Howie Rich

After the colossal failure of Howie Riche's extreme ballot initiatives in November 2006, many of his closest advisors cut all ties with him.  Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President John Tillman, ALG Treasurer Eric O'Keefe and senior advisor Paul Jacob all left ALG, forming a new organization called the Sam Adams Alliance.  Rich moved ALG from Illinois to Farifax Virginia after the split.  The new officers of ALG are now listed as Peter Conlin, William Wilson and Howard Rich.

Even though Rich has lost much credibility, support and apparently some friends over the past few years, he still has a check book, which means he can still be the sugar daddy behind a new set of dangerous and disingenuous ballot measures. 

Download chart showing Howie's money flow.

What we know about Howie Rich from New York City

Rich prefers to operate in the shadows, and has refused to talk to the media, despite hundreds of requests, but here's what BISC has uncovered:

• Howie Rich is a real estate investor and mega millionaire from New York City
• He either directs, or is part of the leadership of every shell group that has pushed a set of extreme ballot measure in 2006 and 2008
• We know he has deep ties to other secretive organizations that prefer to operate outside of the public eye
• And we know he has a long history of supporting radical libertarian causes with a handful of like-minded cronies

• Howie Rich has a well established history of hiring signature gathering firms who have been charged with defrauding voters to qualify his pet initiatives.  These firms include National Voter Outreach, Arno Political Consulting and National Ballot Access.

Organizations within Howie Rich's shell game

• US Term Limits: The hub of the term limits movement in the 1009s. The organization still raises funds and works to defeat term limit provisions. Howard Rich is listed as the Chairman in corporate filings.
  
• Social Security Choice: A social security privatization project from the Club for Growth. Rich is listed as a corporate officer according to the organization's 2006 990.
  
• Legislation Education Action Drive (LEAD)/Parents in Charger Foundation: A pro-voucher group at the heart of Rich's efforts to pass vouchers in South Carolina. Howard Rich is a member of the Board of Directors.
  
• Club for Growth State Action: the umbrella groups for the Club for Growth state affiliates. Howard Rich serves as president of this organization.
  
• The Cato Institute: Right wing think tank. Howie Rich serves on the Board of Directors.
  

Rich's Latest Move: Threaten Progressive Donors

Rich recently sent a letter to 11,000 donors threatening to monitor "all reports of a wide variety of leftist organizations... Should any of these organizations be found to be engaged in illegal or questionable activity, it is our intent to publicize your involvement with those activities.  You should know that instances of coordinated voter fraud are surfacing all across America and investigations into possible criminal coordination are underway."  ALG targeted "donors to left-wing 527s and organizations of that type. Anyone on the liberal, left-wing side of the line."

Of course it's of great irony that the person who was caught up in an unprecedented web of fraud and hidden money in 2006 would be the leader of an effort to keep the process clean.  On the other hand, if anyone knows about fraud, it's Howie Rich.

Howie Rich Subsidizes Voter Fraud

Howie Rich's effort to put his three-headed monster - TABOR, pay-or-waive schemes, and judicial attacks - on the ballot got pretty ugly in 2006. In fact, the drive to manipulate state laws resulted in unprecedented rule-breaking, lawsuits, fraud, and even violence. As a result, Howie's pet issues were kicked off the ballot in six states - Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Nevada. Legal action against the initiatives is pending in three more states - Montana, Nebraska, and Nevada. These tactics have created havoc across the country, and Howie's strategy is facing new scrutiny as a result.

Read about the state-by-state fraud here. 

Regrouping After Massive Failures: Howie's Current Agenda

The failure of the effort to pass 25 TABORs (Taxpayer Bill of Rights), roll back property rights in several states and attack the judiciary caused Rich to change course.  Over the past two years he shifted his focus to attacking working Americans through a new type of initiative entitled "Open and Clean Government."  Couched in language promoting government transparency and responsiveness, these initiatives would prohibit political contributions by persons and organizations with certain state or local government contracts.  It also prohibits political contributions by labor unions that have collective bargaining agreements with state or local governments.

These initiatives are silent about corporate gifts to elected officials and ignore most contributions by large and out-of-state corporations, but it would prevent a person from volunteering for a campaign or donating a few dollars to a political candidate just because their mother-in-law is a government contractor or their nephew belongs to a public employee union.

If passed, these initiatives would mandate government interference with the relationships in workplaces between employers and employees. They also would limit the ability of public employees, such as nurses, firefighters, teachers, and police officers, to join together to advocate for changes in the workplace, because the proposed rules would make it harder for employees to organize for change. Nurses would have a harder time advocating for safer staffing levels to ensure patient care, firefighters would have a more difficult time advocating for changes to our emergency preparedness system, and teachers would experience challenges organizing to improve our schools. The measures also have built in loopholes so these laws would not apply to large multi-national corporations, such as defense contractors and energy or drug companies.

Howie has been involved in the rollout of these initiatives in five states in 2008, Alaska, Colorado, Montana, Nevada,  and South Dakota.  Only Colorado (Amendment 54) and South Dakota (Measure 10) will appear on the ballot in November. 

Although Rich was unsuccessful at the ballot box in 2006, he was very apt as using his vast array of front groups to funnel money from undisclosed sources to individual campaigns.  Digging deeper into the Howie Rich network reveals a similar pattern emerging in 2008 around the Open and Clean Government initiatives. 

For details on the measures and Howie Rich's shenanigans:

• Alaska
• Colorado
• Montana
• Nevada
• South Dakota

Fraud Wire