President Joe Biden comments on the April job report from the East Room of the White House in Washington, USA, on May 7, 2021.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
A group funded by anonymous donors is launching a powerful campaign this week that will put pressure on moderate lawmakers to pass key pieces of President Joe Biden’s agenda.
WorkMoney, a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit that was launched last year at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, is driving a $ 2 million new effort to promote digital ads on both Facebook and also include on google. The campaign will also include the group’s nearly 2 million members talking to over a dozen lawmakers via email and other means about the need to get Biden’s infrastructure and family plans through Congress.
The nonprofit is known as a dark money group because it does not publicly disclose its donors. Founder CJ Grimes told CNBC in an email Monday that the group has raised over $ 20 million since its inception. Facebook’s ad archive shows the group has already spent over $ 5 million on ads ahead of this new campaign.
In a telephone interview, Grimes told CNBC that the group was looking for organizers to help build town halls and reach out to Congressmen in the House and Senate. Grimes later emailed the group’s destination list to which Sens. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Pat Toomey, R-Pa. And Shelley Moore Capito, RW belong. Va.
The organization believes that the support of many of these senators will be critical in getting at least some elements of Biden’s agenda passed.
“WorkMoney members speak to moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats because they are the ones who are most likely to shape the legislation that will ultimately pass,” Grimes said. “Those moderates on both sides of the aisle are the politicians who need to hear most from their voters.”
One of the new digital ads already running on WorkMoney’s Facebook page is asking people to sign a petition to urge Congress to pass Biden’s infrastructure proposal. “It’s time to end the partisan games and invest in real American jobs. Tell your congressman, pass the American job plan,” read the website after clicking the Facebook ad.
Biden has proposed a $ 2 trillion infrastructure package, which the president said should be paid for by raising corporate and highest individual tax rates. Biden’s $ 1.8 trillion family plan includes billing billions of federal funds for quality childcare and the creation of a national comprehensive paid family and sick leave program.
Some of the lawmakers who will be under pressure from WorkMoney have already contacted Biden and appear to be on their way to compromising with the administration. Moore Capito, Toomey, and other Republican senators recently met with Biden to discuss infrastructure reform.
“We had another positive and substantive discussion about how we can tackle our country’s infrastructure challenges in a non-partisan way,” said Moore Capito in a statement after the meeting. “We listened to each other and I felt that the president is receptive to our ideas and points of view.”
Moore Capito and other Senate Republicans have proposed their own infrastructure framework that would cost over $ 565 billion and insist that tax increases are not an option they are considering paying for them. A revised Republican proposal could be available on Tuesday. Senate Minority Chairman Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Said he believes an infrastructure package should cost no more than $ 800 billion.
Manchin, a moderate Democrat, has said he is ready to agree on an infrastructure package that will increase the enterprise rate from 21% to around 25%.
Biden needed 10 Republican votes to pass a bipartisan bill through the Senate.
