A National Black Org Funneled Dan Gilbert Dollars to Anti-Kucinich Super PAC. Then the Super PAC [View all]

[TexasTowelie]

A National Black Org Funneled Dan Gilbert Dollars to Anti-Kucinich Super PAC. Then the Super PAC Went After Bibb.


A Washington D.C.-based organization devoted to building Black political power served as an intermediary for nearly $50,000 controlled by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert during the 2021 mayoral primary, Scene has learned, and funneled it to Citizens for Change, the super PAC aligned with former city council president and mayoral candidate Kevin Kelley.

This financial arrangement was disguised by a campaign finance framework that delays donor identification in some cases and permits anonymity in others. And though it remained unpublicized, the arrangement inflected the response of the organization's founder, Quentin James, who felt duped—and, others have suggested, culpable—when Citizens for Change pivoted from bashing Dennis Kucinich to bashing Justin Bibb, and doing so with racist tropes.

The D.C.-based organization is the Collective PAC. In August, it publicly endorsed Bibb, who went on to defeat Kelley in the November general election. Its affiliated 501(c)4 is called "The Southern Strategy PAC." Multiple sources with knowledge of the interaction said that this PAC was made available to accept Gilbert's money and then donated his funds to Citizens for Change after assurances that they would be used only to target Dennis Kucinich.

Why Gilbert preferred to cloak his involvement in the primary is a mystery, especially because he went on to donate $50,000, via his company Rocket Holdings, to another PAC, Citizens for Cleveland's Future, that was formed to back Kelley in the general. The media relations team at Gilbert's Rocket family of companies has not yet responded to Scene's inquiries.

Read more: https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2022/02/04/a-national-black-org-funneled-dan-gilbert-dollars-to-anti-kucinich-super-pac-then-the-super-pac-went-after-bibb