Three-fourths of pro-voucher funds are coming from one guy

Deseret News:

Pro-voucher ads urge voters not to let a national teachers union tell them how to vote next Tuesday, yet the pro-voucher movement itself is receiving three-fourths of its funds from one man — Park City millionaire Patrick Byrne. [...]

The new reports show that Byrne, president and chairman of the board of Overstock.com, a Web-based retail buying operation, has donated, along with his family, $2.9 million to PCE. That donation is 78 percent of the [political issue committee's] overall contributions. [...]

The pro-voucher money comes from Byrne, his immediate family and the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation, a foundation where Byrne is a member of the board of directors. Friedman, now dead, was a famous free-market economist who advocated public support for private schools back in the 1950s.

"It is interesting to compare reports and see that we have 2,500 individual contributors," said Lisa Johnson, Utahns for Public Schools spokeswoman. "Most of (PCE) money comes from the Byrne family, and the others are large checks from a special-interest niche rather than broad-based support across the state."