On May 22, in a small ballroom at a Marriott hotel in downtown Grand Rapids, Tudor Dixon attended one of the most important events of her primary campaign.
She made freewheeling speech in front of a small audience and a film crew. That footage became the basis for political ads that the event’s super PAC host, Michigan Families United, would spend more than $2.5 million to air before the primary, according to ad tracking totals provided by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.
The super PAC spent more than Dixon’s campaign raised in total and more than 20 times what her campaign spent on advertising, but who’s behind Michigan Families United remains shrouded in secrecy. Three prominent speakers at the policy forum said in interviews they know nothing about the organization.
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A spokesperson for Dixon’s campaign, Kyle Olson, declined to comment when asked about the forum or who invited Dixon.
“Questions on MFU events should be directed to MFU,” he said in a statement. Michigan Families United didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
While campaigns have restrictions on who can donate to them and how much they give, super PACs have neither, making them particularly powerful for efforts backed by a small number of deep-pocketed donors. Those donors are often hidden as dark money, but the supporters of Michigan Families United have been disclosed. West Michigan’s billionaire DeVos family gave $1 million from, along with about 30 donations from a who’s who of major conservative donors in state and federal politics.
Still, the actual individuals behind Michigan Families United appear to be intentionally hidden. The PAC’s contact person in Michigan is Judith Sallador, an artist from Detroit with no political experience who ran to be a Republican party precinct delegate in the August primary. The PAC’s treasurer is an out-of-state firm, the Crosby Ottenhoff Group, which has consulted for numerous nationally prominent Republican PACs. Neither returned repeated requests for an interview.
Jimmy Greene, the president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan, acted as emcee at the event and introduced Dixon. He said Michigan Families United’s organization are a mystery to him, too.
“I wish I did know,” he said. “I really, truly don’t know who is behind the mask.”
At Dixon’s election night party Aug. 2, Greene had said Dixon and Olson had asked him to speak at the Michigan Families United event. In a subsequent interview, Greene said he didn’t remember if that was the case, but couldn’t recall who else might’ve invited him.
Greene said he recognized no one at the event other than Dixon, her staff, and the legislators he had invited, indicating the event had been centered around getting footage of Dixon.
“There wasn’t anybody there who seemed like they were in control of anything other than the camera crew, who basically directed everything,” he said. “You know, ‘you go here, you go there, you do that, you step up here’ — they were orchestrating the entire event.”
Campaign finance disclosures show Michigan Families United paid a firm called Event Strategies, Inc. nearly $19,000 about a month after the forum. Footage from the day shows Dixon speaking at a podium, striking poses with her husband and four children on stage and later being interviewed alone in what appears to be a hotel room. Greene said Dixon and her family were there before, during and after the event.
Michigan campaign finance law and its federal counterpart both bar campaigns from directly working with the purportedly independent groups that support them. The rules on this, however, are squishy and political operatives have become practiced in toeing the line.
Steve Liedel, an attorney with expertise in Michigan campaign finance law with clients including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s campaign, said having a campaign helping to organize an event for a super PAC that later supports the candidate could be problematic, but it all depends.
“If you’ve got some indication that you know the campaign was involved in inviting people or doing anything at that event, or promoting the event, etc., then there’s an apparent issue and coordination,” he said. “Something folks can get sloppy.”
It still may not be against the rules, Liedel said, because what is considered improper coordination with a super PAC isn’t particularly clear in Michigan.
“It’s not defined really at all” in Michigan, Liedel said, noting advisers will often turn to federal rules in those instances.
Kenneth Gross, a former top attorney for the Federal Election Commission, said things aren’t much better defined in Washington, DC, but didn’t think Greene’s invitation from the campaign alone would be improper, though “It seems to me that if you’re going to assert independence, those are the kinds of things that you would try to avoid.”
“It’s just a very tough issue and it’s a very fact-sensitive determination. So it’s very hard to make coordination cases,” Gross said. “They’re among the most difficult cases to look into, under the best of circumstances.”
Other speakers at the event had strikingly little knowledge of how they wound up there.
State Sen. Roger Victory, R-Georgetown Twp., claimed the event had been placed on his schedule by legislative staff and didn’t know who had invited him. He said he had been unaware of Michigtan Families United or its purpose.
“Anytime I can gather a fellow folks and highlight what we’re doing, I never a little turned down an opportunity for that,” Victory said. “It was really informal. There was no real set agenda.”
Rep. Luke Meerman, R-Coopersville, also spoke at the event and said he was instructed to speak about “the state of the family and what that means for Michigan itself,” but not by whom.
“For me, it was just a way to show support for Tudor Dixon and introduce a few other people to her as well,” he said.
Meerman had named another nonprofit as the origin of his invitation. A director of the organization denied any knowledge of the organization or the event. Greene later readily admitted he had invited Victory, Meerman and another legislator.
Greene hadn’t been aware the PAC’s origins were obscured. He said it surprised him.
“Who would hide that?” he said. “Attack ads, for example, I can see why people hide behind that, but this is a really good message. It’s out there about family values. I mean, they’re her core beliefs. I don’t know why you want to hide them.”
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