Internal Debate Within the VFW brings the relationship of their Veterans’ advocacy group and  Political Action Committee under scrutiny.

by Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, GS-14, U.S. Civil Service-Retired, Veterans Issues Editor, VT News Network

While catching up on my emails this morning, I was led to two articles posted on Congress.org about disunity within the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) that pit their national leadership against grassroots members of the VFW.

A closer examination of this internal debate within one Veterans Service Organization should shine a light on the difference between being a VSO and a partisan political organization that should bring their non-profit charter into question and scrutiny.

Grassroots base revolts against VFW PAC’s candidate picks

Ambreen Ali reported in the Veterans Issues section of Congress.org that “the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) took an unusual step this week after its grassroots base revolted. The advocacy group of 1.2 million has asked its political action committee, which operates independently, to rescind all candidate endorsements for this election cycle.

The reason is that VFW has received a flood of angry calls from its members over the PAC’s endorsement of two Democratic incumbents – Sen. Barbara Boxer over Republican Carly Fiorina in California and Rep. Ron Klein over Republican and war veteran Allen West in Florida.

“The angry tone and tenor of the telephone calls and messages being received at national headquarters [made] it clear that many of our members are not cognizant of the fact that VFW National By-Laws clearly stipulate that the VFW Commander-in-Chief is not authorized to direct or otherwise attempt to introduce his control over the VFW PAC,” VFW leaders wrote in a statement.

VFW Leaders Act on PAC Endorsements

Still, they insisted that the VFW PAC take back its endorsements, saying that “our recent endorsement process unintentionally provided favoritism to the incumbents.”
What the members do recognize is that candidates [most who never served or intended to serve in uniform] flaunt the VFW endorsement as a badge of support from the veteran grassroots base. In this case, it’s clear that many in that base don’t agree with the endorsements made in their group’s name.

Congress.org will keep an eye on whether this outcry leads to any changes in how independently VFW’s PAC operates. However, we at VT feel that Congress.org needs to keep and eye on just how combining a partisan political PAC into a Veterans group chartered by Congress should impact their non-profit status.

In her second article on this, she notes that since VFW PAC endorsements have riled the rank and file membership, VFW may move to dissolve its political arm. Disunity within the VFW is fueling a long-standing debate of the legitimate place of political action committees within any non-profit, but especially those chartered by Congress with sort of a seal of approval to exists as speaking for all VFW members.

The debate within the VFW opens a legitimate question and concern for all America’s Veterans, especially those not represented by the VFW.   Should grassroots members have a say in political endorsements made in their group’s name?

A dispute over that question could end in the Veterans of Foreign Wars dissolving the political action committee its members created more than three decades ago.

The debate is between VFW Washington insiders—who seek to increase their leverage on Capitol Hill—and grassroots veteran members the PAC said are swept up in a national anti-establishment [anti-incumbent] tide.

“I think the nation is upset with Congress period,” Jerry Newberry, a PAC spokesman, said. Some VFW members are especially upset at the PAC’s endorsement of two Democratic incumbents.

“VFW’s values and guiding principles aren’t grounded in a desire to participate in partisan policies in political activities,” VFW leaders wrote in a letter to the PAC. “However, our recent endorsement process unintentionally provided favoritism to the incumbents.”

That is VFW double talk for the VFW leadership doesn’t want to play partisan politics but would prefer to favor candidates who are not incumbents as long as they are not liberals. VT Commentary

If the PAC favors incumbents, it is because the group has tried to use its endorsements to develop mutually beneficial relationships with politicians.

Veterans Today feels that along with the American Legion, the VFW leadership, if not rank and file, has tended to favor conservative politicians (meaning Republicans) at least since Vietnam. However, we see the logic in the VFW PAC endorsing or contributing to candidates of both political parties is an attempt at a win-win solution for the VFW or sort of a political balancing act. Any organization that lobbies Congress benefits from having friends on both sides of the isle. How much this internal debate is over VFW PAC failure to endorse third party (Tea Bag or Constitutional Party) remains to be seen. However, it is unlikely that such conservative leaning VSOs are going to support anyone at the center or left of center politically.

“The VFW-PAC will not abandon those in Congress that have supported issues of critical importance to our nation’s security and veterans,” the PAC stated last week. Heads of other advocacy groups say that such a strategy is integral to running an effective PAC.

The VFW-PAC states its goal as supporting “candidates who share our views about key veterans’ military and defense issues.” It has backed both Republicans and Democrats this cycle.

VT knows that the VFW in all fairness has backed both Republicans and Democrats most every cycle despite what the rank and file who DO NOT contribute to the PAC thinks about it.

