Photo illustration by Steve Wilson

NEW VENTURE: The left-leaning New Venture dumped a lot of cash into the fight over a school funding initiative.

Eric Kessler

In the days leading up to the Nov. 3 election, the left-leaning New Venture Fund poured millions into the campaign for Initiative 42, the failed measure to give state  judges power over education spending and other school issues.

Records reviewed by Mississippi Watchdog show the pro-42 political action committee 42 for Better Schools received nearly $6 million this year, mainly from the New Venture, a Washington, D.C.-based group that says it supports a broad range of left-of-center public policies, including “family planning, alternative energy sources and the reduction of fossil fuels and the support of the Common Core Initiative.” The fund’s board of directors president is Eric Kessler, a special assistant in the Clinton administration.

The pro-42 group received two contributions, one for more than $2.1 million and the other for $427,500 on Oct. 1. On Oct. 23, the New Venture Fund gave more than $1.4 million and added more than $148,000 on Oct. 29, just four days before Election Day. Last year, the New Venture Fund gave 42 for Better Schools $864,500.

Despite a constant barrage of campaign ads on TV, the measure was defeated by more than 27,000 votes, as 52 percent of voters cast ballots against amending the state’s constitution.

Millsaps College political science professor Nathan Shrader told Mississippi Watchdog 42’s performance was in no small part due to financing. The original initiative defeated the legislative alternative, 42-A, handily by an 18-point margin.

“I don’t believe they could’ve achieved numbers of that nature if it wasn’t for the expenditures that they made,” Shrader said. “I would speculate that if they wouldn’t have had that financial support, I doubt they would’ve gotten the approval number up to 48 percent or carried the second vote 59 to 41. Spending the money moved them up to an area where they were quite competitive in the end.”

RELATED: Outside cash floods fight over education funding ballot initiative

With the outside cash, 42 proponents handily outraised their foes. The largest anti-42 political action committee, Improve Mississippi, raised more than $1 million this year so far. Pro-school choice political action committee Empower Mississippi, which also opposed 42, raised more than $471,000. KidsFirst Mississippi raised slightly more than $123,000.

The New Venture Fund was one of two outside donors giving heavily to pro-42 forces. The Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation also contributed $480,000 this year and $480,000 last year. The Southern Education Foundation says on its website it “believes that economic and social progress in the region are inextricably linked to halting the disinvestment in public education” and is strongly against vouchers and tax credit scholarships. One of its trustees is former Mississippi secretary of state and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dick Molpus.

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