“When they mentioned that this was a terrorist organization, I said ‘Well then, count me as a mom for liberty because that’s what I am,'” Nikki Haley told the crowd Friday morning, after the Southern Poverty Law Center labeled her hosts as an anti-government extremist group this month.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
In early June, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-leaning civil rights watchdog that sued DeSantis over flying dozens of migrants across the country, labeled Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist group.” A Moms for Liberty chapter in Indiana apologized later in the month after quoting Hitler in a newsletter.
This week, the American Historical Association urged Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution to cancel a Moms for Liberty gathering, saying the group “has crossed a boundary in its attempts to silence and harass teachers, rather than participate in legitimate controversy.”
Moms for Liberty’s opponents say the group’s reach is limited and enables liberals to campaign against book bans, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and education’s newly divisive politics during low-turnout school board elections the organization brought to new prominence in 2022 and early this year.
“Moms for Liberty is more of a ‘grass tops’ organization in terms of being a highly-funded vocal minority of moms in America. The majority of moms, and people, in America, do not support book bans, exclusion and hate,” said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director of the progressive MomsRising advocacy group, in an interview. “It’s not okay to use our schoolchildren and our schools and our families as political footballs,” she said.
A new “Save Our School Boards” initiative from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is also intended to serve as a liberal attempt to create a national school board slate.
“Our targets are largely battleground states,” the PCCC’s director of candidate services, Hannah Riddle, told POLITICO. “In 2023, Pennsylvania is going to be a huge focus for us,” she added. “These issues are going to drive people to the polls.”
Moms’ big cash flow
Moms for Liberty’s growth dovetailed with a rise in combative school board meetings during the pandemic.
In September 2021, the National School Boards Association asked President Joe Biden to have federal agencies stop “threats and acts of violence” on school officials during meetings consumed by public protests against mask mandates, critical race theory, and transgender student policies.
Attorney General Merrick Garland then ordered federal law enforcement authorities to huddle with local leaders to address what the nation’s top prosecutor called a “disturbing spike” in intimidation and violent threats against educators and board members. Two weeks after Garland’s directive, Moms for Liberty registered a trio of political action committees with the Federal Elections Commission.
When it comes to money, Moms for Liberty’s national hub uses a tax structure that lets it operate without publicly disclosing donors. But the group’s conference sponsorships, state campaign finance disclosures, available tax records and filings from other nonprofits offer some hints about its supporters and revenue.
In 2021, according to tax records signed by Descovich, Moms for Liberty reported collecting $370,029 in total revenue. More than $250,000 of that money came from contributions and grants.
The organization also has a political action committee in Florida whose roughly $50,000 in contributions last year were almost entirely funded by a grocery store heiress linked to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Moms for Liberty’s three national political action committees have so far reported few expenditures and contributions, according to the latest available federal records.
Event sponsorships are another fundraising channel. Major sponsors of this week’s convening include the conservative Heritage Foundation, the Leadership Institute and Patriot Mobile, a Texas-based conservative wireless service provider.
The American Principles Project and Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence’s nonprofit, Advancing American Freedom, are also listed as lower-tier supporters, though Pence did not attend the event. Sponsorship packages for this year’s event are priced between $1,000 and $100,000.
Descovich and Justice declined to answer questions about the amount of cash on hand currently available to its political action committees, and said the organization would comply with all reporting requirements set out in the law and had nothing else to add beyond what was available in public reports.
“We believe that our country is in trouble,” Justice said. “We will do everything we can to be involved in order to protect and safeguard the future of America for our kids.”
Jessica Piper, Andrew Atterbury and Andrew Zhang contributed to this report.