Dark money group aiding Cornel West has ties to utility operative
9th September 2024 · 0 Comments
By Mario Alejandro Ariza
Floodlight
Cornel West’s long-shot bid to become president of the United States is receiving assistance from unusual sources.
West, a civil rights advocate and academic, has been polling in low single digits nationally. But his presence on the ballot in swing states could determine the winner of the 2024 presidential contest by siphoning votes from Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Aiding West in his quest to become president is a shadowy nonprofit registered by Republican operatives in Virginia and represented by an Alabama lawyer with a history of helping power companies attack their political opponents. The group is assisting the West campaign in Arizona, North Carolina and Alabama, Floodlight has learned.
The attorney, Paul Hamrick, says the nonprofit group, People Over Party, has helped other third-party candidates this cycle with ballot access both in the presidential contests and in down-ballot campaigns.
Asked if People over Party was being funded by money from power companies, Hamrick said, “I would be surprised. I don’t unequivocally know, but I don’t think so.”
In a statement sent after the initial publication of this story, Hamrick said that there was not “one penny” of utility or energy funding in People over Party.
The group’s tax records will likely not become public for at least a year, but even those records probably will not shine much light on its ultimate donors, since tax-exempt groups like it are not required to disclose their funders to the IRS.
Hamrick says he has worked for other independent candidates and has even bigger plans for 2026, but he declined to provide any specifics, saying it could cause “more opposition and litigation from the Democratic National Committee.”
West as spoiler candidate
Just 44,000 votes in three swing states – Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona – put Joe Biden over President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. As of late August, Trump and Harris were virtually tied, meaning the election in 2024 could again turn on just a few thousand votes in a handful of states, including Arizona and North Carolina where People Over Party has been active.
Right now, West’s left-wing presidential campaign is having trouble getting onto the ballot in several states. It sued North Carolina after that state’s Board of Elections refused to let him in the race.
High-powered Republican attorneys have worked alongside Hamrick in Arizona to get West on that state’s ballot. Republican operatives also have helped the West campaign get on the ballot in Wisconsin, Virginia, Nebraska, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Maine, according to the Associated Press.
The campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Hamrick is working for a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit organization. It’s helped West in Arizona, Alabama and North Carolina, according to records and social media posts.
In Arizona and North Carolina, People Over Party is the subject of a Federal Elections Commission complaint from the Democratic National Committee alleging its payment of signature gatherers was an illegal, unreported in-kind donation to the West campaign, which the DNC claimed had just over $15,000 in the bank as of May 31.
People Over Party was registered in Virginia on March 14 and has yet to file any disclosures with the IRS. Its incorporator is The Compliance Consulting Company of Virginia, records show. That company was co-founded by Cabell Hobbs, who also serves as the treasurer of Never Back Down, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s super PAC, which also is the subject of an FEC complaint.
Hobbs and Compliance did not respond to requests for comment.
Virginia public records list the group’s director as John Plishka. “I am simply the CFO. I do the books. That’s all,” Plishka told Floodlight. “I am under an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), and I am not going to disclose any more information than I already have.”
Robert Maguire, research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said there’s likely a reason for Plishka’s reticence.
‘It seems like probably the effort here is also to hide the fact that there are a number of long-standing Republican operatives behind the effort to potentially pump up a third-party candidate that might take votes away from Democrats,” Maguire said.
Hamrick’s political past
It’s not the first time Hamrick has been involved in such an effort.
Hamrick is a Democratic attorney and a former top aide to former Democratic Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. Hamrick also has deep ties to consultants who moved hundreds of thousands of dollars of dark money in 2018 and 2020 to elect Republican candidates in Florida by supporting third-party candidates. The efforts in five Florida state-level elections were also aimed at opposing Democratic office holders considered hostile to Florida Power & Light.
At the time, the consultants were working as contractors for FPL, the largest utility by number of customers in the United States. In one 2018 Miami-Dade County Commission race, Hamrick paid the salary and rent of a third-party candidate used to draw votes away from a politician whom FPL disliked, according to the Miami Herald.
Once made public, the efforts became collectively known as the “ghost candidate scandal” and led to the indictment of five individuals, including state Sen. Frank Artiles, whose long-delayed trial is scheduled for September. The scandal also contributed to the unexpected retirement of the CEO of Florida Power & Light in early 2023.
In a statement sent after publication, Hamrick said he had nothing to do with the “ghost candidates” in Florida.
None of the consultants with whom Hamrick worked were charged with any crime. Hamrick remains close to Jeff Pitts, former CEO of Matrix LLC, one of the consulting groups involved. Pitts, who now heads Canopy Partners, is working out of the same suite of Birmingham offices as Hamrick.
“Canopy does not have a hand in People Over Party and has not moved money for People over Party or any entity,” Pitts told Floodlight.
Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform for the Campaign Legal Center, finds the role of groups like People over Party in elections to be “very frustrating.”
“The whole concept of elections and influence is that voters have a right to know who is spending money to influence elections,” Ghosh said. “And with respect to these groups – these 501(c)(4)’s – they’re being denied that right pretty much every election. And there’s unfortunately too little that regulators are doing to combat that.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
This article originally published in the September 9, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
