The American Future Fund: 2008's version of the SBVT Liars?

The genesis of the organization in Iowa was the Iowa Future Fund which "gained public attention in March when it ran a series of television and radio ads accusing Gov. Chet Culver of increasing spending by 20 percent over the past two years and raising taxes and fees by $100 million. ... The Iowa Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board to determine whether the ads constituted political advertising, which would require disclosure of the group's donors. Charlie Smithson, executive director of the Iowa Ethics Campaign and Disclosure Board, said the complaint has not yet been fully settled.

In April, Iowa Future Fund effectively split into two groups: AFF, which focuses on federal races around the country, and the Iowa Progress Project, which puts its resources toward state issues.

Albrecht said AFF and Iowa Future Fund "are completely unrelated." But they share an organizational history. AFF and IFF were incorporated on the same day by the same Virginia law firm. David Kochel served for a time as spokesman for IFF and AFF before becoming president of Iowa Progress Project.

In March, an ad run by AFF in the race between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Sen. Norm Coleman for Minnesota's U.S. Senate seat caused the state's Democratic-Farmer-LaborParty to file a formal complaint with the FEC alleging that the group violated federal election law and that its ads constitute blatant electoral advocacy.

"The American Future Fund is a shadowy nonprofit organization," the complaint said. "It purports to be exempt from tax under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. But its notion of 'promoting the social welfare' is to send valentines to electorally troubled Republican Senate candidates. The Commission should take immediate steps to enforce the law and expose this group's secret financing to light of day."

Under federal election law, the organization is prohibited from engaging solely in "express advocacy," which would include asking voters to vote for or against a certain candidate. But so long as the ad hasn't been coordinated with a campaign and doesn't outright say "vote for" or "vote against," it is not considered express advocacy, according to Paul S. Ryan, FEC program director for the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based organization.

"An organization that is careful about how it writes the script of its ad can fly under the radar or stay outside of the net of campaign finance activity," he said.

The ad in question didn't ask voters to vote for Coleman, but rather asked voters to "call Norm Coleman and thank him for his agenda for Minnesota."

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Since running the Coleman ad in Minnesota, AFF has been busy.

In July, ran radio ads in Nevada, asking voters to "call [Democratic] Sen. Harry Reid and tell him to allow a vote" on expanded domestic oil drilling.

Also in July, it ran radio ads asking Colorado voters to call U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and "tell him to stop delaying energy exploration." Last week, AFF launched a television ad critical of Udall's stance on domestic oil exploration.

The group also released a series of three Web ads, asking voters to call U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., to tell them they "shouldn't get sweetheart deals," referring to accusations that they profited from the mortgage crisis.

In May, AFF officially filed a statement of organization for its own political action committee, called American Future Fund Political Action. Ryan said this is a standard procedure for many nonprofits as it allows them to solicit donations for exclusively "express advocacy" work.

The AFF PAC has used YouTube to distribute a series of ads against Franken in Minnesota (in May), Senate Majority Leader Reid in Nevada (in June), U.S. Rep. William Jefferson and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana (in May and July), and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (in May).

However, according to reports filed with the FEC on July 13, the group has raised no money and has had no expenditures, a fact that Ryan called "odd."

It's time to start advertising what the AFF is all over the internet. As the Iowa Independent notes, the AFF discloses "nothing about its leaders, history or membership on its Web site, and it makes little or no effort on public appearances, press conferences and media bookings." So it's up to us to do it for them.

Get ready for the SBVT Liars of 2008: a group called AFF which is short for the American Future Fund.