Another round of campaign finance reports dropped last week for candidates in Alabama, and more dark money found its way to Katherine Robertson’s account.
Robertson picked up a $150,000 donation from an entity called “Rule of Law Action Fund,” a nonprofit organization that registered with the Alabama Secretary of State’s office less than a week before the reported donation.
It is the latest in a mountain of dark money—well over a million dollars at this point—for Robertson. Much of it, like the donation from Rule of Law Action Fund, has flowed from shadowy 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations.
It started in June with a $1 million donation from another 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization—First Principles Action, Inc. That organization was formed by Peter Bisbee, who was the previous executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). It followed up with another $100,000 donation in August.
A source familiar with the Rule of Law Action Fund said it, too, was tied to RAGA, and that the group had set up the nonprofit in Alabama working through Montgomery attorney Saxon Main. On paperwork filed with the Secretary of State, Main is listed as the registered agent, along with a D.C. attorney, Lindsey Specht, who is listed as the incorporator. Main, who specializes in real estate work, has helped set up dozens of nonprofits and LLCs, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
Donations through a nonprofit entity, such as Rule of Law Action Fund, are legal under Alabama law. While many states have banned donations through 501(c)(4) entities, Alabama remains one of the few states that allow them, and that also allows campaigns a legal loophole around established campaign finance laws.
For example, Alabama has banned donations that go between political action committees before that money lands in a candidate’s campaign account—the so-called PAC-to-PAC transfer ban. The state does so because transferring money between PACs in such a manner makes it impossible for the public to track who’s giving to candidates.
But allowing for nonprofit organizations, which aren’t required to report their donors, to donate to campaigns effectively accomplishes the same thing. There is no way to determine where the money from Rule of Law Action Fund originated. Currently, there’s no way to determine who sits on the nonprofit’s board of directors, who formed it or what its standing is with the IRS.
