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Washington • With Rep. Jason Chaffetz as their sage, a trio of campaign volunteers launched a national organization closely tied to the tea party that vets and endorses fiscally conservative upstarts seeking to take down incumbents.
But Chaffetz's Democratic challenger alleges the Independence Caucus, better known as iCaucus, has flouted campaign finance law as it rallies thousands of conservatives to the cause.
Karen Hyer filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month charging that iCaucus has shielded the money it has raised by filing late and incomplete disclosure reports.
"Maybe they are doing everything right. I hope they would be, but it doesn't look like they are," said Hyer, a former Republican from Provo. "I have some of the same principles that they also mouth. If they stand for ethical behavior they should be following the law in the most complete way possible."
iCaucus founder Frank Anderson, of Pleasant Grove, isn't worried about the complaint. He says that Hyer is confusing its activity as a nonprofit corporation as something that should be reported under its separate political action committee. Until a recently launched online fundraiser, he said, iCaucus has not raised or spent any money to benefit an individual candidate.
"The gist of their complaint is that we were a political action committee; up until now that just hasn't been the case," he said.
At the request of The Salt Lake Tribune, Paul Ryan at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., took a look at the FEC complaint and iCaucus' online activity.
"It is not unreasonable for the complainant to ask the FEC to look into these issues," he said. "But there is nothing in the complaint that definitively establishes that the law has been broken."
The crux of the issue is how Anderson created iCaucus, and that can get complicated. Ryan said groups like the National Rifle Association or Sierra Club are, as a legal matter, a hodgepodge of separate entities. They are a PAC, but also a nonprofit and a lobbying group.
So iCaucus is a PAC, but it is also a nonprofit that pays taxes, and Anderson claims that its activity prior to September had not triggered federal requirements to disclose how much money it has raised or how it was spent.
That's for the FEC to decide, said Ryan, but what is clear is that iCaucus has failed to file its required disclosure reports on time, even if the report includes a bunch of zeros. iCaucus was more than two months late on the latest report that covers until the end of June.
Anderson takes the blame for that, and promised to be on top of it in the future. The next report is due Oct. 15 and should include money raised for candidates.
"That was just an oversight on my part. There is no intent to hide anything," he said.
As an all-volunteer organization, iCaucus is continuing to find its way.
Anderson, Monte Bateman and Ken Ivory, who met on Chaffetz's 2008 campaign, created the Independence Caucus, mostly based on their frustration with a campaign system in which big corporations donated to incumbent Democrats and Republicans, seeking favors from Washington.
Their goal is to perpetuate what they call the "Jason Chaffetz miracle," his win over Chris Cannon, a well-financed incumbent.
"We need to show other people what we have done and what we have learned," Anderson said.
At that point, they branched off, and while Anderson still volunteers for Chaffetz, the congressman is not associated with their group.
"Jason plays no role in it," Anderson said. "But he taught us everything we needed to know."
Chaffetz said they "have a good message about grass-roots organization, but frankly, I haven't paid too much attention to what they are doing."
Beyond training volunteers, the group has created a 20-page questionnaire for candidates seeking their endorsement — and that's just Step 1. If a candidate answers enough of the detailed budget questions correctly, then the iCaucus group in that state will conduct a recorded two-hour interview. After that the iCaucus members hold a vote. If 70 percent support the candidate, then he or she gets their endorsement.
To pay for its website, travel and other expenses, Anderson has asked its more than 10,000 members to become "delegates" by paying $40, though only a fraction have done so to date.
Initially the plan was for Anderson and iCaucus to funnel candidates to iPoliticom, a for-profit consulting company created by Bateman, but that effort has mostly fizzled. Bateman has left iCaucus to focus exclusively on political consulting. Ken Ivory is running for a state House seat in West Jordan.
iCaucus bills itself as a nonpartisan organization, though it refuses to support any third-party candidates. It has endorsed two Democrats in state races, who lost in primaries. The remaining 92 endorsed candidates spread across 15 states are Republicans and all but three are challengers. The three incumbents are Rep. Duncan Hunter, of California, Sen. Jim DeMint, of South Carolina, and, of course, Chaffetz, who was the only one who skipped the lengthy endorsement process.
While iCaucus sponsored a debate in Utah's Senate race, it didn't endorse Mike Lee until after he won the Republican nomination.
And in the pantheon of Utah's tea party groups, iCaucus is far from the most active. So far, Anderson's group has been much more involved in races in California and Michigan than it has been in Utah. He said that would change as he tries to get his members involved in Morgan Philpot's challenge to Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.
Philpot said he has had conversations with iCaucus members, but isn't sure how involved they will be.
Darcy Van Orden is one of the most active members of Utah's tea party movement and the leader of the Davis County 9/12 Project. She is also a member of iCaucus.
"They fill a unique need and niche in this movement," she said. "I like the idea of the vetting that they offer. In the case of Morgan Philpot, they have endorsed, so I'm excited to see what kind of resources they can offer."
One race they are not active in is Chaffetz's, and Hyer knows it.
"They think Chaffetz is going to win. They are not worried about me at all," she said. But she plans to keep an eye on the activity of a group she claims is attempting to "recast the whole face of the Republican party in Utah."
Independence Caucus
A group formed by three activists working on Rep. Jason Chaffetz's 2008 upset of incumbent Chris Cannon has spread across the country, and now boasts 10,000 members. Close to 100 candidates — just two of them Democrats — have gone through the organization's rigorous vetting to win endorsements.