With Insurance Policy Comes Membership (Cons inflate grassroots #s)

[Rose Siding]

Unbeknown to Some, Those Signing Up With Firm Are Joining Conservative Group
...
"Before I showed you this form today, did you even realize that you signed a form that was an application for membership in Citizens for a Sound Economy?" her lawyer would ask during a 2004 deposition.

"I don't know what Citizens for a Sound Economy is," she replied.

Chace's experience has brought to light an obscure arrangement between a prominent Republican businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, and a free-market interest group that has netted the grass-roots organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of new members. Citizens for a Sound Economy -- now called FreedomWorks and headed by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) -- has netted more than $638,000 and about 16,000 members through the sale of insurance policies.....

Critics see the effort as a way for political groups to inflate their membership rosters -- and their bottom lines -- by taking dues from people with no interest in the groups' politics......

Documents produced through the suit against Rooney's company show how FreedomWorks, a political group that made its name fighting for a flat income tax and questioning global warming, has joined the insurance business.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200683.html

[daleo]

1. This strikes me as fraud. n/t

[w4rma]

2. Republicans are definitely the master of the scam. (nt)

[napi21]

3. Is this the Rooney family from Pgh?

You know, the ones who own the Pgh. Steelers?