Well-known corporate chiefs funded illegal “dark money” contributions to groups in the Koch brothers’ political network involved in Thursday’s record campaign finance settlement in California, according to settlement documents.
Members of the Fisher family, founders of the Gap clothing chain, plowed more than $8 million into the dark money campaign to defeat Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase, Proposition 30, and to support the anti-union Proposition 32, in the 2012 elections, according to partially redacted documents supplied by Americans for Job Security, a group that handled contributions that figured in Thursday’s settlement.
Those documents also show that Charles Schwab, founder of Charles Schwab Corp., donated $6.4 million through Americans for Job Security. Philanthropist Eli Broad, who publicly backed Brown’s tax increase proposition, made a $500,000 contribution, according to the documents. Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson and his wife gave a combined $500,000. Crossroads GPS, the dark money nonprofit founded by Karl Rove, chipped in $2 million.