A major Democrat super political action committee, the PAC for America’s Future, is investing heavily in Arizona this election year. PAC for America’s Future is not only the largest PAC in Arizona; it is a top donor to the Democratic Party.
PAC For America’s Future has focused on Arizona, one of the more contentious of the six key swing states for the election, alongside Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Nevada. According to the Arizona secretary of state’s campaign finance portal, the PAC is the second-largest in the state with over $9.5 million in income and $4.2 million in expenditures, after Arizona for Abortion Access ($12.3 million income, $9.6 million expense). However, PAC for America’s Future has the highest cash balance in the state: over $8.3 million.
These funds are from out-of-state interests, not Arizonans. AZ Free News reviewed all finance reports and found that total funds from Arizonans amounted to slightly less than $13,500 across 122 donations (some of whom were recurring donors). That’s .0014 percent of total donations since last year.
Most of the other funds come from sizable contributions by wealthy out-of-state Democrats. Jonathan Soros, heir to father George Soros’ $25 billion empire, has given $2 million to PAC for America’s Future this year and remains their single-highest donor.
Other top donors from last year to this year include:
$500,000 from Lynn Schusterman, an Oklahoma billionaire and wife of the late oil and gas founder Charles Schusterman
$1 million from Wendy and Barry Munger, Californians and children of former Berkshire Hathaway vice chair and late Charles Munger
$400,000 from Indiana philanthropist Deborah Simon, daughter of billionaire shopping mall magnate Melvin Simon
$400,000 from Steven Laufer, economist with the Federal Reserve Board
$300,000 from Debra Ann Efroymson, a New Mexico descendant of the wealthy Efroymson dynasty
$250,000 from New York property management tycoon Gideon Friedman
$245,000 from billionaire California philanthropist John Pritzker, son of Hyatt Corporation founder Jay Pritzker
$200,000 from David Karp, former CEO of major social media platform Tumblr
$100,000 from a Paul Karp (Paul Haahr), a Google software engineer out of California
$100,000 from Linda Schlein, the wife to venture capitalist Ted Schlein out of California
$170,000 from multiple members of the billionaire Pigott family out of Seattle, Washington
$75,000 from Juan Sebastian Scripps, an angel investor out of Kentucky
$75,000 from Andrew Beck, a New York-based philanthropist
$50,000 from Steven Spielberg, the acclaimed Hollywood director
$50,000 from Kate Capshaw, a Hollywood actress
$50,000 from Jacqueline Asplundh, the Asplundh Tree Expert Company scion out of Florida
$50,000 from Brian Rosenthal, the engineering director for Facebook residing in New York
$50,000 from Lorin Silverman, the New York descendant of business tycoon Marty Silverman
PAC for America’s Future’s affiliates have also brought in millions for the cause. These affiliates serve as holding entities for transferring funds to the PAC.
PAC for America’s Future formerly went by the “Future Now Fund” up until 2021. It’s a repository for funds from major Democratic dark money donors like George Soros and funder to one of the state’s leading dark money nonprofits, Progress Arizona, the outfit led in part by Governor Katie Hobbs’ former press secretary Josselyn Berry. (She rejoined after resigning from the governor’s office due to her posted gun violence threat to “transphobes” last year within hours of the Nashville elementary school shooting.)
Given its most recent name, it should come as no surprise that PAC for America’s Future is listed as “related” on tax returns to two similarly named 501c4 nonprofit entities: Future Now Action and Future Forward USA Action. The two nonprofits also operate a super PAC, Future Forward PAC, which has received nearly $19 million so far this year from Future Forward USA Action ($12 million in 2022).
This network of millions is a critical resource for the Democratic Party during election years.
Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, White House deputy chief of staff and Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, told The New York Times that the Future Forward ecosystem was “critical” in the 2020 presidential election, and would be again this year.
The Biden team directed his 2020 campaign finance director and White House deputy assistant Katie Petrelius to join the Future Forward team.
The Soros family’s Open Societies Foundation gave $15 million to Future Forward USA Action in 2022 and $5.5 million in 2021. The Arabella Advisors dark money network has also given millions to PAC for America’s Future and the two related “Future” nonprofit entities.
Although few of this mega PAC’s funds come from Arizonans, the Arizona Democratic Party, its candidates, and close-knit organizations have benefitted. In this most recent quarterly campaign finance report, as well as the last, the Arizona Democratic Party received nearly $300,000.
In the last campaign finance report, PAC for America’s Future reported spending over $140,000 on Arizona’s Democratic candidates, with all candidates receiving $10,800 boosts each. AZ List PAC also received $27,000.
For the State House, these donations went to candidates Deborah Howard, Stephanie Simacek, Oscar De Los Santos, Brandy Reese, Nicholas Gonzales, Matias Rosales, Mariana Sandoval, Karen Gresham, and Kevin Volk. For the State Senate, these donations went to Christine Marsh, Analise Ortiz, John McLean, and Stacy Seaman.
