Karl Rove said Monday that efforts by state treasurers to make hedge funds that manage state pension funds disclose donations to “super PACs” are meant to intimidate donors, comparing the situation to efforts by segregationists to scare NAACP donors in the 1950s.
“In the 1940s and 50s, a number of states attorneys general attempted to force a particular 501(c)4 to disclose its donors, the purpose was to intimidate people into not giving to that organization,” Rove said on Fox News.
“The group was the NAACP, which is a 501(c)4, has a 501(c)4 and does not disclose donors. That effort failed, in fact a Supreme Court in a 1954 case general held the right of organizations like that not to make their donors’ names public,” Rove said.
“Let’s be honest what this is about. This is about a group of people on the left who have used this vehicle, 501(c)4, to run advertising and to run attacks on Republicans for years, who now object when Republicans began to duplicate their tactics and they want to intimidate people into not giving to these conservative efforts, and I think it’s shameful,” Rove said. “I think it’s a sign of their fear of democracy, and it’s interesting that they have antecedents and those antecedents are a bunch of segregationist attorneys general trying to shut down the NAACP, it goes to the philosophy behind most of this.”
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