Free State Colorado is proud to post this very interesting article by Sarah Harrison and Karl Honegger.

Check out the biographies for Karl and Sarah at the end of their article.

This article is an in-depth look at the Financial Connections of the Colorado Political Class.

Money is the lifeblood of politics.

And Sarah and Karl pull back the curtain to unveil the connections between Big Money and Colorado Politicians.

Let me know what you think, leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

The Blueprint 2.0

Background

In 2004, the Blueprint was revealed to doers and donors outside of Colorado. The Blueprint was the plan of four key donors, Jared Polis (current Colorado Governor), Pat Stryker, Rutt Bridges, and Tim Gill, to turn this once vibrantly red state a dark shade of purple. It involved targeting key races and pouring in money that had rarely been seen there before, and this plan was able to succeed due to the change in campaign finance laws that took place at the beginning of the millennium that ham-strung the Republicans ability to raise and spend money.

Now we see a new group rising, with out-of-state interests at the helm, hoping to pull off a Blueprint 2.0. This group, unlike the original Blueprint, is shrouded in dark money, with very little transparency but a very clear agenda: change the landscape of Colorado elections forever.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines dark money as, “funds raised for the purpose of influencing elections by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose the identities of their donors.” In practice, it’s the network of organizations where money is shuffled from donor to organization to organization that helps hide the funds.

For example, Michael Bloomberg gives $100 million to the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club gives funds to their local Colorado affiliate. This affiliate then gives money to Citizens for a Safe and Healthy Broomfield which is registered not in Broomfield but at the same Sierra Club office in Denver. You know those boards detectives make to connect all the dots in a complicated criminal case?

You almost have to make one of those to follow the money and—most importantly—follow the intent. Dark money and its influence in elections is described in the Sundance-award winning documentary called Dark Money. It follows a Montana case of campaign finance non-compliance that includes several shadow groups and national dark money organizations and includes a Colorado connection; the “heroine” of the film (according to NPR),  is one of the authors of this article, Sarah. This film is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime.

The groundwork for this dark money move started in 2016.  It was then that Colorado voters approved a bill that could allow an open primary for presidential, federal, and state elections. This made it so that if a Colorado resident were to register to vote as “unaffiliated” they would automatically receive a mail in ballot for both the Republican and Democrat primaries and could choose one of the ballots to cast a vote in primaries. Minor parties such as the Libertarian party are not allowed to let unaffiliated voters vote in their primaries.

Both the Democrat and Republican parties had to meet in 2017 to decide whether they would opt into allowing unaffiliated voters to participate in their primaries. Republicans were told that they were losing elections because there were too many “hardcore” candidates winning the primaries who ended up being unelectable. The open primary was promised to bring a moderating influence on the Republican party which would lead to more Republicans being elected.

The other benefit that was promised was that by giving unaffiliated voters exposure to a Republican in a primary this would make it so that they were more likely to vote for the Republican in the general election. This provides name recognition to the Republican candidate paid for by the taxpayer. As unaffiliated voter, Jon Caldara says: “For Republicans to win in our new unaffiliated-dominated reality, they must tempt unaffiliated voters to pull the lever in their direction.” For the Colorado Republicans, a party often dominated by Evangelicals since the 1980s, the idea of being able to evangelize the unaffiliated voters with the ideas of the Republican party was irresistible. Both the Central Committees for the Democrat and Republican parties in Colorado voted to implement the open primary system starting in 2018.

The Colorado Republican Central Committee has the option to opt out of this open primary system on September 18^th but aren’t aware of the ramifications if they don’t opt out. They are oblivious of the unknown Trojan Horse in their own backyard, willing to sabotage both the party and its principles using dark money. This article exposes this Trojan Horse so we can have a real conversation about how politics works. This is the Blueprint 2.0

The Centrist Experiment

In 2014, Charles Wheelan created the Centrist Project based off his book “The Centrist Manifesto” and in 2017, their first employee and executive director, Nick Troiano was hired. In 2018 they renamed themselves to Unite America.

