by Fred Lucas
Opponents of foreign financing of U.S. elections expect dynamics at both the federal and state levels.
In May, the House of Representatives Committee on Administration presented the bill change federal election law to prevent foreigners from contributing to ballot initiatives, closing a loophole where federal and most state laws prohibit foreign contributions to candidates. The bill, which has bipartisan support, will head to the House of Representatives for a vote.
Earlier this month, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed the first-in-the-nation bill into law excluding foreigners from contributing directly and indirectly to voting initiatives.
Most state legislatures have adjourned but are likely to support similar legislation when they reconvene in 2025, said Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project.
“We hope to see more states adopt bans next year [on such foreign funding]”Snead told The Daily Signal.
Ohiothe ban is essential because it prevents indirect contributions, such as donations to so-called pass-through nonprofits or “dark money” groups such as Funded by Arabella Advisors Fund sixteen thirty.
“What they did with Ohio, which we hope to replicate, is a little bit different, more focused on foreigners and more focused on indirect channels, as we saw with the Sixteen Thirty fund, of getting that money out,” Snead said.
Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss has contributed more than $243 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which in turn has spent $97.6 million on state ballot initiatives in 25 states over the past decade. According to the April report, these included battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada Americans’ report for Public Trustconservative-minded watchdog group.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund threw $14 million into the radical abortion amendment to the 2023 Ohio Constitution, which voters approved through a ballot initiative.
“That’s why Ohio’s legislation was so important. They were the first in the country to adopt not only the approach of prohibiting direct financing [of] voting issues, but also indirect funding,” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told The Daily Signal.
Sutherland noted that California, Maine, South Dakota and Washington state have banned foreign governments and corporations from donating to state candidates or ballot initiatives. But these bans are not as comprehensive as those passed in Ohio.
The Federal Election Commission last year Recommended for Congress to plug the loophole. The move came after the FEC, which is responsible for enforcing federal election law, dismissed a 2021 complaint that Australian mining company Sandfire Resources contributed more than $280,000 to defeat a ballot initiative in Montana that would have increased the power of state mining regulators .
The FEC said this was “beyond the scope” of federal law because state voting measures are not considered elections.
“The FEC rule said no, voting issues are not elections. We just regulate elections,” Sutherland said. “They said if you don’t like it you can do one of two things. First, you can say that voting issues are elections and therefore fall under the purview of the FEC. I don’t think anyone really cares. Or secondly, you can change the law. And that’s what we’re seeing at the state and federal level.”
As for related proposals in Congress, Snead of the Honest Elections Project expressed sensitivity to concerns about allowing states to conduct elections, but maintained that Congress has a clear national security role.
“Personally, I don’t see a federalism problem there. We’re talking about whether foreigners can play a role in politics,” Snead said. “There is a pretty compelling national security argument.”
“It’s not like Congress is stepping in and saying this is a ballot qualifying process,” he added. “It’s not really about writing the electoral rules for the state. We simply say that we are the federal government. We control American foreign policy and believe it is important that foreigners cannot interfere in this election.”
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Fred Lucas is chief news correspondent and investigative reporting project manager for The Daily Signal. He is an author “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Attack on Clean Elections.” Send an email to Fred.
“United States Capitol” photo by Thuan Vo.
