Political leanings: Conservative, Republican
Spending target: "Several million"
Revere America is chaired by former New York Gov. George Pataki, who also functions as its spokesman at news conferences and in its videos. He says it is dedicated to repealing the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — which Pataki refers to as "Obamacare" — and replacing it with a set of Republican-approved proposals.
When Pataki announced formation of the group in April, shortly after passage of the health care law, he said he hoped to raise $15 million to $20 million to run the organization. But by Sept. 8, when he held a news conference to outline plans for running TV spots attacking a dozen unspecified House Democrats who support the law, he would say only that his advertising budget was at least $1 million: "We’ll be spending in the seven figures," he said. Christopher Larson, Revere America’s political director, later told us in a telephone interview that the group hopes to spend "several million" before Election Day. (As of Sept. 29, the group had filed a report with the Federal Election Commission disclosing that it had spent a total of $327,566 for a TV spot attacking Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire, and another report showing an additional $320,107 in opposition to Democratic Rep. John Hall of New York.)
Pataki said Revere America is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization. Pataki said the group is "not a partisan organization. We are a policy organization." As a 501(c)(4), It is legally free to accept corporate donations and is not required to disclose donors. It solicits individual donations online. Larson told us that as of Sept., 29, "We have over 200 individual donors." And while the group doesn’t have a policy prohibiting acceptance of corporate donations, Laron said: "To my knowledge, to this point, we haven’t taken any money from corporations."
The name of the group is a reference to Paul Revere. Pataki says "American freedom is endangered" by the new health care law. He favors retaining some "good" aspects of the law — including requiring insurance companies to cover preexisting medical conditions. But he would replace the law with a standard set of GOP-sponsored options, including allowing companies to buy policies from out-of-state insurers and "getting rid of junk lawsuits."