Tom Steyer, America’s biggest individual political contributor, just formed a $50 million Super Pac with public employee unions and the AFL-CIO to elect a Democrat President and to build a permanent liberal spending infrastructure.
Complaining during the 2014 midterms that nobody seemed to care about climate change, Steyer was the largest political contributor with nearly $74 million, all of it going exclusively to the Democrats, according to Politico.
Republicans made huge gains at the state level that cycle, picking up control of 31 governorships and nearly 70 percent of the legislative chambers around the nation.
Steyer in April 2015 participated in a ‘Democracy Alliance’ meeting in San Francisco meeting in April 2015 where 30 organizations promised to work in raising more than $150 million over the next five years to “reduce the influence of money in elections.”
Promising to “open his wallet even wider” in 2016, Steyer under the name “Thomas & F. & Kathryn Ann Fahr LLC/Tom Steyer”, has been running second with $13,430,242 in the race to be the largest individual political donor. Steyer also announced that he was set to spend $25 million on a separate campaign to turn out the youth vote ahead of November’s election. Again, all his cash has gone to Democrats and their related causes.
But now seemingly ready to step-up his commitment big time, Steyer’s NextGen Climate organization announced they would be partnering with the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National Education Association to form a Super Pac called, “For Our Future PAC.”
Although Steyer’s exact financial commitment has not been disclosed, Steyer has indicated he will match what the union raise.
The Service Employees International Union has been reported to have considered joining the Super PAC, but has so far not chosen to opt-in.
Amanda Brown, campaign director for the new organization and former political director of ‘Rock the Vote, said, “While we want to win in our election fights, we have an eye towards building a diverse organization and coalition at the community level to work together and stay together over the course of time.”
Other high powered PAC staff members include: veteran Democratic operative Paul Tewes, who ran Obama’s successful Iowa Caucus campaign in 2008, and Gregory Jackson Jr., who worked for Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and Obama’s Organizing for America political advocacy group.
It has been rumored that Steyer is courting the unions he said in a statement, “The partners in this effort are on the front lines of fighting for our future and I am glad to be creating this new initiative with them.”
Steyer is reported to have flirted with personally running for the California seat of retiring Senator Barbara Boxer. His move to cozy up even closer to powerful public employee unions has been “chatted up” in Sacramento as a precursor to a 2018 campaign for the Democrat nomination to replace termed-out California Governor Jerry Brown.
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