While VNP can’t necessarily control who gives it money, it does control the people and groups it hires to help pass Prop 2. The latest campaign finance filings show it’s spending that money with consultants and strategists serving progressive candidates and causes.

Records show it paid $7 million to Know How Strategies to buy broadcast ad time through another group, Sage Media Planning. Washington, D.C.-based Sage Media also worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, End Citizens United and a variety of other Democratic candidates in 2018.

Trilogy Interactive, recipient of $1.1 million from VNP, has worked on campaigns for Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren. Deliver Strategies, which received around $595,000, has worked for Planned Parenthood and the AFL-CIO.

Fahey, VNP’s director, said this was by circumstance, not design. VNP’s “request for proposal” bidding processes were open to both Democratic and Republican firms and it deliberately tried to hire conservative consulting and strategy firms, she said, but were rebuffed.

“I contacted a number of (Republican consultants) who I have found reasonable and thoughtful over the years and they let me know in no uncertain terms that the party would hold it against them if they participated," said David Waymire, partner of Lansing-based public relations firm Martin Waymire, which represents Voters Not Politicians.

And why not nonpartisan firms? “The reality is, they do not exist,” Fahey said.

To those who say VNP’s funding reveals partisan intent, Fahey replied, “read the language” of the ballot proposal. The proposal doesn’t create a system that helps Democrats get elected, she said, it creates fairer elections for whoever is running.

Proposal 2 would create a 13-member commission comprised of four Democrats, four Republicans and five people not affiliated with either party, with voting requirements that require at least some consensus among the three groups to approve a particular map. Commission candidates would self-identify their political affiliation, which critics of Proposal 2 fear could lead to map manipulation.

Dark-money on both sides

Voters Not Politicians also notes that the group opposing it, Protect My Vote, is funded by a dark money group, the conservative Michigan Freedom Fund.

The difference between the dark money VNP and Protect My Vote have received, Fahey argues, comes down to the intent of each campaign.

The Michigan Freedom Fund is “spending millions to try to keep the status quo … which is rigged by politicians and the interests that are paying them,” Fahey said.

As Bridge has reported, as the party in power for much of the past two decades, Republicans in Lansing have controlled how state and congressional legislative districts are drawn, leading to Michigan being one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation. Emails disclosed as part of a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s redistricting plan reveal how Republican consultants, lawyers and officeholders strategized in 2011 to draw legislative boundaries to help GOP candidates and disadvantage Democrats.

Fahey argues that Proposal 2 forces those technical map-drawing decisions to be made publicly, rather than through self-serving backroom deals.

“I think we’re doing the smart thing by the will of the people to make sure we can have a campaign that gets the word out about an issue that’s low information,” Fahey said. “Because right now, these decisions are made … behind closed doors.”

Protect My Vote, the opposition group, was formed two days before the Michigan Republican Party’s August convention, with not much known about it.

Through Oct. 21, the deadline for contributions in the last campaign finance reporting period before the election, Protect My Vote reported contributions of slightly more than $150,600, with 93 percent of it coming from just one group: the Michigan Freedom Fund. (Farm Bureau Insurance gave another $10,000.)

The day after the campaign finance reporting window closed, the Michigan Freedom Fund significantly upped the stakes, dropping another $1.2 million into Protect My Vote. A few days later, on Oct. 25, Michigan Freedom Fund gave another $1.6 million to the Proposal 2 opposition effort.

Tony Daunt, executive director of the Michigan Freedom Fund, said the group’s nearly $3 million is before another $119,000 in in-kind contributions for such things as polling, research and staff time. The nonprofit advocates for conservative policies related to civil liberties, smaller government and lower taxes and has ties to the DeVos family, longtime Republican power brokers and donors from West Michigan.