Real Koch Facts: Virginia

In An Off-Year Election, The Kochs Remain As Invested As Ever

November 3, 2015

It’s Election Day 2015 — and the Kochs have a lot of money on the line. It may be an off-year election, but Charles and David Koch are as invested as ever. Though they downplay the extent of their influence and impact of their machinations, up and down the ticket — from Colorado and Utah, to Kentucky, Mississippi, and Virginia — Charles and David Koch are using sizable investments and politically-weaponized front groups to influence electoral outcomes and advance their selfish agenda.

The Kochs get a lot attention — deservedly — for their massive investments in congressional, gubernatorial, and presidential elections, but they aren’t afraid to get local, either. The Koch’s Americans for Prosperity dropped big money in Jefferson County, Colorado, turning the school board election into “a money-soaked proxy war.” In Douglas County, CO, AFP’s spent more than $130,000. And over in Utah, AFP’s been lobbying hard against a gas tax ballot initiative.

Back East, […]

Kochs Eagerly Endorse Ed Gillespie 25 Months Early

September 29, 2015

Just minutes after the news leaked that Ed Gillespie plans to run for Virginia governor in 2017, one of the first people to throw their support behind the former DC shadow lobbyist was unsurprisingly the leader of the Koch brothers’ front group Americans for Prosperity.

Gillespie has said he won’t make a formal announcement for at least a year but the Kochs are eager to get behind him because they know if he’s elected governor he’ll work to advance the Kochs’ agenda — an agenda that’s good for billionaires like the Kochs’ but hurts Virginia’s middle class.

The Kochs have already said they’ll spend nearly $900 million to buy the White House and keep the U.S. Senate in 2016, and there’s no telling how much they’ll spend to prop up Ed Gillespie so that he’ll push the billionaire brothers’ agenda forward.

Hey Koch brothers — Did we hit a nerve?

May 27, 2015

The Koch brothers attacked American Bridge by name in a Wall Street Journal op-ed for highlighting the Charles Koch Foundation’s shady tactics by attaching strings to university grants, like libertarian ideological requirements for professors and graduate students. It’s extortion-as-education that rivals the Kochs’ nearly $900 million they’re spending this election to audition conservative candidates for president. On top of the Koch Foundation, Koch-linked organizations Independent Women’s Forum and Mercatus at George Mason University are also picking fights with Bridge.

Looks like our year-long effort to raise awareness about the Kochs’ moneyed special interests hit a nerve. This month alone, Bridge Project has released reports on the Kochs’ efforts in Florida and Iowa as well as their harmful LIBRE Initiative as part of our “Month’s Supply of Koch.”

For years now, the Koch brothers have been providing grants to universities with stipulations attached to manipulate the curriculum and teaching professionals at each institution — […]

Koch Group Applauds Virginia GOP For Blocking 190,000 Constituents From Getting Health Care

Photo Credit: Seattle Municipal Archive

The Washington Post ran a scathing editorial last month that began like this:

Republicans in Virginia’s House of Delegates have blocked hundreds of thousands of poor Virginians from getting health insurance under the Obama administration’s Medicaid expansion. At the same time, they’ve refused to suggest any alternative method by which the needy people in the state might arrange health coverage.

The Post made the case that it’s morally reprehensible to refuse Medicaid expansion and deny health care to hundreds of thousands of your constituents in order to make some sort of political statement. A pretty straight-forward argument.

But the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity was there to push back, applauding this stunt to deny people health care. Writing a letter to the editor in response to that editorial, AFP’s Virginia director offered this heartfelt conclusion: “The decision by Virginia Republicans not to expand Medicaid is logical and prudent.”

And it’s not just Virginia where AFP is waging this battle. They’ve fought against Medicaid expansion in Nebraska and Maine, in Louisiana and Pennsylvania. In Michigan, they promised to spend “considerable resources” targeting the Senators who voted to expand Medicaid.

It’s part of a callous campaign that has left over 250,000 veterans, and millions more Americans, uninsured. But it’s one that is squarely in line with the Koch agenda that promises to make life harder for working families and even easier for the wealthy at every turn.

View supporting research after the jump.

Paid for by American Bridge 21st Century Foundation