Those candidates [again most who never served nor desired to serve their country except as politicians] wear their VFW endorsement [heck any politically correct Veterans Service Organization endorsement] as a badge of honor.
Boxer has touted it as proof that she fights hard for veterans. VFW-PAC leaders know that by giving her that honor during elections, they can leverage her support on future policy issues.

That calculus may be common in D.C., but it differs greatly from how the grassroots members see the situation. Many veterans said they were upset that the group is backing establishment lawmakers.

“By weighting selections towards sitting members of Congress, you are encouraging complacency and taking discourse out of the electoral process,” Pete Nicholsen, Florida VFW state commander, wrote to the PAC. The letter called on Floridians to disregard VFW’s endorsements and “vote their own conscience.”

VT knows that political ideology and culture of a local level Post or Chapter combined with a little common sense and reality dictates that rank and file members of VSOs are going to do just that and have been doing just that “vote their own conscience” for decades. Given the independence of Veteran related PACs and thus far they are very few in number, the rank and file will vote their own conscience anyway. However, what some leaders at local or state level desire is for VFW national to endorse the same political party they do even if it is a third party.

PACs are independent groups that raise money to support political candidates. Advocacy organizations, many of which are tax-exempt, are usually not allowed to play such a direct role in political elections that is unless they can do an end run around election laws. Groups such as the VFW have gotten around that legal limitation by creating PACs that go by the same name but are subject to different disclosure and tax rules.

This may be a mistake given the proliferation of ‘real’ Veteran oriented PACs since 911 with first the Democrats courting young Iraq and Afghanistan Vets and then the Republicans or Conservative ideologies. Case is point is given below. Note that not one of these groups shares a name with any VSO chartered by Congress. That may be intentional, especially given the anti-incumbent sentiment of the America electorate. What sets then apart including VoteVets is that these PACs do not share the name of the parent organizations they may be associated with.

Prominent groups that have PACs include only one other Veteran oriented PAC and that is VoteVets.org loosely related to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) but retaining independence from the overall advocacy group and like the VFW PAC has separate accountability, disclosure, and tax rules compared to the non-profit advocacy group. When the fine line between being a non-profit advocacy group and a political oriented action committee is dimmed it could very well bring the illegal aspects of being a non-profit into question. In such cases, the easy way out rather than have their Congressional charters questioned is to disband the PAC.

These organizations spend millions of dollars influencing elections and backing candidates who can serve as valuable allies once in office. It can be an important tool for advocacy groups trying to create change.

Whether their grassroots weigh in on the endorsements varies greatly.

Some treat the affiliated PAC as a completely separate entity and take no input. That’s the camp that VFW which promotes the status quo and VoteVets.org, which promotes primarily veterans running for office, fall in.

Other non-Veteran oriented advocacy groups view their PAC as an extension of their membership and take an internal vote every election cycle to select their endorsements. The VFW or IAVA cannot blatantly take a rank and file vote to determine political endorsements for it would go against their non-profit charter and affiliation.

That makes it easy for the group to defend its endorsements when members disagree with them. Most liberal oriented PACs normally have backed mostly Democrats but are backing at least two Republicans this year.

“Sometimes there are internal disagreements,” David Willett, spokesman for the Sierra Club, said. “In general, the Sierra Club is one organization. The votes represent the final opinion.”

Case for independent PACs

VoteVets.org, which structures itself similarly to the VFW PAC, has a different take. The group occasionally consults its 100,000-person e-mai list about elections, but the PAC leadership makes the final call on endorsements.

Jon Soltz, the group’s chairman, has been following the VFW debate closely and said the membership uproar is right-wing fueled issue.

We at VT couldn’t agree with Jon more. He noted that VFW has endorsed incumbents and non-veterans over veterans before.

“They [VFW grassroots] are making an uproar of something that’s clearly partisan in nature,” he said.  Soltz said that is exactly why there should be some separation between members and who decides the endorsements. PACs should have the room to make strategic decisions about who they back, he argued.  “We vote for who is going to win and who is good on the issues,” he said.

The VoteVets.org PAC leadership picked 10 veterans to endorse for office this year, including one Republican.
“We are not going to give $10,000 to a candidate that can’t raise any money,” he added. “If you do, you’re spending your members’ money in places that don’t matter.”  VFW Commander-in-Chief Richard Eubank largely shut down its PAC operations last week, leaving one staff member on payroll.

He intends to take a vote at the group’s August convention on whether to dissolve the committee altogether.
“I cannot let this erosion of public support for our great organization continue,” he said to explain the decision.
On the other hand, dissolving the PAC could erode the group’s influence on Capitol Hill as well.

