The Common Sense Institute (CSI), a conservative research organization, educates the public about “policy debates” without taking sides or supporting candidates or ballot initiatives, according to its website.
If that’s true, then why would CSI accept $40,000 from the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, which describes itself as “at work every day to push back on the progressive policies that have put our state on the wrong track”?
Advance Colorado gave the cash to CSI in 2023 for “general assistance,” according to tax documents.
It’s not known why Advance Colorado gave CSI money for “general” assistance, and neither organization returned a request for comment. CSI did not disclose the grant on its website or in any reports. One possibility is that the money was given to CSI specifically to fund research projects for Advance Colorado related to ballot initiatives and advocacy work that CSI pledges on its website not to take sides on. Even if Advance Colorado gave CSI the funds to support its organization broadly, no strings attached, the money would still have supported research CSI projects buttressing Advance Colorado’s advocacy.
It’s no surprise to those who track Colorado politics that a review of the two organizations’ work in 2023 reveals that CSI produced reports with right-leaning conclusions aligned with the advocacy work of Advance Colorado.
For example, in 2023 Advance Colorado led the charge against Proposition HH, a complicated measure pushed by Democrats, that would have reduced property taxes and shored up some government services by tweaking TABOR refunds.
Providing data for Advance Colorado and other opponents of Proposition HH, CSI produced a report stating that the reduction in TABOR refunds uner Proposition HH was a tax increase to the tune of $5,000 for the average voter over the next decade. This assertion Proposition HH amounted to a tax increase was false, according to proponents of the measure, which was overwhelmingly defeated.
It’s possible that Advance Colorado’s $40,000 gift to CSI in 2023 was a de facto payment for CSI work completed the previous year, in 2022.
In 2022, a similarly obvious dynamic occurred between the two organizations can be seen, with CSI producing reports with conclusions that were used in arguments for the advocacy work of Advance Colorado.
For example, in 2022, Advance Colorado backed Proposition 121, which was passed by voters and lowered the state’s income tax rate, cutting tax revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars.
In August, before the tax measure was voted on, CSI released a report stating that Colorado would not have to reduce government spending for two years if Proposition 121 was passed, and it would save taxpayers $767 million in 2023. Opponents refuted these claims.
Moreover, on its tax forms that same year, CSI acknowledged that it outsourced at least some of its research to the conservative consulting firm, 76 Group, which also ran the petition drive to get 121 on the ballot. The disclosure is required because CSI’s president Kristin Strohm is married to 76 Group owner Josh Penry. Of note, the wife of the firm’s other co-founder, Tim Pollard, works half-time for Advance Colorado.
“CSI also has engaged the firm of the 76 Group to perform various services such as research and lobbying,” states CSI’s 2022 tax form.
CSI, which has affiliates in Arizona, Iowa, Oregon, Indiana, and Utah, did not return an email seeking to the specific “research projects that the 76 Group was involved in.”
The $40,000 grant isn’t the only link between the funds of CSI and Advance Colorado. Advance Colorado receives nearly all of its money from the Colorado Opportunity Foundation (COF). In 2023 COF provided Advance with over $2.6 million of its $3 million budget. COF also gave CSI over $288,000. As a 501c3, COF doesn’t disclose its donors, but it shares a president with Advance Colorado. GOP operative Michael Fields runs both groups. At least one state party leader, Republican Central Committee member Chuck Bonniwell, claims that Colorado billionaire Phil Anschutz is the source of Advance Colorado’s funding.
CSI reports are often cited by other conservative advocy groups, not just Advance Colorado. In 2021, for example, Colorado Concern, a conservative business group, paid CSI $10,000 for a report on the public cost of homelessness, which was then cited by proponents of Initiated Ordinance 303, a conservative homelessness initiative, according to Denver campaign finance records.
CSI’s sharp lean to the right is well established, even if its direct support from Advance Colorado has not been previously revealed. Its former board chair was a major funder of failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl’s conservative news platform, which aims to help Republicans retake control in Colorado. CSI board members have a history of donating mostly to Republicans. CSI founder Earl Wright supported the election denialism of insurrectionist attorney John Eastman, and CSI fellows and “free enterprise” advisors are mostly, but not exclusively, conservative.
