The Multi Million Dollar Shell Game
Redistricting. Let’s talk about the business behind it.
Photo of the word VOTE made of scrabble tiles held by a person wearing an American Flag T-shirt.
In Virginia, the trending issues may change, but the hands counting the cash stay the same. Today, I’m breaking down how $7.5 million just popped out of the ether to fund a nonprofit against redistricting and why real estate developers seem to be the ones consistently writing the checks.
Virginia Politics: the MLM of America
Politically focused nonprofits are a dime a dozen in Virginia. If you are transitioned out of office and can’t legislate, lobbying is a very lucrative alternative.
Former Attorney General Jason Miyares appears to be a big fan of alternatives, as he is now part of the nonprofit circuit himself. He’s thrown his political eggs in the basket of a new nonprofit that is asking for donations to “protect democracy.”
The money trail is a little convoluted as some items are reported twice until the final taxes for the year are completed, but money is being pushed in and out of republican committees. We can still pull out a few of the reported donations, highlight some players, and tell the more corporate than grassroots story of the republican led nonprofit, Virginians for Fair Maps.
Virginians for Fair Maps launched with a $7.5 million balance.
Funding has already ballooned to over $16 million as of April 8th.
$1.5 million of that is straight from the Republican Party.
Most of the funding is large sums, not individual contributions.
Every donation runs through a processor. Every ad pays out to a media company. Every ad campaign pays marketing firms. The meet and greets are a large production unto themselves with venues and vendors to pay.
Are you seeing what I’m getting at? If you aren’t playing ball, you can still make money selling consections, charging for parking, selling foam fingers and gift shop items, and on and on.
For a group that claims to be so “anti-tax,” Republicans sure spend a lot of time soliciting your money for political purposes while sitting on a multi-million dollar pile.
When it suits, money seems to manifest for the top of the pyramid to have their political needs met, but when it doesn’t, there is no budget to feed people and that’s your fault for not working harder. It’s reading like the script of any basic MLM.
The Real Estate Developers Who Pay to Play
What really caught my eye in the magical manifestation of money reported by Virginians for Fair Maps was a rather small donation of $25,000 from Haulover Creek Development Co.
It’s not the biggest check, but it’ll do nicely for our research purposes.
This is my wheelhouse: developers, contractors, builders, and realtors. They were all connected on some level when I built my disaster of a home in Virginia, and they or their lobbies directly contributed to the loose regulations that allowed fraud, misdemeanors, and broken laws to go unchecked.
Let’s see what contributions an unrelated developer has made to the same political players we’ve discussed before.
The Usual Suspects Pull Big Donation Dollars
I peeked at Haulover Creek’s donations at VPAP.org, and the list read much like what I expected.
The same names, regulators, and participants in our own complaint are on the donor list for Haulover Creek as well. This is not the complete list, just some direct donations that were not washed, I mean passed, through PACs first.
Some notable names and amounts include:
Youngkin for Governor ($250,000) and Youngkin Inaugural Committee ($50,000): The one and only Veto record setter, regulation remover, and the same Governor who personally interceded to ensure that the United Daughters of the Confederacy could maintain a tax exemption on their property on Arthur Ashe Boulevard. That’s another story for another day.
Winsome Earle-Sears ($120,000) : Her Campaign Chief of Staff and Director of DPOR lied on the record. Thota verified, incorrectly, that a contractor was licensed when they were never licensed. That company, LASR Construction LLC, was violating laws across multiple home builds in multiple counties. No homeowners were ever compensated for DPOR’s failure to protect.
Carrie Coyner ($30,000): Her law firm helped legitimize LASR Construction LLC by updating an SCC filing to form a new company called LASR Construction Services LLC. Both versions of the company have since been terminated at the SCC and DPOR.
Coyner’s firm also represented the Enrichment Foundation that was never prosecuted after 50+ nonprofits lost all of their assets. Promoted the “Virginia Way”
Jason Miyares ($150,000): Failed to prosecute the EnRichmond case where 50+ nonprofits lost their funds. Wasted taxpayer dollars trying to block federal efforts to improve nursing home care. Quoted segregationist language in a Daily Wire interview. Promoted the “Virginia Way”
Glenn Sturtevant ($10,000): The Columbus advocate who referenced the near-extinction level genocide of the Taino people as a “win.”
“Developers and realtors’ groups pay, um, excuse me…lobby for legislators to deregulate.
When minimum standards are not mandated, corporations fail to meet former minimums and lower the standard.
If something is no longer listed as a misdemeanor for instance because of deregulation, is it still a crime? Not in Virginia.
Republicans call this good for business. We call it a reckless disregard for consumer protections.”
Where there is smoke…
Miyares is currently being sued by two former employees. They claim they were fired after they blew the whistle on an attempt to misappropriate funds.
The allegation is that under Jason Miyares’ leadership, the Attorney General’s office was encouraging payments to a nonprofit despite a conflict of interest. The payment would have benefited attorneys employed at the Attorney General’s office who were also in leadership positions at the nonprofit in question.
Court documents detail that when the plaintiffs refused to issue the checks, they were instructed to pay the head of the nonprofit directly which would bypass appropriate disclosures. Both assert in their court filings that the second refusal to issue payment resulted in their terminations.
This is the same office leadership that violated my own FOIA requests by withdrawing my inquiries without my consent and then asserted the power of the office to force a lawsuit rather than disclose documentation. Could these allegations be highlighting a pattern of violations of legal mandates in multiple categories?
No matter. Virginians for Fair Maps provided a new seat that capitalizes on Miyares’ influence and provides a $16+ million dollar piggy bank to fund whatever activities can be tied to political posturing.
The org still implores constituents to donate more money to preserve democracy, of course.
The Virginia political ecosystem is an embarassment. It’s a system designed to create salaries for friends and influence for donors. From donation processing fees, to event catering, to meet and greet events, there is a lot of money to be made servicing the grift.
I’ve thrown all these names up on the board. You can see the full web of connections including the Virginia Beach components at virginiaconsumer.org.
What do you think? Is this about “Fair Maps,” or just making sure the money moves back and forth between the same players while republicans are the impotent minority? I mean they have to want the nominations for something, right?
Drop a comment below and let me know if I am on to something or just a little too cynical. Oh, and vote yes.