In May of 2018, Troiano moved to Denver, Colorado to start building the organization. Troiano is a former candidate for Congress and decided to run as an independent in Pennsylvania in 2014 after he decided to leave the Republican party over his dissatisfaction with the Tea Party being too radical.

Unite America wanted to focus on Colorado to try a proof-of-concept for what they hoped to accomplish in Congress. In August of 2018, they held a national summit in Denver to earn press for their strategy of trying to get independent candidates elected to state legislatures. They decided to spend money on a total of 30 handpicked candidates nationwide, with 5 of those independent candidates trying to get elected in Colorado.

Their local affiliate, Unite Colorado, was almost the sole funder for those 5 campaigns and claimed they were trying to elect candidates that believed in “reform-minded centrism.” Only four of their independent candidates won election nationwide and none of the Colorado candidates.

Their initial strategy had failed but the organization didn’t go away. They had to update their game plan, which was to identify primaries that had lower turnout and were “primed for disruption,” as Nick Troiano puts it. Run for America would help them identify and recruit candidates for office. Pathways was the candidate training program to prepare those candidates. But to be able to execute the final step of this plan, they needed more funding.

Climate Queen

This is where Kathryn Murdoch steps in. She is the president of Quadrivium which provides funding for Unite America where Kathryn serves as co-chair with Charles Wheelan. Wheelan is the brains, Murdoch is the money. She decided to get involved in politics after seeing Al Gore talk at the 21st Century Fox retreat in 2006. As the website of Quadrivium points out, she served as Director of Strategy and Communications for the Clinton Climate Initiative from 2006 until 2011. In 2014, Murdoch co-founded Quadrivium with her husband who is the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. At Quadrivium, she founded SciLine, in partnership with AAAS, to provide ‘scientific’ expertise and context to journalists in real time and on deadline. She has funded important work at the Environmental Defense Fund, where she co-chairs the Oceans and Communications committees as a trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund. She is also on the board of both the Climate Leadership Council and Climate Central.

The Climate Leadership Council has what they call the bipartisan climate roadmap. What is this roadmap? “Global banking giants JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are joining a Republican-backed group pushing for Congress to pass a carbon tax. The banks join a wide array of businesses in endorsing a carbon tax proposed by the Climate Leadership Council… Oil and gas giants BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil, along with automakers GM and Ford, have already donated money to the lobbying arm of the group…” (source)

Kathryn Murdoch is using the Climate Leadership Council to make it appear as if there is bi-partisan support for a carbon tax. She and her husband are publicly open about spending millions to create a political consensus around Al Gore’s views on climate change. Murdoch is a climate radical with money and motivation.

On March 20th, 2019, Disney acquired 21^st Century Fox, making James and Kathryn Murdoch incredibly wealthy. That same day, they donated $100 million to their nonprofit Quadrivium. Now that Quadrivium was flush with cash, Kathryn Murdoch decided to get involved in trashing Trump to Republicans. As Amber Athey, editor at Spectator World reported: Murdoch funded “Bill Kristol’s Defending Democracy Together, which went on to launch Republican Voters Against Trump, Republicans for the Rule of Law and Former Republican National Security Officials for Biden.”

Murdoch serves on the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder which “has published several podcasts and resources identifying right-wing media as spreaders of disinformation and Trump supporters as its consumers.” Her non-profit also funds “the Center for a New American Security, which accused Trump of being too deferential to Vladimir Putin.” Murdoch is fully committed to using her nonprofit to attack Republicans and Trump supporters.

Murdoch’s Money in Colorado

With additional funding now available from Quadrivium, in April of 2019, Unite America hired Jeffrey Carson as a Sr. Director of operations and he moved to Denver, Colorado. In April of 2020, Jeffrey created Coloradans for Constitutional Values. Kathryn Murdoch had provided $6.3 million to Unite America which provided the funding for the Unite Colorado Election Fund which provided the funding for Coloradans for Constitutional Values (CCV). CCV paid the organization Polestar.

