Charter billionaires invade WA to attack supreme court justice

Chief Justice Barbara Madsen

In September, WA's state supreme court ruled that charter schools are unconstitutional because they are governed by appointed — rather than elected — boards and therefore are not “common schools” eligible for state education funds. The chief justice, Barbara Madsen, wrote that “money that is dedicated to common schools is unconstitutionally diverted to charter schools.”

Now, charter supporters, including billionaires like Eli Broad, Paul Allen, Connie Ballmer, Ken Fisher and Alice and Jim Walton, are backing a campaign to oust Madsen.

Much of the money is flowing in from outside the state. The political arm of an organization called Stand for Children is backing Madsen's pro-charter opponent, with some $116,000 in July alone.

Most of the cash is coming from Connie Ballmer, a philanthropist married to former Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer, who gave $500,000. Others include Vulcan Inc. and Netflix founder and Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings.

Fisher funded a new political action committee called Judicial Integrity Washington. In recent weeks, the PAC has spent $100,000 on radio ads for Madsen's pro-charter opponent, Greg Zempel.

In 2011, Stand for Children’s Jonah Edelman, co-founder and chief executive officer, was caught on video, bragging about how he manipulated people to get reform legislation passed in Illinois.

Power Philanthropy -- The NRA of WA charter schools

Billionaire charter school power-philanthropists Bill Gates, Reed Hastings (left), Alice Walton, Paul Allen.

Joanne Barkan's power-structure research has been cited on the pages of this blog on several occasions. Now she's written another scathing expose of power philanthropy, "Charitable Plutocracy: Bill Gates, Washington State, and the Nuisance of Democracy" in NPQ,

Barkan takes a deeper look in how Gates and fellow philanthro-billionaires leveraged their tax-exempt foundation money to force privately-run charters down the throats of Washingtonians after the leadership of both houses of the WA legislature opposed the 2012 charter bill. When it died in committee, the activist billionaires stepped in, with Gates in the lead, to finance yet another charter school ballot initiative—the state’s fourth.

According to the Washington Times, their lobbying campaign to save Washington’s charters spent nearly $1.9 million to influence the public and state lawmakers.

Writes Barkan:

Call it charitable plutocracy—a peculiarly American phenomenon, increasingly problematic and in need of greater scrutiny. Like all forms of plutocracy, this one conflicts with democracy, and exactly how these philanthropists coordinate tax-exempt grantmaking with political funding for maximum effect remains largely obscure. 

The Washington charter saga highlights the workings of charitable plutocracy. Multibillionaire philanthropists use their personal wealth, their tax-exempt private foundations, and their high-profile identities as philanthropists to mold public policy to a degree not possible for other citizens.

Among the biggest funders of the WA charter school push were, Gates ($1 million), Alice Walton (from Arkansas, $600,000), Mike and Jackie Bezos (parents of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, $500,000), venture capitalist Nicolas Hanauer ($450,000), Katherine Binder (chair of EMFCO Holdings, $200,000), Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc. ($100,000), and Reed Hastings, from California (Netflix cofounder and KIPP charter schools board member, $100,000).

These guys are not "do-gooders".