PAC for America’s Future is technically a “hybrid” committee — or “Carey” committee — meaning it’s capable of making independent expenditures as well as direct contributions to candidates.
A donor’s first $5,000 goes to a contribution account per PAC for America’s Future’s donor site. All funds beyond that $5,000 cap go into a non-federal account. That latter account is for PAC for America’s Future’s 527 committee, a tax-exempt type of committee that allows for unlimited donations to support or defeat political candidates but requires disclosure of all donors and expenses.
PAC for America’s Future’s 527 Committee then funnels the donations in excess of $5,000 — estimated to amount to tens of millions — to PAC for America’s Future’s joint initiative with Future Now Action, “The States Project” (TSP).
TSP took credit for moves undertaken to flip the Arizona legislature blue, dating back to their initial claim of victory in 2018 with four seats flipped for Democrats in the state House; then two new seats in the House and one new seat in the Senate in 2020; and then defense of won seats in 2022.
“Flipping both chambers in Arizona is possible in 2024. In the Senate 1,500 voters changing their minds would have shifted the balance of power in 2022. And in the House, we see a clear path to governing power, as less than 1,000 voters shifting would have ended rightwing control. Investing in the districts where we see the opportunities to shift power now gives us the strongest shot at achieving our goals in the state.” – TSP
Based on the influx of funds through their various PAC for America’s future tributaries, it appears that wealthy out-of-state interests have a vested interest in ensuring Arizona goes from a swing state to a firmly blue stronghold.
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In a since-deleted article, “Three Women-Led Organizations That Helped Flip Arizona Blue,” principal actors behind several of the most powerful leftist dark money organizations in the state bragged about engineering Democratic voter turnout in the 2020 election.
Vianey Olivarria, then-communications director and current executive director for Chispa AZ, credited work done by her organization and others to turn out Democratic voters. Olivarria also served as a director of Activate 48, a coalition of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) organizations.
“Arizona turning blue is a victory a decade in the making and owed to the tireless work and dedication of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people who organize for justice and liberation,” stated Olivarria.
Chispa AZ is a 501(c)(4) project of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), another 501(c)(4), and sponsored by Way to Win, a national donor network aimed at defeating Republican candidates. Way to Win served as the sponsor to Progress Arizona, formerly and once again led by Gov. Katie Hobbs’ ousted spokeswoman Josselyn Berry.
Per the IRS, a 501(c)(4) organization may engage in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to candidates so long as those activities aren’t the organization’s primary activity.
Discrepancies exist in various organizations’ tax returns disclosing contributions to Chispa AZ’s political arm, Chispa AZ PAC. Neither “Chispa AZ” or “Chispa AZ PAC” exist within the IRS database. Also, Chispa AZ has claimed the same EIN as LCV publicly; however, different organizations’ tax returns have cited multiple, nonexistent EINs for Chispa AZ.
In their 2018,2019, and 2020 tax returns, LCV listed an EIN number for Chispa AZ PAC that yielded no results in the IRS Tax Exempt Organization database. In their 2019 tax return, LCV listed an organization called Fuerte Arts Movement for the Chispa AZ PAC’s address, and listed the same EIN number from 2018. They used the EIN again in their tax return.
In the 2019, 2020, and 2021 tax returns from the California-based Grove Action Fund, a different address and EIN number from that used by LCV were listed for Chispa AZ PAC. The listed address was the correct address for Chispa AZ; however, the EIN listed also doesn’t exist in the IRS database.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s 2020 tax return listed that same nonexistent EIN number as well, and offered the Fuerte Arts Movement address.
Tax returns from the Green Advocacy Project (2020) and the Wilderness Society Action Fund (2019) also listed the nonexistent EIN given by LCV, but listed the correct address.
Publicly collected data reflects that Chispa AZ PAC has managed at least around $8.5 million in contributions since 2017. Yet, Chispa AZ has claimed to have total revenues of nearly $26.9 million, net assets of over $18.4 million, and expenses of over $18.9 million.
Chispa AZ is also part of MiAZ, a coalition of nonprofits focused on turning out minority voters.
Other Chispa organizations exist in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, and Texas.
Chispa AZ isn’t the only dark money entity lacking a clear IRS status to have an outsized impact for Democrats in recent elections. There’s also the two Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AZ AANHPI) related organizations: AZ AANHPI for Equity and AZ AANHPI Advocates. Although AZ AANHPI wasn’t featured in the deleted 2020 article, their communications director was: Alexa Rio-Osaki. She spoke on behalf of a different dark money nonprofit also part of MiAZ: Our Voice, Our Vote.
“We’re doing what we can to ensure everyone’s represented,” said Rio-Osaki.