This is exactly how dark money works, Unite America and Polestar are registered at the same office, on the 5th floor of a building one block from the Colorado State Capitol. So, when CCV paid Polestar almost a million dollars in 2020, the money didn’t even need to change hands, which is how dark money works.  Unite America was able to coordinate hundreds of thousands into the HD22, HD48, HD63 and SD8 Republican primaries ensuring their candidates got elected to office.

To see how this works in practice, here is a chart so you can see how much money was spent by CCV vs. the candidates in that race.

SD8 DI	SD8 CCV	HD22 JE	HD22 CCV	HD48 GN	HD48 CCV	HD63 PM	HD63 CCV
$6,350	$82,179	$29,192.97	$82,518.50	$20,548.83	$161,470.45	$18,486.51	$120,815

Unlike in 2018, Unite Colorado was able to get each Colorado candidate they chose elected to office in 2020. They figured out that the open Republican primary in Colorado was the key to their plan for the state legislature. But one thing Unite America couldn’t predict was that Lauren Boebert would win not only her Republican primary but also the general election. Boebert was one of just five Republican challengers for Congress who defeated an incumbent in a primary election.

The “problem” of Lauren Boebert

After Boebert won the general election, Unite America paid Mindy Finn for a study on Republican voters in Colorado’s 3^rd Congressional District. Mindy Finn & Evan McMullin are founders of Stand Up Republic, which is a Never-Trump organization that has supported the impeachment of Trump and has worked to defeat Republican Congressmen Devin Nunes and Steve King. Mindy Finn’s survey found that Republican voters in the Republican CD3 Primary tended to be “more likely (60%) to identify as “very conservative” than either Republicans who only voted in the general election (35%) or all general election voters (25%).” Unite America likes to point out that compared to the Republicans who voted in that primary, “20% more general election voters agree that the right to bear arms should be balanced with common sense gun safety regulations.”

Their point is that even though unaffiliated voters were able to choose between Boebert and Tipton, the Republicans who voted in the primary were more likely to identify as “very conservative.” Having an open primary in Colorado did not prevent a 2^nd amendment supporting conservative such as Boebert from winning Colorado’s 3^rd District. While Colorado’s open primaries are great for liberal dark money interests, leftist elites love control, and they want to be able to control each primary. We will get back to why Unite America has decided primaries are still not open enough. But first it is important to understand how Unite Colorado is structured.

Unite Colorado, as a local arm of Kathryn’s political power, tries to portray itself as a nonprofit focused “on scaling and accelerating the movement to put voters first.” There are plenty of Republicans on their steering committee – Cole Wist, Jean White, Al White, Norma Anderson and most importantly – Rob Witwer. We must point out, Rob Witwer is the author of The Blueprint, which is the book that details how the wealthy gang of four has given Democrats full control over Colorado government.

The executive director of Unite Colorado, Terrance Carroll, is someone with a background that points to the political leanings of the organization. He is a former Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives and a Democrat. He also fundamentally believes that Trump emboldens violent white supremacists. After the September 29th, 2020, presidential debate, Carroll said that “despite all my success, degrees, and privilege I have never felt as unsafe in my own country as I do. Simply leaving the house makes me anxious.” Back in 2009 he sponsored National Popular Vote legislation in the Colorado legislature and is a supporter of ranked choice voting.

Carroll has no love for pro-Trump Republicans and has the passion needed to radically change the way we hold elections here in Colorado. While Carroll’s team only lists Chelsea Nunnenkamp as a staff member, half of the 20 member staff of Unite America live in Denver, Colorado. Remember, their office is one block from the Colorado State Capitol.  Unite America is on the ground in Colorado to test out their strategies and implement the political change they want to enact across the nation.

