Friday, December 27, 2013

Regulators axe Texas super PAC that lived up to its name

Secretive Politics.

In a letter dated Dec. 4, the Federal Election Commission tells Secretive Politics that it faces "administrative termination" for what amounts to its refusal to file mandatory financial disclosures.

Since registering with the FEC in August 2012, Secretive Politics has lived up to its name. It's been incommunicado with federal regulators. Repeated calls and emails by the Center for Public Integrity to its only known official, treasurer June Walton, have likewise gone unreturned.

The super PAC also uses a "virtual office" in Sugar Land, Texas, a Houston suburb. There, operators charge clients $350 a month for a mailing address, live receptionist and access to a conference room — but no physical office space. Its listed website and email address don't work.

Sugar Land.  Home of Tom DeLay and Kesha Rodgers.  The most diverse MSA in the nation, on the verge of turning blue, is also the home of King Street Patriots and True the Vote founder Catherine Englebrecht.

It's unclear whether Secretive Politics has engaged in political activity. It may have been raising and spending money, flouting federal regulators all the while. Or, just as likely, it existed in name only — like several hundred effectively dormant super PACs that have materialized since 2010, when the Citizens United v. FEC and SpeechNow.org v. FEC federal court decisions gave rise to such political committees.

I'm sure it's nothing. They probably only wanted to gauge the swiftness and harshness of the regulatory response. "Secretive Politics" is likely just another conservative pile of crap in a cow pasture that sprouts psychedelic mushrooms after a hard rain.

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