Several states are working to ban foreign funding of elections after a dark money group poured cash from foreign billionaires into ballot initiatives last year.
As of October, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a nonprofit that has funneled more than $1 billion dollars in dark money to liberal causes, had spent nearly $23 million on state ballot initiatives. The fund is fueled, in large part, by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who has given the group $243 million. Wyss has said he has “never felt the need to become an American” but wants to “(re)interpret the American Constitution in the light of progressive politics.”
That may be easier said than done.
In June, Ohio became the first state to ban both direct and indirect foreign funding of state ballot issues. Since then, at least eight other states have begun trying to ban foreign nationals from funneling cash into American elections….