We at VT believe that the VFW should dissolve its PAC rather than have its non-profit charter scrutinized by Congress and legitimately so.  That said we also realize that the need for political candidates to give the appearance that they have the support of VETERANS has proliferated since 911 and most likely will remain so as long as we have troops serving in the wars against terrorism.

Not meaning to pick on any one set of candidates because he/she IS NOT the only candidate raking up ENDORSEMENTS from so-called Veterans groups none of which is in the same ballpark with VFW or VoteVets nor do they have smoke screen ties to any Congressionally chartered VSOs.

However, a conservative Congressional candidate in California Marine Nick Popaditch, running against current House Veterans Affairs Chairman Bob Filner, has raked up a score of right-wing Veteran Oriented Political Action Committees that have come out of the woodwork to endorse conservative candidates.

We see this as a conservative challenge to more moderate VETERAN PACs like VoteVets that tend to lean moderately Democrat, if not liberal.

ENDORSEMENT LIST

The list of endorsements raked up by Popaditch and a few other California candidates who are billed as fiscally conservative (or Republicans, Tea Bag, or Constitutional Party) are:

Combat Veterans For Congress

The above listing shows Combat Veterans for Congress endorsements by state. However, this PAC makes it very clear that they are a PAC and that contribution are not tax free charitable deductions.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans For Congress

This Veteran PAC makes it clear that they are solely partisan supporters of Republican candidates for Congress who happen to be Iraq and Afghanistan Vets plus a few thrown in from other wartime eras for good measure. They also note that contributions are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Federal law requires us to obtain and report the name, mailing address, occupation and name of employer for each individual whose contributions aggregate in excess of $200 per calendar year. Contributions by corporations, foreign nationals (non-green card holders), labor unions, federal government contractors, and minors under the age of 16 are prohibited.

By law, the maximum amount an individual may contribute is $5,000 ($10,000 per couple) per calendar year. PACs may also contribute $5,000 per calendar year.

Warriors for Congress

Right here in my own backyard – OHIO, we have a newly established conservative veteran’s PAC called Ohio Veterans United that has no apparent affiliation with any of the established Veterans Service Organization chartered by Congress. Ohio Veterans United does not require candidates to be veterans at all, but they must share the same NEOCON values as the PAC. They have endorse the Republican candidate for Governor.

Though I do not support their Republican or ultra-conservative views at least I respect that for being clear about what they are and not appearing as the VFW PAC, Legion PAC, VVA PAC, IAVA PAC, or what have you that’s politically correct and chartered by Congress. The point is that none of these PACs have direct or indirect ties to Veterans Service Organizations chartered by Congress.

If the VFW or any other VSO chartered by Congress wants to go the conservative direction as the several mentioned above then we at VT strongly suggest that the VFW rank and file membership vote to terminate the VFW PAC and reestablish a PAC similar to the ones above that does not share the VFW, American Legion, or Vietnam Veterans of America name in its logo.

Robert L. Hanafin

Readers are more than welcome to use the articles I’ve posted on Veterans Today, I’ve had to take a break from VT as Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor and staff writer due to personal medical reasons in our military family that take away too much time needed to properly express future stories or respond to readers in a timely manner.

My association with VT since its founding in 2004 has been a very rewarding experience for me.

Retired from both the Air Force and Civil Service. Went in the regular Army at 17 during Vietnam (1968), stayed in the Army Reserve to complete my eight year commitment in 1976. Served in Air Defense Artillery, and a Mechanized Infantry Division (4MID) at Fort Carson, Co. Used the GI Bill to go to college, worked full time at the VA, and non-scholarship Air Force 2-Year ROTC program for prior service military. Commissioned in the Air Force in 1977. Served as a Military Intelligence Officer from 1977 to 1994. Upon retirement I entered retail drugstore management training with Safeway Drugs Stores in California. Retail Sales Management was not my cup of tea, so I applied my former U.S. Civil Service status with the VA to get my foot in the door at the Justice Department, and later Department of the Navy retiring with disability from the Civil Service in 2000.

I’ve been with Veterans Today since the site originated. I’m now on the Editorial Board. I was also on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder another progressive leaning Veterans and Military Family news clearing house.

I remain married for over 45 years. I am both a Vietnam Era and Gulf War Veteran. I served on Okinawa and Fort Carson, Colorado during Vietnam and in the Office of the Air Force Inspector General at Norton AFB, CA during Desert Storm. I retired from the Air Force in 1994 having worked on the Air Staff and Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon.