawing a direct correlation with voter registration activities and election outcomes.

Indeed, in another portion of the article the writer contrasts the old way of doing things

and the new paradigm created by Mr. Obama’s efforts through the nonprofit:

To understand the full implications of Obama’s effort, you first need to understand

how voter registration often has worked in Chicago. The Regular Democratic Party

spearheaded most drives, doing so using one primary motivator: money. The party

would offer bounties to registrars for every new voter they signed up (typically a

dollar per registration). The campaigns did produce new voters. “But bounty

systems don’t really promote participation,” says David Orr, the Cook County

clerk….

The article suggests that the old political engine previously supplied by the “Regular

Democratic Party” had now been replaced by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and its leader, Barack

Obama.244

****

Billionaire George Soros founded data utility company, Catalist, to mobilize liberal

voters through nonprofits. Catalist provides the advanced data analysis necessary for

micro-targeting and is building a base of voters and contributors for the exclusive use of

progressive left-leaning groups. Its compatriot is an organization called Nonprofit VOTE

whose goals include providing “high quality resources for nonprofits and social service

agencies to promote voter participation and engage with candidates on a nonpartisan

basis.”247 Their website mentions that Nonprofit VOTE is a nonpartisan organization, and

they acknowledge the demographics of the voters that nonprofits are most likely to reach

are “young, low-income, and diverse populations.”248 Studies have shown that this

demographic is most likely to vote Democrat. As the Wyss memorandum points out these

populations “tend to be reliably progressive on economic […] issues.”249

In 2012 and 2014 Nonprofit VOTE ran pilot projects to increase voter turnout

through nonprofits. The project report acknowledged the help of Catalist, LLC, an

organization that “works with and for data-driven progressive organizations to help them

effect change: issue advocates, labor organizers, pollsters, analysts, consultants, campaigns,

and more.”

The two stated goals of the project were to:

• “For nonprofits already doing voter engagement and those considering it, the goal

of Track the Vote program was to provide tangible data to assess the impact of

nonprofits on increasing voter participation—using that data to ground their work

in outcomes and make the case for voter engagement as an ongoing priority.”

Read the full report here.