A donor who does not want to be named has written a $1 million check to Tea Party Patriots, and the organization's national coordinators intend to push the funds out into the field by the beginning of next month -- in time to help with get-out-the-vote efforts for the Nov. 2 election.

In a Q&A with reporters at the National Press Club, Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots dropped a few hints about their benefactor: "He" is a businessman and entrepreneur, they said. Asked if he had given to other political causes, Meckler said he didn't know.

The anonymous nature of the donation was Topic A at the press conference where Meckler and Martin announced the grant. Organized as a "social welfare" group under section 501(c)4 of the tax code, the Tea Party Patriots is not regulated by federal campaign finance laws and is not required to make its funding sources public.

Meckler said the grant will be distributed among the Tea Party Patriots' 2,800 local affiliates to help further voter education and turnout efforts. "None of this money is to be used for direct election activities," he said.

Translation: As long as the Tea Party Patriots do not mention candidates' names in their material or explicitly advocate for or against a specific candidates' election, they don't have to meet federal requirements to disclose their donors. This according to Paul Ryan, one of the experts at the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan watchdog group that monitors election law.

"There certainly seems to be an increase" in the use of 501(c)4s to "launder" political donations, Ryan said. He said big donors find them "attractive" because they can give money without getting their names in public.

Some business donors would prefer to keep their political preferences private to avoid alienating customers, Ryan noted.

"The Target corporation is Exhibit A," he said. The reference is to the furor set off when news surfaced this year of the mega-retailer's financial support for a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate who opposed gay marriage. Gay rights advocates boycotted the company, and Target apologized to employees.

At the news conference today, Meckler took a not-so-indirect swipe at a rival Tea Party organization, the Tea Party Express, which operates a full-fledged political action committee that has reported more than $5 million in donations to the Federal Election Commission.

In a reference to the consulting firm of veteran political consultant Sal Russo, Meckler said the Tea Party Express answers to the "small, elite leadership team," that helped found the organization. "We're here to support the real grass-roots activists," Meckler said.

(Posted by Kathy Kiely)