A founding member of a powerful network of wealthy Democratic donors that has included George Soros and environmental activist Tom Steyer is sounding the alarm over how the group contributed to “the decline of democracy” and “mounting gridlock and toxic partisanship.”
The Democracy Alliance has long kept its operations largely secret as it works to prop up left-wing policies and spends millions of dollars boosting Democratic lawmakers. But at least one former member doesn’t appear to be proud of her time at the Democracy Alliance, according to a Monday opinion article she wrote in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
“Twenty years ago, in the mid-2000s, I was a partisan warrior, and my philanthropy was entirely dedicated to pursuing my ideological beliefs,” Rachel Pritzker, the ex-member and heiress to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, wrote in the piece. “At the time, I served as a founding board member of the Democracy Alliance, a network of philanthropists focused on advancing a progressive policy agenda.”
Pritzker, who left the Democracy Alliance in 2010, wrote that she “came to see that my efforts, under the banner of ‘democracy,’ were actually furthering the decline of democracy.”
“Our passionate advocacy, while aimed at strengthening the country, was contributing to mounting gridlock and toxic partisanship,” she wrote in the piece.
“In typical policy fights, advocates seek to build a coalition just big enough to achieve a policy outcome. But when it comes to protecting liberal democracy, “just big enough” won’t cut it.” 🧵https://t.co/qm9N0BsE9P
— rachel pritzker (@forachelP) April 2, 2024
Pritzker’s negative comments about the Democracy Alliance come on the heels of a November New York Times report on how the network planned to spend more than $10 million to help Democrats win back the House of Representatives in 2024.
The heiress has shifted her giving to the Democracy Funders Network, which calls itself “a cross-ideological learning and action community for donors concerned about the health of American democracy,” according to the network’s website.
A Washington Examiner review of tax documents shows that the Democracy Funders Network has pulled in checks in recent years from the left-wing William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and other nonprofit organizations.
“Democratic elected officials felt increasingly pressured to adhere to party orthodoxy rather than passing legislation through compromise, lest they be primaried by a progressive group for being insufficiently pure,” Pritzker wrote in the Chronicle of Philanthropy article, which was titled “A Partisan Warrior’s Reckoning.”
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The Democracy Alliance told Politico in September last year that it was warning many donors not to fund the third-party No Labels group, which hasn’t yet nominated a candidate for the 2024 election.
The Democracy Alliance did not return a request for comment.