Rio-Osaki has her hands in multiple leftist dark money organizations: in addition to AZ AANHPI and Our Voice, Our Vote, Rio-Osaki served as the director of Progress Arizona.
Recently, AZ AANHPI for Equity has engaged in lawfare against non-party conservative organizations, demanding transparency of private documents while operating in the dark itself.
AANHPI for Equity and AZ AANHPI Advocates have independent websites, social media pages, and staff, yet the pair are presented as one entity in multiple locations (for example, on the AZ AANHPI for Equity “about us” page). Both were founded in July 2020 by Jennifer Chau, who has served as the director for AZ AANHPI for Equity, an unspecified nonprofit, and executive director for AZ AANHPI Advocates, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, since their inception according to her LinkedIn page.
According to the IRS, AZ AANHPI Advocates had its federal tax exempt status automatically revoked in mid-May for not filing any tax forms in the entire three years of its existence (EIN:85-2344934). The IRS issued its revocation posting earlier this month. No IRS records exist for AZ AANHPI for Equity.
Yet, both organizations’ websites continue to solicit donations and market themselves as nonprofits. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) awarded AZ AANHPI Advocates good standing for its status as a nonprofit in mid-July as well. No ACC records exist for AZ AANHPI for Equity.
Like Chispa AZ, AZ AANHPI has used EIN numbers of another organization in receipt of funds. In 2021, AZ AANHPI for Equity received $25,000 from Solidago Foundation and gave the EIN belonging to One Arizona, the 30-nonprofit coalition to which all five Arabella Advisors nonprofit arms issued funds. Also that year, AZ AANHPI made its name synonymous with “One Arizona” and used its EIN in its receipt of $35,000 in funding from Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
On its website, AZ AANHPI Advocates discloses that it receives funding from top leftist dark money organizations The Future We Need and Arizona Wins!. The listed address for The Future We Need is the same address for the Arizona Education Association and Progress Now Arizona (now Progress Arizona); yet, no such organization as “The Future We Need” exists per ACC, the IRS, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), or the secretary of state’s campaign finance databases. There does exist a similarly-named dark left political action committee (PAC) entity, “The Future We Want.”
In their entire three years of advocacy and fundraising, only AZ AANHPI Advocates had any campaign finance records filed within the state: just one receipt of $10,000 from Invest in Arizona in August 2021, for “signature gathering.” According to the secretary of state’s campaign finance database, AZ AANHPI has never filed any reports on their contributions or expenditures.
The deleted article was published by Supermajority News: a project of Supermajority and the Supermajority Education Fund, the latter a project of the Arabella Advisors’ New Venture Fund. Arabella Advisors is behind one of the biggest dark money funding networks in the nation; their shadowy dealings prompted the District of Columbia attorney general to issue subpoenas to the organization last month.
Along with their Arizona-based compatriots, Supermajority will also be working to turn out more Democratic voters in the upcoming 2024 election.
Last year, Supermajority reported turning out over 959,000 voters: nearly 116,200 in Arizona. The organization had over 8,000 active members in Arizona. Supermajority reported that they ensured the turnout of 30 percent of women ages 18 to 35 years old, specifically to ensure the re-election of Sen. Mark Kelly and election of Gov. Katie Hobbs. The organization disclosed that their approach consisted of contacting female Democrat voters that sporadically voted in presidential elections but hadn’t voted in midterm elections.
“At the state level, we were able to help elect and support progressive governors who would protect and expand women’s freedoms in their states,” stated Supermajority.
Supermajority took credit for Kelly’s re-election and Hobbs’ election, declaring that 92 percent of Kelly’s margin of victory was made up of their voters and that their 116,200-voter turnout far surpassed Hobbs’ 17,100-vote margin.
The organization also noted its plans for the upcoming 2024 election: contacting 432,300 female Arizona voters who didn’t vote last year, overcoming the projected 10,500-vote victory margin, and electing a Democratic senator to take independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat. The organization also plans to target Georgia and North Carolina.
“We need a Democratic senator in AZ who will work alongside Sen. Mark Kelley [sic],” stated Supermajority.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Gov. Katie Hobbs’ ex-press secretary, Josselyn Berry, ousted for tweeting a death threat to “transphobes” hours after the Nashville school shooting, has returned to the dark money organization she worked for previously.
After laying low for several months and privatizing her social accounts, Berry reactivated her LinkedIn and publicly announced her hire by Progress Arizona. She began working with the organization in June.
“After a much-needed sabbatical I’m thrilled to announce I’ve returned home to my Progress Now family as their Senior Director of Campaigns,” said Berry. “I’ll be working with our battleground states to help them run winning programs for the 2024 election cycle.”
Although Berry has reactivated her LinkedIn account, her X page (formerly known as Twitter) remains private. At some point after inciting controversy and making her X page private, Berry updated her profile header image from a picture of Hobbs to the phrase “Trans Rights Are Human Rights.”
