Great Schools Massachusetts

Massachusetts law requires ballot committees to disclose their top five contributors in all television ads. But in 2016 Great Schools Massachusetts didn't do that. Read on to see the disclosure Massachusetts voters had a right to see - but didn't.

The Philanthrocapitalists who spent over $17 million in dark money to buy education policy in Massachusetts in 2016 remain hidden. That can, and should, change.

It's a disturbing fact: when we're talking dark money in Massachusetts politics, we're talking covert money from offshore interests.

Credit: DonnaG, Flickr

The Office of Campaign and Political Finance has the power to force Great Schools Massachusetts and Families for Excellent Schools to come clean about the true source of $16 million in secret cash spent in the charter schools campaign. Massachusetts citizens deserve that day of reckoning.

Will Massachusetts be a democracy or a secret plutocracy? That question doesn't have a ballot number but it is the most important question you'll vote on this year.

Shouldn't voters in a democracy have at a minimum the right to know who is spending millions to influence their votes? Not according the the pro-charters campaign.

Had either the Boston Globe or the governor shown a bit more curiosity about the over $14 million that has already poured into the state on behalf of the yes on 2 campaign, we might know more about who is really behind all those TV ads.

Among the pots of gold exploited by dark money givers to Question 2: the pensions of Massachusetts teachers, and the American taxpayer.

It's a small town. It turns out the Boston Globe, which has in the past been a client of Keyser Public Strategies, today endorsed another client of Keyser Public Strategies, "Yes on 2'.

Trying to follow the dark money behind the committees favoring Question 2 on charter schools is like watching a game of three card monte on Boston Common. But in this case the dealers are New York billionaires and the marks are the citizens of Massachusetts.