A glimpse into the Triad mystery

In October of 1997 the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which investigates campaign finance abuses, received a partial list of donors to the Republican campaign organization that spent over a million dollars to put Brownback in the Senate in '96 -- Triad Management Services.

Till now, the donor list has been kept legally non-public: "It's a legal thing that they could do. There's no prohibition under the law right now," said a Brownback aide redundantly.

Well, yeah. Which is why we need better disclosure. McCain-Feingold would help.

Interestingly, when the other side enjoys the current system's flabby restraints, Sam and his colleagues cry foul, as in October '97 when the National Republican Senatorial Committee accused Common Cause and Campaign For America of "taking advantage of the very system they want to change" by running issue ads.

Anyway, it turns out two of Triad's biggest donors are the Cones (a manufacturing family in Pennsylvania, $1.2 million donated) and, probably, a fuzzily defined "Economic Education Trust" (apparently linked to Koch Industries, a Wichita, Kansas, oil company), $1.3 million donated.

Source: the Kansas City Star, "Bank records provide insights into Triad funding / Firm put $1 million into Kansas races. Most was from two sources," James Kuhnhenn, 10/31/97
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