The Courts
NPR: Federal Court Ruling May Open The Door To More ‘Scam PACs’
By Jessica Taylor
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan struck down the Federal Election Commission’s rules that prohibited unauthorized political committees from using a candidate’s name.
Chutkan wrote that that while the FEC’s regulation prohibiting candidate names to be used is meant to prevent “confusion in the voting process,” the rule violates the First Amendment of the Constitution.
The case stemmed from a challenge by Pursuing America’s Greatness, a super PAC that supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2016 presidential campaign. The FEC tried to order the group to not use Huckabee’s name on its website and on social media.
FEC chair Ellen Weintraub wrote on Twitter that the decision “will lead to confusion in the political marketplace. It provides a wide opening for scam PACs to exploit.”
She added that committees that are unauthorized by a candidate or campaign, like super PACs, still can’t use the candidate’s name as part of the committee’s name. “But now they can use them everywhere else.” …
The ruling “is disappointing as it will embolden scam PACs,” said Paul S. Ryan of Common Cause, who called on the agency to create new disclaimer requirements for political committees not affiliated with a candidate.
Candidates and Campaigns
Politico: The Democrats’ Donor-Measuring Contest
By Bill Scher
Campaigns and the media play these number games because of the widely held presumption that a candidate funded by small donors (the smaller the better) is one who is funded by, and will govern for, “the people.” By the same line of thinking, a candidate reliant on cash from wealthy benefactors will be beholden to the “1 percent.”
But what if that’s wrong? Having the biggest small-donor army doesn’t make a candidate the best reflection of the will of “the people,” because a relatively small set-a measly few hundred thousand in a nation of 300 million-of donors, large or small, isn’t necessarily composed of a cross section of America. And having considerable support among wealthy donors doesn’t force a candidate to enact policies that favor the elite few over the common good.
Unfortunately, and foolishly, the Democratic primary candidates themselves, along with the Democratic National Committee, have turned this stage of the 2020 presidential campaign into a small-donor money chase. The regrettable consequence will be that some promising candidates not named Beto O’Rourke or Bernie Sanders are likely to fail to get a full hearing from voters and the news media. And fringe candidates will receive more of a hearing than they deserve…
Progressives have long prized the false rationalization that corporate campaign money is the chief obstacle to enacting their policy agenda…
But Democrats should recognize that by idolizing the small donor, they are not cleansing the political process. They are just creating incentives in the primary that help certain types of candidates over everyone else.
Roll Call: ‘No PAC money’ pledges leave corporations in a partisan bind
By Kate Ackley
Every Democratic White House contender has taken a no-corporate-PAC pledge, but such vows are largely symbolic for candidates. (The populist rhetoric can help lure small individual donations, though.)
Democratic challengers who won election to Congress in 2018 on a no-PAC mantra will have to decide if it makes sense to continue to reject business money.
In the meantime, corporations and trade groups are mobilizing their lobbyists in an attempt to stem the flow of more lawmakers taking new pledges to turn away their money.
One PAC manager who attended the Florida seminar confided that she’d dispatched lobbyists armed with talking points explaining what corporate PACs really are. For example, the money comes from the personal funds of a select group of executive employees and their family members, not corporate treasuries (although companies and associations bear the administrative cost of operating a PAC).
Though maligned as fonts of corporate influence, it’s worth noting that in the entirety of the nation’s campaign finance milieu, corporate PACs are hardly the biggest problem – in large part because all contributions over $200 are disclosed through the Federal Election Commission. The donations are also limited to $5,000 per election.
In a sign that the anti-PAC movement may result in unexpected consequences, PAC managers say that even some no-PAC-pledge-takers have suggested corporate donations go instead to the party committees or party leaders, who welcome such cash.
Meanwhile, corporations and associations may explore the shadier sides of political money, such as funding independent expenditures and nonprofit organizations that keep their donors private.
Trump Administration
Politico: Trump’s hyped free speech order asks colleges to do what they already have to
By Benjamin Wermund
The order, however, essentially reinforces what schools are already supposed to be doing by formally requiring colleges to agree to promote free inquiry in order to get billions of dollars in federal research funding…
Still the move, and the president’s rhetoric surrounding it, raised alarms for some civil liberties groups and conservatives – including at least one Republican lawmaker – who expressed concerns about federal overreach.
“I don’t want to see Congress or the president or the department of anything creating speech codes to define what you can say on campus,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who chairs the Senate HELP Committee, said in a statement. “The U.S. Constitution guarantees free speech. Federal courts define and enforce it. The Department of Justice can weigh in. Conservatives don’t like it when judges try to write laws, and conservatives should not like it when legislators and agencies try to rewrite the Constitution.”
