Martin Paredes of El Paso News reported today that the amount of dark money pouring into City Council races has increased to $157,361, which is unprecedented for El Paso.
Of this total, $127,489 was spent by the Sun City Coalition, a 501(c)(4) established only 47 days ago, and $29,872 by the leftist Amanecer People’s Project, which funnels local contributions through an Austin-based 501(c)(4) called Ground Game Texas.
That’s right. Ana Fuentes and the other “grassroots” activists at Amanecer are guilty of the same disgusting, unethical behavior as the pro-Meta Sun City Coalition, concealing their donors from the media and public.
Who is benefitting from all this anonymous largesse?
Paredes published a graph showing that 52.0% of all campaign expenditures supporting Matthew Guzman for District 8 is dark money. The figure is 51.7% for District 1 candidate Matthew James Kozik, 36.4% for District 6 incumbent Art Fierro, 33.5% for District 5 incumbent Ivan Nino, 30.3% for District 1 incumbent Alejandra Chavez. In the case of District 6 candidate Jesse Moreno, 79.0% of all funds supporting his campaign is dark money.
These are very significant figures, certainly enough to influence election outcomes.
What is worse, most of the mailers paid for by dark money tell outright lies, and this is legal in Texas.
TOTAL MEDIA FAILURE
None of our print media or television networks have published a single report on the dark money deployed in this election.
Today’s coverage includes the latest murders and sexual assaults, vehicle accidents, and the weather, but nothing about the manipulation of tomorrow’s election by nefarious organizations.
This is a colossal failure that may lead to dire consequences for our community.
You see, the media have a sacred duty to keep voters informed in the period preceding an election. They are the only defense against mendacious campaign tactics and dark-money propaganda.
When the media fail to expose the truth about how campaigns are funded and to fact-check political messaging, large numbers of misinformed voters go to the polls and cast ballots for candidates based upon false information.
El Pasoans deserve better!