Meet the Chicago-area man spending $250K to elect ‘liberty-leaning’ candidates to N.H. legislature
The flood of outside spending on political campaigns has made its way to the New Hampshire legislature. Last year, a wealthy Chicago-area commodities trader donated $250,000 to a New Hampshire political committee with the goal of electing “next generation” libertarian candidates.
The man seeking to influence Granite State elections is E. Davison Massey, a 72-year-old retiree living in Winnetka, Illinois, an affluent North Shore community located 16 miles north of downtown Chicago.
Massey is no stranger to the world of campaign finance. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Massey and his wife Rebeca have donated more than $870,000 to Republican candidates and committees with most of that, over $700,000, coming in the last two election cycles.
The couple’s largest donations in the 2012 election cycle included $65,000 to Romney Victory Inc., $30,800 to the Republican National Committee, $30,800 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and $25,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Last year, Massey upped the ante with six-figure donations to two federal super PACs. The retired commodities trader ponied up $170,000 for Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and $250,000 for Liberty for All, a hybrid super PAC dedicated to the recruitment, support, and election of “next generation” libertarian politicians.
Liberty for All
Liberty for All was founded in 2011 by John Ramsey, a 21-year-old college student who funded the group with $2.7 million of his own money that he inherited from his grandfather.
The super PAC made headlines the next year by spending almost $900,000 on a Republican primary in Kentucky’s 4th congressional district. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican associated with the Tea Party movement, won his party’s nomination with Liberty for All’s support.
Ramsey say his group is now focused on state legislatures. “We go and play in state legislatures all around the country,” he recently told Ben Swann. “We try to elect the next generation of liberty-leaning candidates. We particularly focus on early presidential primary states because in those states not only can we elect a handful of our type of candidate, but they also have a big say in who the Republican nominee would be in the presidential race,” he added.
And that brings us back to Davison Massey. On August 20, 2014, Liberty for All’s interim executive director, John Chicoine, filed paperwork with the state to register Liberty for All Action Fund New Hampshire and the Illinois commodities trader filled the coffers with another quarter-million dollar donation.
Chicoine, the chairman and treasurer of the state committee, knows New Hampshire politics. He served as Ron Paul’s state campaign director in 2012 and has worked on campaigns for former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith and state Sens. Jeanie Forrester and Bob O'Dell.
A big fish in a small pond
One week before the September primary, Chicoine spent $17,600 on a series of independent expenditures for direct mail campaigns supporting 20 Republican candidates. The group included state Senate candidate Phil Nazzaro in District 21 and 19 House candidates in primary races. 13 of the candidates who benefitted from the Liberty for All expenditures won their primaries and advanced to the general election.
By the time the dust had settled on the general election, Liberty for All had spent over $74,600 in independent expenditures on behalf of 60 Republican candidates. Half of the candidates Liberty supported were elected including 29 House candidates and Sen. Andy Sanborn.
Despite the spending spree, Liberty for All Action Fund New Hampshire could have as much as $175,000 left for upcoming races. And they apparently intend to spend it.
“We’re focused primarily on the state of New Hampshire,” Ramsey declared. “We think that New Hampshire is just an absolute hotbed, powder keg for libertarianism… There’s very much a culture of liberty there,” he said. “I think we can do a lot of work there, particularly in the state legislature… We can go and be a big fish in a small pond.”
Last month, the group made two independent expenditures on behalf of Yvonne Dean-Bailey, the 19-year-old Republican running in the special election to fill the vacant House seat in Rockingham District 32. Dean-Bailey won her primary and will face Democrat Maureen Mann on May 19.