Final Five Elections

Unite America is all in on a radical change to political primaries. In September of 2017, a board member of Unite America, Katherine Gehl, co-wrote a Harvard Business School report with Harvard professor Michael E. Porter titled “Why competition in the politics industry is failing America.” They decided to publish this as a book on June 23^rd, 2020. The name of the book is “The Politics Industry” and contains endorsements by politicians such as Mitt Romney and businessmen such as former Starbucks CEO, Howard Shultz. Katherine Gehl is a wealthy activist who was president and CEO of Gehl Foods in Wisconsin. The argument in her book is that the political system has unhealthy competition with little accountability to voters. Her view is that government should be run more like a business. This requires new rules that would restore public trust in the Federal Government.

The political innovation that Gehl and Porter suggest is to eliminate primaries controlled by political parties and move to open, single ballot, nonpartisan primaries in which the top-five candidates qualify for the general election which is then decided using ranked-choice voting (RCV). This voting reform is often referred to as a jungle primary but also combined with RCV in the general election. They point to the voting reforms of the Progressive era as evidence that we must “remake American democracy once more.” They even provide numbers as to how much they believe is needed to get states to adopt these new reforms. They argue it costs “$5 million for legislative action in a small state to $20 to $25 million for a ballot initiative in [a] larger state like California. An aggressive average of $15 million across twenty states gives us $300 million.”

What Katherine Gehl didn’t mention in the book, was that Unite America had already spent a million dollars to collect enough signatures in Alaska to put this primary reform on the November 2020 ballot. Unite America went on to test out how much money it would take to convince voters to pass this primary reform in the state of Alaska. Unite America donated $3.4 million to the “Yes on 2” campaign which spent a total of $6.9 million to convince Alaskan voters to pass the primary reforms.

What is interesting about this test case is that it barely passed with a margin of 3,781 votes and only 50.55% of voters voting yes. Only 344,233 Alaskan’s even voted on the issue. The opposition to this ballot measure was outspent 12 to one and only raised half a million dollars. Unite America and it’s coordinating donors spent almost $40 per yes vote to get this to pass.

What is also interesting is that Unite America doesn’t like to talk about its loss in Massachusetts on Ballot Question 2. This would have implemented RCV in all primary and general elections. Kathryn Murdoch had donated $2.5 million of the $10 million dollars to the Yes on Question 2 committee. Michael E. Porter also donated $450,000. The measure lost 55% to 45% even though only $8,000 was spent to oppose it.

Both these ballot initiatives also received millions in funding from the Action Now Initiative which is the philanthropic arm of billionaires John and Laura Arnold. It is obvious that these ballot questions did not come from a natural grassroots movement but were political AstroTurf laid down by millionaires and billionaires. As Gehl and Porter say in their book “We must now spread the ideas of Final-Five Voting, scaling a few early innovators into a coast-to-coast campaign of universal adoption.” 

“Noah’s Ark”

Even though Unite America had been able to pass democracy reform in Alaska in 2020 they now realized they needed to raise more money and build a bigger coalition. The method that Gehl suggests for coalition building is Kent Thiry’s Noah’s Ark Strategy. He makes sure to always get endorsements from an equal amount of Republicans and Democrats.

There is a darker aspect to this strategy. He describes this part in how he implemented gerrymandering reform in California. “We did so well in building a good coalition… but what we were prepared to do was consequences… this is a real campaign, a full contact sport, we wanted to be sure that certain people in legislature…you are gonna have to take a stand, we are gonna make your stand public… We very much put in place, were prepared to put in place but didn’t have to do much of it, unlike open primaries a few years earlier where we put very aggressive ads against a couple D’s and a couple R’s because we wanted their constituents to know that they were not in favor of opening up primaries and that changed the conversation, immensely!”

So what politicians must understand is they better get on “Noah’s Ark” or Kent Thiry will spend money against them, and they just might miss the boat.

