The North Fund, a liberal dark money group that has contributed millions of dollars to ballot measure campaigns, is facing a campaign finance complaint filed by the former policy director for the Colorado Senate GOP.

The complaint from Charles Heatherly alleges the North Fund should have registered as an issue committee, tied to its spending on 2019 and 2020 ballot measure campaigns.

The North Fund is a relatively new dark money player in Colorado campaigns. It contributed $7.2 million to campaigns either supporting or opposing six ballot measures in 2019 and 2020.

Its biggest contributions – $4.4 million in all – went to support Proposition 118, the 2020 ballot measure voters approved for paid family and medical leave.

The fund also kicked in $1.1 million to combat Proposition 115, which would have restricted abortion access after 22 weeks. Voters in 2020 rejected that measure, 59% to 41%.

In 2019, the North Fund gave the campaign for Proposition CC, the transportation bonding measure, $517,000. Voters rejected it, 53.6% to 43.3%.

A million dollars in all also went to combat Propositions 116 and 117 and to support Proposition 113, which assigned Colorado’s Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote in the race for president. All three measures appeared on the 2020 ballot.

The complaint, filed Dec. 15, notes the Washington, D.C.-based fund is a 501(c4), a nonprofit status that classifies it as a “social welfare” organization. In practical terms, the organization should not spend more than 50% of its funds on political activities.

The North Fund has never registered as an issue committee, the complaint notes. Its “pattern of spending to influence elections in Colorado in 2019 and 2020 demonstrate a major purpose of supporting or opposing ballot measures” means it should have registered as an issue committee in 2019, the complaint argued. 

The fund was incorporated in late 2018, according to the complaint. It was also the target of a campaign finance complaint in Montana, which has some of the strictest rules in the country around campaign finance. In that state, the North Fund spent $48 million in 2020 alone, with nearly $18 million on ballot issues, almost $17 million on “non-ballot issue groups” and $10.3 million on direct spending for “non-ballot measure related activities.”

The Montana complaint, however, was dismissed by the Commissioner of Political Practices in March, with the commission giving “special consideration to the construction of Montana law which requires that ‘the primary purpose’ of the committee is to support or oppose candidates and ballot issues.”

According to Influence Watch, the North Fund provided a letter to the commissioner “including financial disclosures, and claimed, in 2020, 10 percent of its expenditures went to ballot committees in Montana, 30 percent went towards ballot measures in total, and that the remaining amount of its expenditures were unrelated to elections.”

Influence Watch said the North Fund is tied to the Arabella Advisors Network, which manages four nonprofits – the New Venture Fund, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Hopewell Fund, and the Windward Fund – that serve as “incubators and accelerators for a range of other left-of-center nonprofits.” Sixteen Thirty made $17 million in contributions between 2012 and 2021 to Democratic candidates and to oppose or support ballot measures tied to liberal causes, including most of the same ones in 2020 as the North Fund. The New Venture Fund contributed $172,000 between 2016 and 2020, including to the campaign against Prop 113 in 2020. The Hopewell Fund made one contribution of $20,000 in 2018 for a ballot measure that sought to increase the state’s income tax rate but which never made it to the ballot.

The Hopewell Fund also served as the fiscal sponsor of States Newsroom, which operates newsrooms in several states, including Colorado Newsline.

Colorado campaign finance law requires complaints to be filed within 180 days of when the complainant knew or should have known about the spending. The North Fund’s last contribution occurred on Oct. 26, 2020.

Heatherly, however, pointed to a complaint in 2020 against state Senate GOP candidate Suzanne (Staiert) Taheri, which he said set a “flexible standard” for how the 180-day statute of limitations would be applied. In that complaint, Staiert, a former deputy Secretary of State, was accused of failing to file financial disclosure documents required when she became a candidate. She instead filed a 2018 tax return, which does not meet the requirement that a candidate disclose sources of income, assets and liabilities. That filing took place in August, 2019.

The complaint was filed in May, 2020, well after the 180-day time limit, but the Deputy Secretary of State allowed it to move forward based on when the complainant knew or should have known about the filing, which was determined to be in March 2020, instead of the date Staiert filed the tax forms.

In the analysis, however, the Deputy Secretary acknowledged that such a decision “could be interpreted to open the door to complaints that could be filed years after their respective underlying violations. However, as the time between a violation and its resultant complaint increases, the state’s interest in transparency and enforcement decreases – particularly for complaints that are filed after a given violation’s election cycle…”

The Final Agency Order, issued in March, 2021, said Staiert violated state campaign finance laws by failing to file the required financial disclosures. Under the law, she could have been fined as much as $4,800, but the eventual fine was reduced to $850.

Heatherly said he learned of the North Fund’s spending only in December 2021. That’s despite numerous media reports in 2019 and 2020 about the group’s activities.