MCFN questions timing behind ads attacking Pete Hoekstra

The Mike Cox gubernatorial campaign and a corporate aggregator of undisclosed political contributions called Americans for Job Security are targeting Cox’s primary opponent Pete Hoekstra in a two-pronged ad campaign that graphically illustrates several deficiencies in Michigan’s campaign finance law.

Data collected by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network from television broadcasters and cable systems show that the Cox campaign is spending $100,270 in the Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo market this week as part of an ad blitz that is playing out across the state, except in Detroit and the Upper Peninsula. Americans for Job Security (AJS), a shadowy nonprofit corporation that aggregates funds from political spenders who seek the anonymity AJS provides them, has spent $136,620. Grand Rapids, Hoekstra’s political base, is the only market in which AJS is advertising.

“The principal issue is, the one sponsored by Americans for Job Security is one of a large class of ads that doesn’t explicitly say, ‘Vote for or against’ a candidate,”  said Rich Robinson, executive director of non-partisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network to MLive.

Because organizations such as AJS do not have to disclose their contributors, the ads are not considered campaign expenditures.