Not enough attention has been paid to how powerful dark money interests mobilized to pressure Manchin and Sinema to maintain the filibuster—and, in turn, to maintain the power of those wealthy special interests at the expense of voters. 🧵
For example, last April, the dark money group Heritage Action described a $24M plan to “block federal legislation & tackle state based reform." A key part of that anti-voter effort was blocking filibuster reform: “It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment," said a top Heritage official.
The full video, obtained by @ItsDocumented, was described by @AriBerman & @NickSurgey here: motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
As part of that $24M campaign, Heritage Action organized a rally in WV urging Manchin to oppose filibuster reform. Heritage claimed to be “stand[ing] up for WV values,” but had to bus in activists from hundreds of miles away, across state lines. documented.net/reporting/righ…
Heritage Action also ran ads in states like WV and AZ urging senators to oppose filibuster reform. web.archive.org/web/2021061002… But Heritage wasn’t alone. McConnell’s dark money group, One Nation, also spent millions on ads targeting Manchin on the filibuster politico.com/news/2021/05/1…
@brendan_fischer This is disgusting, how can this be legal?
@brendan_fischer @AriBerman What this should say is ginni Thomas wife of Scj Thomas .....
@brendan_fischer Manchin didn’t complain about this the way he did about VP Harris’ commercials in WV.
@brendan_fischer @HC_Richardson Most of what Heritage Action usually ships around comes from adverts to hire folks, and overlap with the same failed talent agencies used by Flynn and Stone for their schoolboard protest initiatives. @jennycohn1 has some remarkable reconstructions of that.