LAST WEEK, Metro named South Bay Labor Council insider Phil Bump as the character assassin orchestrating San Jose Revealed, a blog that has spent more than two years anonymously smearing SBLC's critics.

The paid political operative failed to return phone calls or categorically deny the reports. He did, however, offer several alibis on his personal blog to suggest that there had to be, at minimum, co-conspirators.

"From June 17th to 23rd of 2008, the blog they say I run posted eight times. What was I doing during this period? I was on my honeymoon," Bump wrote on July 24. "In fact, I was bopping around upstate New York in an RV with no internet access. Then, there's January of this year, when I was in Switzerland and France, sledding and what-not."

Huffington Post contributor Bump held the title of "political director" at the Labor Council—the same position Cindy Chavez occupied before voters elected her to the San Jose City Council. Chavez, who lost the 2006 mayor's race to Chuck Reed, today heads the Labor Council, which paid Bump up until recently.

In addition to working for the Labor Council, Bump has worked directly for Working Partnerships USA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is largely funded by charitable foundations. SBLC and WPUSA share offices and staff, including a common executive director: Cindy Chavez.

On Jan. 7, 2003, Bump posted to his personal website: "alright. i got a job. start tomorrow. about g.d. time. i am now the communications (and tech) person for working partnerships. step one—redesign the website."

Chavez has been silent throughout the controversy over Bump and San Jose Revealed, in which her husband has been named as a suspected collaborator.

Mercury News columnist Scott Herhold last week published a detailed comparison of Bump's writing with the posts on San Jose Revealed. Citing the common tendency of both Bump and Revealed to punctuate sentences with clichéd exclamations like "ouch" and to begin sentences with "Long story short" among other signature phrases, Herhold concluded that Bump is the writer.

Herhold also called on Chavez to "speak up and explain labor's ties with the New York consultant." Echoing the story that appeared in Metro and on San Jose Inside a day earlier, he concluded : "[I]n many ways, Revealed resembles a well-done political hit piece with no one's name at the bottom. We finally have a very good clue about who the sponsors are."

Big Sister Organization

The ambiguous financial relationship among the entities related to San Jose Revealed may violate federal law.

The Labor Council is joined at the hip with Working Partnerships USA. Much wealthier than SBLC, Working Partnerships is a funding source for some of the union group's activities. In 2003, WPUSA had $2.75 million in revenues, while the Labor Council's budget that year was only $717,743, according to an internal document obtained by Metro's Silicon Valley Newsroom.

The budget document reveals that 35 percent of the union group's anticipated revenue was to be paid by tax-exempt Working Partnerships in the form of salary reimbursements, administrative support and rent. (See document on next page.)

Under IRS code, 501(c)(3) organizations "that are exempt from federal income tax are prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office." Working Partnerships executives—Chavez, Bob Brownstein and Steve Preminger—are all active in local political campaigns though presumably they do it "off the clock."

In addition, the IRS states that "no organization may qualify for section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation." WPUSA executive director Chavez is a registered lobbyist with the City of San Jose.

The Labor Council has also received funds from the local Democratic Party and the United Way, according to a monthly financial report to the Executive Board of SBLC obtained by Metro.

Working Partnerships receives funding from foundations such as the Packard Foundation ($50,000 in 2008), the Hewlett Foundation ($125,000 in 2005) and the Irvine Foundation, which on March 9, 2009 announced a $450,000 grant to enable WPUSA "to facilitate participation of diverse residents in decision making on local and state budget issues and governance reform topics."

WPUSA has also sought local tax dollars. In 2002, Working Partnerships asked the County Board of Supervisors for $500,000 from the general fund to assist Union Community Resources, a social services organization affiliated with Working Partnerships and the United Way.

Partisan Fights, Paid For by Taxpayers?

The letter came from Steve Preminger, Working Partnerships' Director of the Union Community Resources Program who also serves as chair of the Santa Clara County Democratic Party. Preminger's salary was paid at one point by the United Way at the request of labor leaders. County officials issued a memorandum recommending denial of the request.

(On April 28, 2009, the Dalai Lama named Preminger one of the world's 49 "Unsung Heroes of Compassion." Working Partnerships executive director Chavez commented on the honor. "This recognition is well deserved. Steve has touched the lives of hundreds and hundreds of families in need," she said.)

Preminger came in as runner-up in a poll by the Mission City Lantern blog as a key figure involved with San Jose Revealed. While not scientific or conclusive, the poll indicates that at least some people think the Democratic Party chair and compassionate hero is involved with a blog that slings nasty epithets at its political adversaries and publishes maps to their homes.

Because SBLC and WPUSA won't open their books for scrutiny, it's impossible to know definitively whether SBLC lobbying and campaign activities are illegally benefiting from WPUSA's tax exempt fundraising activities. When journalists from Metro and San Jose Inside have raised questions about SBLC/WPUSA funding sources, they have been subjected to vicious, repetitive, anonymous personal attacks from the blog site that has become SBLC's de facto political voice.

Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy looked at SBLC financials after a 2004 piece but declined to investigate and instead passed the information on to the California Department of Corporations, after which nothing was heard. Given the reluctance of current Santa Clara County District Attorney Dolores Carr and California Attorney General Jerry Brown to pursue political investigations and prosecutions, the commingling of funds, personnel, office space and monetary transfers between the charity-funded, tax-free WPUSA and the SBLC lobbying and campaign teams is likely to continue.

So the question remains: Did funds from charities fund WPUSA, which paid the Labor Council and Bump, indirectly fund San Jose Revealed's attacks on Chavez's enemies list after she lost the 2006 mayoral race?

If that's the case, then taxpayers contributed as well, since a tax-exempt nonprofit is, in effect, publicly-subsidized.

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