When Jessica and I were on Democracy Now promoting our new book, "Crow After Roe," one of the questions Amy Goodman asked was how Citizen's United and the endless funding for socially conservative political action groups came into play when it comes to the new landscape of states where abortion is accessible in name only. One piece that we would get the most questions about was the type of role the Koch brothers might be playing in propping up state-based anti-choice bills or supporting the candidates proposing them
That the Kochs had at least a finger in the pot was never in question. We'd already learned last year that Susan B. Anthony List received over $1 million from a shadow Koch group known as Center to Protect Patients’ Rights. Americans United for Life received almost $600,000 from the same organization, and Nebraska Right to Life and Concerned Women for America got some funds as well.
But a new report from Politico shows that Koch funds were far greater than that initial disclosure showed. Center to Protect Patient Rights actually ended up receiving $115 million from Freedom Partners, another Koch group, and we already know that they were funneling that money out to these other anti-choice political groups.
More interesting is the revelation that Freedom Partners also provided over $8 million directly to Concerned Women for America -- millions more than SBA List received from their Koch affiliate.
Funding groups like SBA List or National Right to Life Committee to provide them with campaign support to get anti-choice candidates elected is unsurprising. After all, it's a way to filter money to Republican candidates without being overtly partisan and because of their hyper-focus on abortion and birth control restrictions, they aren't as traditionally "controversial" as other organizations.
The massive financial support of Concerned Women for America? Now that's something quite different. This is a group who goes beyond simple "social conservative" issues and into building a platform for American theocracy. After all, when your key issues are reasserting Biblical authority in the educational and political sphere, and your mission statement "affirms the Bible's unmistakable standard that there is right and wrong;
that God is the Authority who established right and wrong by creation
and by revelation in His Word, the Bible; that He has sent a Savior,
Jesus Christ, to free us from our sin (wrong) by simple repentance and
to enable us through the Holy Spirit to do what is right," we've gone way beyond "let's vote to have Republican leaders."
Is theocracy the Koch brother's end goal? If not, why are they so intent on funding groups that want one?
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