To see how the Noah’s Ark strategy works successfully, you can look at how Amendment B was passed in Colorado in 2020. Most of the funding for the Yes on Amendment B came from Kent Thiry and Pat Stryker, $2.4 million and $2.2 million respectively. Yes, the same Pat Stryker from the Blueprint 1.0. Kent could then get Republicans in office like Matt Soper and Janice Rich to publicly take a stand because whether they knew it or not, he was more than willing to spend money against them if they didn’t.

While only 0.3% of the funding for Yes on Amendment B came from conservative policy organizations, Kent was able to advertise to conservatives without them knowing that the whole thing was mostly his idea.

Big Money

The Noah’s Ark strategy of coalition building has been tried and tested in Colorado and will be used by Unite America going forward. Now they are acting on their strategy of fundraising.

On March 30th, 2021, Nick Troiano was interviewed on the Long Game podcast in a show titled “Will Big Money Donors Get Behind the Move to Get Rid of Partisan Primaries?”. He came on the 45-minute podcast to talk about the webpage and report that Unite America had published that same day.

In the description for the podcast, host Jon Ward writes: “Unite America is more than an organization that puts out reports, however. It is aiming to mobilize $100 million dollars over the next two years to push for open primaries and ranked choice voting in states around the country. And they have some momentum. Kathryn Murdoch… donated over $6 million to the group in 2020 alone… she is trying to help persuade other big donors to give to the cause as well…”

In a January 29^th, 2020 podcast interview with senior Washington correspondent Anna Palmer, Kathryn Murdoch described her viewpoints on her strategy.

Anna Palmer – “A lot of the change you ultimately wanna have are at the Federal level, in terms of big legislative reforms on climate, gun reform. But you are taking the tact of going to the states first.”

Murdoch “…most reforms happen at the state level first. The states have quite a lot of power, I mean they are also laboratories, they are laboratories for ideas, laboratories for people. So there are a lot of different reasons why we focus there first.”

Palmer – “Any states in particular that you feel are ripe for issues that you want to take on that you think we should be watching for in the next two to four years.”

Murdoch – “We’ve actually done a state of democracy map, where we look at what’s the status of each reform in each of the states. I would put Colorado at the top of those reforms, they have everything that we think is powerful, except for ranked choice voting. And I think you are seeing changes in the way the state is run, and certainly you are seeing climate legislation coming out of Colorado, but I think we need to do more work…”

Murdoch then goes on to describe how her dark money works in buying elections.

“In Virginia we have a proof point, actually where we’ve elected, or helped to elect rather umm…[nervous laughter] we’ve helped to elect both Republicans and Democrats that were reform minded…“

Kathryn Murdoch publicly admitted that she’s used her money to “elect” politicians. This is the fundamental problem with dark money in political primaries. The voters may cast their ballot, but with so much money thrown into the primary by a few hidden donors the election is truly decided by the few wealthy elites.

Colorado in the crosshairs

In the podcast interview, Murdoch admits that Colorado is a target of hers. Unite Colorado director, Terrance Carroll, has said to media that they are looking into playing in Colorado primaries next year.

“We want folks who are going to think broadly and pragmatically about legislation and about policy solutions. I’d also add that we helped some pretty liberal folks as well,” Carroll added.

He didn’t rule out similar activity next year, “We’re considering our options for 2022.”

Chuck Todd recently asked Nick Troiano about how even though Alaska had passed Final Five Voting, Unite America needed a big state to “make it happen” in the next few years. Nick replied “…keep your eyes peeled for 2022, Unite America and myself are based in Denver, Colorado. Colorado is a great story of a state that has championed many reforms that put voters first… I’m eager to see what may happen here next year.” Nick only suggested one state for Chuck Todd to keep his eye on for 2022. Colorado.

