Dan Gilbert photo by Erik Drost/FlickrCC
UPFRONT
A NATIONAL BLACK ORG FUNNELED DAN GILBERT DOLLARS TO ANTI-KUCINICH PAC. THEN THE PAC WENT AFTER BIBB. A WASHINGTON D.C.-BASED organization devoted to building Black political power served as an intermediary for nearly $50,000 controlled by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert during the 2021 mayoral primary, Scene has learned, and funneled it to Citizens for Change, the super PAC aligned with former city council president and mayoral candidate Kevin Kelley. This financial arrangement was disguised by a campaign finance framework that delays donor identification in some cases and permits anonymity in others. And though it remained unpublicized, the arrangement inflected the response of the organization’s founder, Quentin James, who felt duped—and, others have suggested, culpable— when Citizens for Change pivoted from bashing Dennis Kucinich to bashing Justin Bibb, and doing so with racist tropes. The D.C.-based organization is the Collective PAC. In August, it publicly endorsed Bibb, who went on to defeat Kelley in the
November general election. A Super PAC affiliated with it is called “The Southern Strategy PAC.” Multiple sources with knowledge of the interaction said that this PAC was made available to accept Gilbert’s money and that it then donated his funds to Citizens for Change after assurances that they would be used only to target Dennis Kucinich. Why Gilbert preferred to cloak his involvement in the primary is a mystery, especially because he went on to donate $50,000, via his company Rocket Holdings, to another PAC, Citizens for Cleveland’s Future, that was formed to back Kelley in the general. The media relations team at Gilbert’s Rocket family of companies has not yet responded to Scene’s inquiries. Update: Rock Holdings, as it turns out, did not openly donate to Citizens for Cleveland’s Future. Ideastream reporter Nick Castele has confirmed that the $50,000 donation which was originally attributed to Rock Holdings was attributed to the Construction
Employers Association in an amended FEC filing. But regardless of his motives, The Southern Strategy PAC suited Gilbert’s needs. Among other things, its website is a veritable black box. It has no listed staff. Its address is a P.O. Box in Washington, D.C. Its only social media presence is a dormant Facebook page, the entire activity on which transpired over one 24-hour period in August, 2020. The email address linked from its “Contact” button is inoperable. All messages are returned to sender. Its mission, outlined on the website, is the engagement of “new and unlikely” voters, including Black people and suburban women “at the heart of the emerging Democratic coalition across the South and in states and districts where the greatest barrier to electoral success is sufficient and sustained financial investment.” Beyond a $25,000 transfer to a related committee, The Southern Strategy PAC’s only contribution in 2021 was to Citizens for Change.
Scene managed to connect the dots only after after reviewing The Southern Strategy PAC’s incorporating documents, which list a woman named Jennifer May as treasurer. May is the founder of a D.C. consultancy called Next Level Partners, which provides, among other things, compliance and accounting services for Super PACs. According to the Federal Election Commission, Jennifer May is also the Treasurer for the Collective PAC. Both PACs also share a P.O. Box. To some in the Bibb camp, The Southern Strategy’s activities smelled a lot like money laundering. “Gilbert and Rock Holdings washed their money through [The Southern Strategy PAC],” one source with ties to the Bibb campaign told Scene. But others said that, unfortunately, this was simply the nature of the United States’ campaign finance laws. “It’s not [laundering],” said a source who spoke on condition of
February 9-22, 2022 | clevescene.com |
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