A new study by Professors Alex Hertel-Fernandez and Theda Skocpol details the pervasiveness of the Koch brothers’ network to take control of the Republican Party.
Quick findings from the study:
- Koch-backed organizations fund 76% of all of the budgets of “GOP-conservative organizations newly created since 2002.”
- Koch-funded organizations encourage politicians “to compete to prove they can be effective spokespersons for, and executors of, the Koch agenda,” instead of making candidate endorsements.
- According to Americans For Prosperity’s national congressional scorecards, Republican House and Senate members “have voted with AFP most of the time…with compliance rising from 73% in 2007 to 88% in 2015.”
Complete report: “The Koch Effect: The Impact of a Cadre-Led Network on American Politics”
“To us, it has been fascinating to discover that, unlike most policy advocacy groups, the Koch network does not just stand apart and push from the outside. We have done detailed research on the careers of AFP state directors before and after their time with that organization. Of the 58 directors who served in the 15 enduring state organizations established by 2007, nearly seven in 10 had previously worked on GOP legislative or executive staffs or on Republican election campaigns, and nearly three in 10 would later hold important GOP posts after working for AFP. Many other AFP veterans owned or managed GOP-linked consulting businesses. Although we have more research to do, we find so far that ATR and the Club for Growth recruit professional staffers primarily from other conservative advocacy organizations. AFP is much more tightly intertwined with the Republican Party.
“Nor is the Koch network some sort of third party, as some commentators have implied. Even though the Koch network now deploys funding and staffing on a scale close to the entire Republican Party, it is not a separate entity. The Koch brothers and their allies have made a very deliberate decision to work through the Republican Party at all levels and pull its agenda to the right.”
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