Unite America is committed and is publicly open about the fact they are spending 2021 fundraising to have a war chest large enough to get jungle primaries passed in multiple states. It would only make sense that with Unite America using Colorado as their home base and political playground we will see a jungle primary question on the 2022 ballot here in Colorado. It is also a possibility that Lauren Boebert’s Republican Primary challenger, Marina Zimmerman, could end up with significant funding from Unite Colorado. If Lauren survives both the primary and whatever money Kathryn Murdoch throws against her in the 2022 general election, she will likely face Murdoch’s money in a 2024 Final Five jungle primary. This possible setup ensures that Boebert would serve no more than 2 terms as a Congresswoman and would set an example for other Colorado Republicans.

As a young, female, pro-gun Republican, Lauren represents a new face of the Colorado Republican Party. This threat to the Washington D.C/New York City liberal establishment has a solution according to Unite America. Dark money in Republican primaries and Final-Five Voting.

An Alaska Republican Party official, who has asked to remain anonymous, tried to raise the alarm in 2020 that Unite America was trying to destroy the power of the state party. But that warning came too late. Supporters of Final-Five Voting, such as former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, know what a threat Unite America could be to state Republican Parties. He says, “There are soldiers who have been in this space before, there is so much excitement whether it’s National Popular Vote which I’m involved in directly….and of course this new initiative that Katherine’s put out with the Final Five. I love it, I support it, can we do it like yesterday?…The strategy becomes how do we do it?… The political parties standing opposite you, don’t want this change they don’t want this reform. It’s gonna take a state by state reform… You’ll now become the next line of soldiers who will go out there and begin conversations about this. They don’t see that coming, Parties kinda look out, they only look down when they have to…”

The Colorado crossroads

The Colorado Republican Party is acting as if they are ignorant of the leftist millionaires and billionaires who use dark money to guide the outcome of our state elections. This money could have a chilling effect on politicians who oppose issues such as a carbon tax or gun restrictions.  Liberal millionaires can ensure that our elected politicians don’t stray from what they consider are allowable opinions.

Here are some questions to ponder now that you know about the influence of Kathryn Murdoch and Unite America. Your answer to these may spur the action needed to stop this takeover, this Blueprint 2.0, in its tracks. Keep that in mind as you read these questions.

Will the Republican party continue to allow their primaries to become a playground and testing lab for liberal organizations?

Why are conservatives in Colorado volunteering their time and donating their money to have a political organization with no defenses against Murdoch and other wealthy donors?

Why are Republicans allowing a New York City liberal to pick and choose which candidates Republicans get to have on the ballot?

Will the Republican Party leadership recognize the threat that Unite America represents to the ability of the party to advance and advocate for “conservative values”?

Will the Republican Party stand up to dark money and advocate for political finance reforms?

The Democrats in Colorado currently control every branch of state government because of the original Blueprint.

Will Colorado Republicans ignore The Blueprint 2.0 that is right in front of their eyes?

The answer? Probably.

Remember… Jon Caldara, President of the Independence Institute, commonly states that the first political axiom should be, “There’s nothing Republicans can’t screw up.”

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Sarah Harrison started working in Colorado politics at the age of 9 in 1998. Between spending high school working the State Capitol from 2004-2007 to working on Presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012, Sarah has consulted on, managed, or volunteered for dozens of races in and out of Colorado. Sarah is the “heroine” (according to NPR) of a Sundance award-winning documentary called Dark Money about her time working for campaigns in Montana in 2010, and what they did wrong, and what she did to help make it right. Sarah has been a vocal advocate for limited government throughout the years and enjoys a good debate. She is the mom of 3 small boys named after Viking and Swedish royalty and lives with them in Centennial, CO.

Karl Honegger is a Certified Treasury Professional and a member of the Steamboat Institute’s Emerging Leaders Council. He is the Treasurer of the Broomfield County Republicans, a contributor to the Liberty Scorecard, and a board member of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers. He is a busy father of six.

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