NC Democrat got big bucks from groups backing Iran deal, opposing trade pact | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Two political organizations that back the controversial, multi-nation deal aimed at stalling Iran from building nuclear weapons have channeled nearly $90,000 in campaign donations to Deborah Ross, the North Carolina Democratic candidate bidding for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Ross has voiced support for the accord that Republicans – including two-term Sen. Richard Burr, her opponent in the Nov. 8 general election – assail in dire terms.

Ross’ campaign also has received at least $101,500 from labor unions that have registered opposition or deep concerns about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade agreement between the United States and nearly a dozen Asian nations that needs congressional approval – a deal Ross also has criticized. Ross opposes the deal, saying it fails to protect American workers.

Financial support from those interests, as well as organizations that support abortion rights and environmental networks, underscore the stark differences between the sources of Ross’ campaign cash and those behind Burr. He has drawn much of his bankroll from four- and five-figure donations by the executives and political action committees of businesses big and small – from coal mining companies to pharmaceutical firms and health insurers – but he also has gotten financial support from gun rights advocates and other ideologically conservative PACs.

Despite lacking notable concentrations of money from corporate interests, Ross managed to amass nearly $8.5 million in donations through Sept. 30, compared with the $11.46 million that Burr raised over nearly six years from Jan. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2016.

Ross’ campaign has shown how PACs motivated by ideology or social issues can galvanize donor networks and drive sizable amounts of cash to candidates who start from scratch against well-heeled incumbent senators.

Through Sept. 30, EMILY’S List, a women’s abortion rights network, generated $358,984 in donations to the former state legislator’s campaign.

Another $92,761 came from contributors cultivated by the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, which has branded Burr a member of its “Dirty Dozen” members of Congress, calling him a global warming denier who disagrees with climate scientists over humans’ role in the warming climate. A spokeswoman for Burr recently told McClatchy that he believes humans have caused “some changes” in the climate.

Of course, disclosure of Ross’ receipt of money from such groups could affect voters in either direction.

While Ross faced a daunting challenge in taking on an incumbent who has been in Congress since 1995, Duke University political science professor David Rohde said she had been lucky on several counts.

First, money from outside the state is flowing to hers because of the national importance of the race, Rohde said in a phone interview.

“Everybody recognizes that this could be the seat that decides control of the Senate, which has huge implications for business and labor groups and ideological groups,” he said. “Think about how important control of the Supreme Court is to a lot of the ideological groups.”

The outcome could determine how much influence each party has in the process of confirming a Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year and left the court ideologically deadlocked 4-4 on many issues.

However, if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wins the White House and Democrats seize control of the Senate, the current Republican majority could make that a moot point. Senate Republicans could vote to confirm President Barack Obama’s nominee, federal appeals court Judge Merrick Garland, during a lame-duck session to pre-empt Clinton from nominating a more liberal successor.

Ross also is fortunate because Burr “is one who is not very visible in his state, not very well known despite his long service, who tends to his knitting in Washington,” Rohde said. “He and what he does is not readily apparent to the electorate. That made him a lot more vulnerable than anybody expected him to be.”

Both campaigns have received well over half of their large donations – those of at least $200 – from outside North Carolina.

Beyond that, their fundraising patterns differ sharply.

Through Sept. 30, Ross had collected 16.4 percent of her money from small donors, while Burr got just 3.6 percent of his cash from small donors.

Ross received $512,000, or 6.2 percent of her funds, from political action committees, or PACs, through Sept. 30, most representing interests such as labor unions or groups seeking to influence federal policy on issues ranging from climate change to women’s health care.

In contrast, $3.1 million, or 33.8 percent of Burr’s total receipts, have come from PACs, mainly corporate PACs.

Ross has received few clusters of cash tied to particular companies, while Burr has collected nearly $89,000 from tobacco giant Reynolds American Inc., which is based in his hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He’s received tens of thousands of dollars each from PACs for energy, pharmaceutical, insurance and banking companies and their lobbyists.

“Just like her record, Deborah’s campaign is rooted in people,” Ross campaign spokeswoman Helen Hare said in a statement to McClatchy about the donations. “That’s why individuals from every county in North Carolina have given to our campaign and why 90 percent of our contributors gave less than $100.”

The tight race has provided enough incentive for two political action committees that support the Iran deal – committees formed by the liberal Jewish group JStreet and the anti-nuclear Council for a Livable World – to beckon their networks of political donors to send checks to Ross’ campaign.

JStreet, which has taken credit for $53,898 in donations to Ross, seeks to rally support for political candidates who back Israel but want to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the creation of a Palestinian state.

On its website, the group says last year’s agreement allowing international monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program “has verifiably blocked each of that country’s pathways to a nuclear weapon.” The group also said it supported “efforts to counteract the Iranian regime’s vile anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric, its outrageous support for acts of international terrorism” and its meddling in its neighbors’ affairs.

The Council for a Livable World, whose research arm is the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, has rounded up $35,790 in donations to Ross. The council, which also supports the Iran deal, has sought to assist congressional candidates who want to curb the spread of nuclear weapons since 1962, the same year the world faced its biggest threat of a nuclear war when the United States discovered Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.

Both Ross and Burr have voiced opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership in a year in which Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s harsh criticism of the effects of foreign trade deals on U.S. jobs has brought the proposed Asia deal to the forefront of political debates across the country.

Burr has called it “a bad deal for America and especially for North Carolina.” Ross hasn’t made the free trade agreement – which Obama backs – a major focus of her campaign, but she emphasizes that Burr voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in the early 1990s and for the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005. Both deals have become magnets for attacks on the grounds they have cost huge job losses, brought a flood of cheap imports into the country and prompted U.S. firms to move manufacturing abroad where labor costs are a fraction as high.

Ross has gotten donations of the maximum $10,000 each from unions for ironworkers, autoworkers, machinists and electrical workers, among a long list of unions that oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

As the head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s North Carolina’s chapter before winning a seat in the state House in 2004, Ross comported to the organization’s policies opposing limits on state and federal campaign spending on First Amendment grounds.

Since leaving the organization, and while now playing in the field of big money politics, Ross has become increasingly vocal in calling for action to overturn a 2010 Supreme Court ruling in a case known as Citizens United that allowed corporations and unions to make secret, independent expenditures to influence elections, with no limits on the size of donations. The ruling has uncorked a gusher of so-called “dark money” donations to outside groups.

As if to solidify Ross’ position, her donors include a PAC named End Citizens United, which sent $9,500.