Those who reacted positively to Berry’s characterization of her departure from the Ninth Floor included Hobbs’ policy advisor, Molly Murphy; Hobbs’ deputy chief of staff, Will Gaona; Arizona House communications director, Robbie Sherwood; Arizona Senate Democratic Caucus communications director Calli Jones; Arizona House Democratic Caucus senior policy advisor Vicente Reyna; and Phoenix Vice Mayor Yassamin Ansari’s communications director, Emily O’Neil.
Berry resigned within days after issuing a general death threat to those opposed to transgender ideology. The morning after the Covenant School shooting, Berry posted a gif of a woman holding guns in each hand with the caption “Us when we see transphobes.”
Less than 24 hours before, a woman who identified as a transgender man shot and killed three elementary school-aged children and three teachers at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Press Sec. for @GovernorHobbs has RESIGNED over this vile tweet calling for violence against Democrats’ political opponents.
Katie Hobbs should stop surrounding herself with far-left partisans & instead hire people focused on doing the work of the people. pic.twitter.com/bVu6xqXCcd
— Arizona Freedom Caucus (@AZFreedomCaucus) March 29, 2023
Prior to her communications gigs with Hobbs, the Arizona Democratic Party, and the Arizona Senate Democrats, Berry served as the Progress Arizona executive director and chairman.
The dark money nonprofit has received funding from One Arizona, which in turn received funding from the dark money behemoth Arabella Advisors’ five nonprofit arms.
The nonprofit has also received funding from George Soros directly, such as through his Democracy PAC, and indirectly, such as through the Future Now Fund (aka PAC For America’s Future).
The nonprofit then turns around and issues funding to a number of progressive nonprofits including the Arizona Advocacy Network, CASE, Civic Engagement Beyond, League of Women Voters AZ, LUCHA, Our Voice Our Vote, Poder Latinx, and Rural Arizona Action.
Berry also previously worked as the program manager for Arizona Wins and communications coordinator for the Arizona Advocacy Network, two key organizations within the state’s leftist dark money network.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Gov. Katie Hobbs selected as her spokeswoman a leader of two leftist dark money organizations and supporter of an FBI Most Wanted terrorist.
Hobbs’ spokeswoman, Josselyn Berry, served as leadership in two organizations that managed funds from Democratic dark networks. Berry served as the program manager for Arizona Wins from 2015 to 2016, and executive director for ProgressNow Arizona (now Progress Arizona) from 2016 through 2019.
Progress Arizona’s sponsor, Way to Win, launched in response to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory as a national donor network for defeating Republicans. It spent $110 million in key states, including Arizona, to ensure Democratic victories in 2020. Its major funders include George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and family, Stryker Corporation heiress Patricia Stryker, prominent D.C. consulting firm Arabella Advisors’ Sixteen Thirty (1630) Fund, and the Tides Foundation-backed One Arizona.
Specifics about Progress Arizona’s financials (filed under “ProgressNow AZ”) aren’t publicly available. IRS public documents for the 501(c)(4) nonprofit only include the organization’s tax-exempt notification letter. ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom site, was only able to obtain the extracted financial data for their fiscal year 2020 filing, but no specific details to reflect the $3.9 million revenue. An initiative of Progress Arizona, ProgressNow AZ Institute, had revenues of over $500,000 in 2020, but source documents weren’t available for that filing, either.
Of note, Hobbs’ campaign shared the same mailing address as ProgressNow and Arizona Wins: a UPS store in Phoenix shared over the years by several other Democratic political action committees (PACs), activist organizations, and even candidates. These groups also have ties to the political operative behind at least 50 political action committees or candidate campaigns over the last five years.
That operative, Dacey Montoya, had the email for her consulting firm, The Money Wheel, listed as a contact for Hobbs’ secretary of state and gubernatorial campaigns, and received about $188,500 over the past four years. Montoya’s PAC received $37 million from fallen crypto giant FTX leader Sam Bankman-Fried, as well as over $1 million from committees for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Governor Katie Hobbs.
While serving as the communications director for the Arizona State Senate Democratic Caucus, Berry quoted FBI Most Wanted Terrorist Assata Shakur in a tweet following George Floyd’s death. The Senate Democrats also shared the quote on their Twitter feed, but were forced to delete it and issue an apology after it stoked controversy.
The Senate Democrats claimed ignorance of Shakur’s criminal history and terrorist status. Shakur was a Black Liberation Army member sentenced to life in prison for murdering a cop and committing armed robbery, among other crimes. She escaped prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba; the FBI has a $2 million reward for her apprehension.
Berry, who was hired as an Arizona Democratic Party spokeswoman last year, never deleted the tweet.
Berry graduated from Arizona State University (ASU) Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, where she was also in the Barrett Honors College.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
