Be wary of who claims a mandate on behalf of Pennsylvania's electorate.

A statewide multi-media ad campaign and organized advocacy effort is being launched by a conservative organization known as the American Future Fund.

A news release issued Wednesday by AFF said its campaign “will remind legislators of their commitments to support '3 Ps:' pension reform, paycheck protection, and liquor privatization.”

“Voters expect lawmakers arriving for the 2015-16 legislative session to keep their campaign promises to uphold conservative, free-market principles,” AFF said in its statement.

Nick Ryan, AFF Political Action chairman, added, “The people of Pennsylvania have delivered Republicans and conservatives a wider majority, and now they have every right to expect bigger results on the issues important to them.”

The AFF statement raises two concerns.

First, exactly who is the American Future Fund; more specifically, who's providing the fund's money?

According to the website factcheck.org, American Future Fund was founded in 2007 by Ryan, a longtime political adviser to Republican former Iowa congressman Jim Nussle. It's registered in Iowa as a 501(c)(4), which means it can receive unlimited donations and does not have to disclose its donors.

Although AFF has not disclosed donors, one founding contributer was Bruce Rastetter, CEO of Hawkeye Energy Holding, a large natural gas company, according to a New York Times article, which also noted that most of the incumbent congressmen targeted for defeat by American Future Fund “have seats on a handful of legislative committees with a direct say in the ethanol industry.”

The second concern is AFF's contention that it speaks for Pennsylvania's voters. It's true we Pennsylvanians sent more Republican state representatives and senators to Harrisburg. It's also true there appears to be a shift toward conservatism with the ascension of Sen. Jake Corman as majority leader.

But the mandate isn't all that ironclad. November's election was not the conservative clean sweep that AFF claims. Pennsylvania's new governor-elect, Democrat Tom Wolf, soundly defeated incumbent Republican Tom Corbett. Wolf's victory just as easily can be construed as a mandate for progressive governing as the House and Senate wins can be judged a conservative Republican mandate.

While it can't be proved that AFF is a mouthpiece for the natural gas industry, the link is as plausible as any. So is AFF's link to Iowa, the starting point of all presidential campaigns. The implication is that Pennsylvania's emerging Marcellus gas business makes the state as important politically as the Hawkeye state.

For better or worse, the AFF lobby will push its agenda of the '3 Ps:' pension reform, paycheck protection, and liquor privatization — along with expansion of the natural gas industry. It has a right to do so. The only proviso is that Pennsylvanians should be aware who's doing the talking.