Controversial Americans For Job Security President Placed 'She' Anti-Holland Commercials; Document Shows He's Advertising Agency 'Partner'

(From this week's Archives 10/26/06) The president of the controversial Americans For Job Security, Mike Dubke, has been indentified by The McCarville Report Online as the man leading the $250,000 attack on State Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland.

TMRO learned that the television commercials attacking Holland were placed by Dubke, a conservative Republican power broker who routinely launches attacks on Democrats, and sometimes moderate Republicans, in election years from his suburban Washington office in Olde Town Alexandria, Virginia.

The commercials were placed through Crossroads Media, located at the same address as AJS. Dubke, over the last five years operating as an advertising agency, has placed attack radio and television commercials in races all over the country. He has been investigated, threatened and described as a "political jackal" because he represents groups that don't disclose the sources of their money. He says that is deliberate, because keeping the sources secret means the debate is on his targets rather than his donors.

AJS is located in Suite 555 at 66 Canal Center Plaza in Alexandria, VA. Crossroads Media, listed in Oklahoma television station documents as the agency on the anti-Holland commercials, is located in Suite 555 at 66 Canal Center Plaza in Alexandria, VA. A Federal Election Commission document located by TMRO lists Dubke as "Crossroads Media/Partner."

The television commercial attacking Holland contains a "header" that viewers do not see; the header TMRO obtained confirms the run time, client, code and content name of the commercial for the television station's sales department and producers who ensure it airs at the proper time. The header on the Holland attack commercial reads: "Client: JTFA - Title: SHE - 10.12.06 - Code: JTFA101206."

AJS was formed, as previously reported by TMRO, with a $1 million donation from the American Insurance Association, now headed by former Montana Governor Marc Racicot. Here's what the site "Direct Democracy" reported about AJS: "And where does AJS money come from? We don't really know, though there are hints. AJS began with a $1 million donation from the American Insurance Industry." Here's what opensecrets.org reports about the group: "AJS has been closely linked with the insurance and health care industries."

Also associated with AJS, and a longtime personal and professional associate of Racicot, is influential Washington attorney Benjamin L. Ginsberg of Patton Boggs; Ginsberg wrote letters in the Holland controversy to Oklahoma television stations and to the executive editor of The Oklahoman, who had protested the use of the newspaper's stories and headlines in the Holland attack commercial.

AJS is among many organizations that operate in secret; those who give it money are not publicly disclosed. It's the same with the front group attacking Holland, "Just The Facts America," an entity formed in Austin, Texas, by Republican activist James B. Cardle just 36 hours before the Holland attack was launched. JTFA, formed as a non-profit, 501(c)(6) organization, does not have to disclose the sources of its funding. Thus far, TMRO has been able to estimate, the group has spent about $175,000 to defeat Holland and likely will spend $250,000 by election day.

AJS was identified earlier this election year as the source of robo calls attacking Republican congressional candidates Denise Bode and Mary Fallin. Ironically, Fallin's own survey research firm, The Tarrance Group, was affiliated with AJS as recently as the last election cycle.

AJS has been described by many publications. The Texas Observer, following a contentious election in Texas two years ago, wrote this: "'We don’t know who is funding [Americans for Job Security],' notes Fred Lewis of Campaigns for People. 'Is it Chinese businessmen who want to outsource jobs to China? Here is the reason that disclosure is so important: The public is entitled to know if AJS is just a bunch of insurance companies.'

"Dubke understands that keeping the membership of AJS secret will be viewed as suspect. The group does it, he contends, to prevent the media, or voters for that matter, from making the messenger the message.

"'We figured we would take that knock and that’s a knock that we are willing to take,' he says. 'We feel that the fact that our issues are being spoken about, more so than one or two members, is much more important.' The calculation is an understandable one. No one has been willing to hound AJS for its work on behalf of faceless special interests in the systematic and sustained way AJS attacks candidates. It’s too bad, since if ever there was a case where the messenger is the message, this is it."

The involvement of AJS in Texas politics, attacking Republicans as well as Democrats, once prompted Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to investigate, but it apparently was determined the group operated within the limits of the law, if not within what some consider political propriety.

