Federal Election Commission<\/a>\u00a0databases for any mention of or reference to a political group named Inspire America.<\/p>\nNothing.<\/p>\n
Web searches? Equally unfruitful.<\/p>\n
The Center for Public Integrity then contacted the station where the ad aired. An employee referred questions to Marcell Felipe, general counsel for WFUN and WJAN, co-owned Spanish-language stations that had aired Inspire America\u2019s ad.<\/p>\n
Felipe said the ad \u2014 which aired 14 times on WFUN just before the March 15 primary \u2014 was not political, but instead a \u201cpublic service announcement\u201d to encourage voter turnout.<\/p>\n
Therefore, he argued, his station wasn\u2019t required to provide federal regulators with information about the ad or its sponsor, Inspire America.<\/p>\n
But how could this be?<\/p>\n
The ad, after all, featured two \u201clegally qualified candidates\u201d and addresses an \u201cissue of national importance\u201d \u2014 factors the FCC say triggers automatic disclosure.<\/p>\n
The Center for Public Integrity pressed Felipe on this point. It was not until several correspondences later that Felipe revealed what he had withheld to that point: he was the true sponsor of the ad.<\/p>\n
It was Felipe, too, who founded Inspire America \u2014 what he says is a new 501(c)(4) \u201csocial welfare\u201d nonprofit. The group has yet to appear in Internal Revenue Service records, and such nonprofits are not supposed to make politics their primary purpose.<\/p>\n
Felipe appeared nonplussed when informed about disclosure requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are told that we have to disclose it, we\u2019ll disclose it,\u201d said Felipe, who deemed the ad a \u201cget out the vote\u201d ad. He said he would consult with an FCC lawyer about disclosing this particular ad.<\/p>\n
And as general counsel of the very station that ran the ads, Felipe said he convinced WFUN to run the ad at no charge, given the ad\u2019s supposed \u201cpublic service announcement\u201d status.<\/p>\n
Having acknowledged being behind the ad, Felipe explained why he produced it.<\/p>\n
“I believe that immigrants who come to the United States in search of democracy provide valuable contributions to our civic engagement and should be heard, particularly on how to promote democracy throughout the world,\u201d Felipe said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunities like ours that have come to the U.S. looking for democracy need a platform for dialogue on how to shape American policies and American values,\u201d Felipe added.<\/p>\n
WFUN and WJAN, to be sure, played a small, but nevertheless important role ahead of the Florida primary. It broadcasts “Am\u00e9rica TeVe,” which targets Cuban-Americans in South Miami. It also reaches homes in as far as Key Largo, Florida, about 70 miles south of central Miami.<\/p>\n
Rubio, himself a Cuban-American from Miami, had much to gain from a high Cuban-American turnout.<\/p>\n
But while Rubio won 62 percent of the Cuban-American vote in Tuesday\u2019s Florida primary, he ultimately lost the Florida contest and dropped out of the presidential race after a crushing second place finish behind Trump.<\/p>\n
Felipe is both a supporter of Rubio and the Republican Party: Federal records show he donated $2,700 to Rubio\u2019s presidential campaign and has previously contributed to U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, a lobbying organization that itself has donated more than $250,000 to Republican lawmakers and $51,000 to Democratic lawmakers during the 2016 election cycle.<\/p>\n
Why should knowing an ad\u2019s sponsor matter to voters?<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowing the messenger of an ad is important in evaluating the ad\u2019s message,\u201d said Meredith McGehee, policy director at Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan campaign reform group. \u201cIf ads are running and the station isn\u2019t disclosing, it creates a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the\u00a0Center for Public Integrity<\/a>\u2019s inquiry, Felipe and WFUN did eventually file details of the ad buy<\/a> with federal regulators.<\/p>\nBut the filing came one day after Floridians cast their votes, and by then, presidential candidates had packed their bags, leaving Florida to campaign in other states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s how the Center for Public Integrity revealed the source behind a mysterious attack ad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[708,705,226,116],"class_list":["post-137486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-money-in-politics","tag-presidential-race","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Inspire](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/FloridaAd-336x189.jpg\")
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