Pro-Ernst group fails to toss lawsuit over undisclosed donors
The public is one step closer to learning who funded a sophisticated messaging and organizational effort to re-elect Senator Joni Ernst in 2020. A federal court on November 19 denied a motion to dismiss a watchdog group’s lawsuit against Iowa Values, which supported Ernst’s re-election in 2020 but did not disclose its fundraising or spending.
The Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on “advancing democracy through law,” sued Iowa Values in February, after the Federal Election Commission did not act on the center’s complaint against the pro-Ernst group for more than a year.
Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comprehensively rejected legal arguments the pro-Ernst group raised in trying to dismiss the lawsuit and return the case to the FEC, which would likely do nothing.
GROUP AND ERNST CAMPAIGN “WORKED IN CLOSE CONCERT”
As Brian Slodysko reported for the Associated Press in December 2019, Ernst consultants and campaign staffers formed Iowa Values as a tax-exempt 501(c)4 organization. Those are not required to disclose their donors and for that reason are commonly known as “dark money” groups.
Read more: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2021/11/22/pro-ernst-group-fails-to-toss-lawsuit-over-undisclosed-donors/
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