Washington Monthly's Nicholas Confessore has studied AJS and similar groups and in a lengthy profile, wrote this: "...Americans for Job Security (is) located in a tidy brick building on the northern border of Alexandria's new white-collar sprawl. 'It's so much cheaper out here than being downtown,' says AJS's president, Michael Dubke, as he greets me at the front door and leads me into a nondescript conference room. Like many of its neighbors, AJS is organized as a 501(c)(6), which is to say a not-for-profit 'business league' or trade organization. But as trade organizations go, it is rather unusual. Not only is the group's membership--several hundred individuals, corporations, and other trade organizations--secret, but by all appearances, the members don't share a particular line of business. Despite a budget of millions of dollars a year, AJS doesn't have the kind of public relations or policy staff that, say, the Chamber of Commerce does. In fact, Dubke, a cheerful, clean-cut 33-year-old with the rangy build of an ex-jock, is AJS's sole employee. The group has no Web site, puts out no policy briefs or press releases, and does no lobbying on the Hill.

"About the only thing that AJS does is buy television, radio, and newspaper advertisements--lots of them. This is a source of pride for Dubke. 'Ninety-five percent of the money that we take in membership [dues] is spent on our grassroots lobbying,' he tells me, like a discount carpet salesman bragging about his low overhead. 'We spend our money on product.'

"During the hotly contested 2000 race, widely regarded as a watershed election for issue advertising, AJS spent about $9 million on political ads. A chunk of the money went towards attacking Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore for his prescription-drug plan, with ads airing in such key media markets as Spokane, Wash., and Tampa, Fla. (All told, according to a study by the Brennan Center, AJS was the most active outside group supporting Bush in 2000.)

"But AJS didn't stick to the presidential race. It also spent millions of dollars on behalf of Republican candidates in closely-fought Senate races in Michigan, Nebraska, and Washington. During the midterm elections two years later, with Democratic control of the Senate at stake, AJS dumped another $7 million into advertising, again mostly in key races, notably Minnesota's.

"Traditional 501(c) groups run ads on a narrow set of issues important to their members. This year, for instance, the NRA might run ads attacking candidates who support extending the ban on assault weapons, while the Sierra Club might air spots against candidates who support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. AJS, by contrast, is more catholic in its interests. During the last two election cycles, the group's campaign ads have addressed taxes, education, tort reform, prescription drugs, immigration, dam removal in the Pacific Northwest, even federal regulation of drinking water--'basically anything we label a 'pro-paycheck' message,' Dubke remarks.

"Much like a political party, AJS only seems to lurch into action at election time, even if one of its many core issues is being debated in Congress at some other time. Traditional Washington trade associations expend most of their resources trying to affect the legislative process, but Dubke sees this as a waste of time. 'Our main purpose is to get these public policy issues out into the debate,' he told me. 'I have yet to have somebody tell me when is a better time to talk about public policy issues' than during campaign season.

"Aside from timing, about the only thing AJS's ads have in common is that nearly all of them attack Democrats, usually those in tight races.

"And although groups running 'issue ads' are not supposed to coordinate with candidates, in at least some cases AJS appeared to do just that. During 2000, for example, AJS launched a massive ad campaign in support of embattled incumbent Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.). As Newsweek reported that year, funding for the ads came from the tech industry, which cut checks to AJS at the request of then-Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Abraham's mentor. In 2002, the group ran ads in Alaska, where incumbent Republican Sen. Frank Murkowski was in a tight race with the state's Democratic lieutenant governor. According to published reports at the time, AJS's ads followed a conference with Murkowksi's political consultant and used the same themes that Murkowski's own campaign was employing."

There are indications today that the actitivies of AJS may, once again, call attention to its 501(c)(6) status with the Internal Revenue Service. TMRO is told that two attorneys are examining its role in Oklahoma politics this year. The section of the IRS code that deals with such "business leagues" gives them tax-exempt status and allows dues as tax-deductible business expenses, "but not the portion of dues that the business league uses for lobbying and political purposes," Public Citizen's Congress Watch reported. "...they may not be primarily engaged in efforts to affect the outcomes of elections," it states. AJS has been cited by a New Stealth PACs study as among those groups that "may have violated the terms of their 501(c) status." That statement is based on the study's conclusion that the group's election-related activities raised questions "as to whether they violated the terms of their tax status."

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