The order directs 12 federal agencies that fund university research to add language to existing agreements that colleges have to sign to get the money. Public universities will have to vow to uphold the First Amendment – something they already must do – and private universities will have to promise to uphold their own “stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech,” …
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has sued colleges it believes are stifling speech, said in a statement that the order could result in “unintended consequences that threaten free expression and academic freedom.”
“To the extent that today’s executive order asks colleges and universities to meet their existing legal obligations, it should be uncontroversial,” the group said. “We note that the order does not specify how or by what standard federal agencies will ensure compliance, the order’s most consequential component. FIRE has long opposed federal agency requirements that conflict with well-settled First Amendment jurisprudence. We will continue to do so.”
The States
Gotham Gazette: Advocates and Senators Refute Assembly Democrats’ Concerns with Campaign Finance Reform
By Samar Khurshid
With less than two weeks until a new state budget is due, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature have yet to come to an agreement on a public campaign financing model for state elections. But the conversation around the measure, which advocates and experts say is a long-due reform in a state beset with repeated corruption scandals, has taken a turn since Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie raised several doubts about the viability of public campaign financing, some of which Cuomo has echoed.
They’ve voiced these concerns despite the fact that the Democrat-led Assembly and Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, have annually supported such campaign finance reform and Cuomo included a plan in his 2020 executive budget proposal. This is the first year in Cuomo’s tenure that Democrats control both houses of the Legislature, having won a Senate majority in November…
Earlier this month, Heastie said there weren’t enough votes in his chamber for the public financing proposal, which would create a voluntary system with significantly lower individual contribution limits and public matching of the first $175 of all qualifying contributions at a 6-to-1 ratio…
There are indeed some logistical concerns with instituting public financing statewide, which legislators raised at Wednesday’s hearing.
New York City’s program is administered by the New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYCCFB), an independent, nonpartisan agency, and the state BOE lacks the resources or expertise to do that kind of work, as Cuomo indicated. City candidates, some of whom are now sitting legislators, have also critiqued what they see as the CFB’s overly punitive policies, which they say lead to yearslong audits and burdensome fines for relatively minor violations. Lawmakers also worry that public funds could entice candidates to run frivolous campaigns to raise their own profiles or to otherwise accrue some private benefit.
West Virginia MetroNews: Campaign finance bill is a step forward for WV elections
By Hoppy Kercheval
West Virginia’s campaign finance laws need work. They are outdated and include too many loopholes. Senate bill 622 makes several significant changes that will benefit candidates and the public.
The bill passed the Senate and House of Delegates along party lines. Governor Justice has the bill, but has taken no action on it yet…
The bill closes a current loophole that allows independent expenditure groups to file financial reports with the Federal Election Commission, but not with the state, even when they spend money on West Virginia campaigns.
If SB 622 becomes law those federal PACs and other organizations, such as independent expenditure committees that engage in certain political activity within 15 days of an election, will be required to file electronically with the Secretary of State’s Office within 24 hours of running an ad…
West Virginia’s campaign contribution limit for state candidates has stayed at $1,000 per election for four decades. All the while, other states and the federal government have raised their limits to account for inflation and more expensive campaigns.
Under SB 622, West Virginia’s cap would be raised from $1,000 to $2,800 to a candidate, from $1,000 to $10,000 to a party and $1,000 to $5,000 to a PAC. Those match the federal contribution limits and are still among the lowest in the country. For example, Ohio’s limit is $13,292 per election, while Pennsylvania and Virginia have no limits.
The higher limits also help level the playing field for candidates who are not independently wealthy. Rich candidates currently have a significant advantage over their less well-off opponents who must spend more time fundraising.
KPC News Indiana: Concerned Citizens hit with $300 election-law fine
By Kathryn Bassett
The Concerned Citizens of DeKalb County must pay a $300 fine for violating the Indiana Campaign Finance Act, the DeKalb County Election Board ruled Thursday.
The board conducted a public hearing on a formal complaint filed March 8 by Jonathan Franks of Hamilton…
At the outset of Thursday’s hearing, attorney Jim Fenton, representing the Concerned Citizens, said his client had not realized it had to register as a political action committee and admitted it should have registered sooner.
The board accepted the admission made by Concerned Citizens that it was late in filing and the penalty could rise to a fine of up to $1,000.
Concerned Citizens’ chairman, David Powers, was the only witness called to testify at Thursday’s hearing…
Powers went on to say the group assumed that as a nonprofit organization, is had certain legal protections to exercise its rights of freedom of speech and assembly.
“We never intended to break the law,” Powers said. “We were operating under a false assumption that we were protected as a nonprofit corporation.”…
“They are being threatened with punishment for speaking out, for exercising their freedom of speech and press … for opposing some of the established powers-that-be in the county,” Fenton said…
“This is a poor man’s grass roots organization,” Fenton said. “I’m asking you to waive any penalty you might impose and let us get on to the important business – to get out there and mobilize the people of DeKalb County to vote in that very important issue. … No one was deceived. No one was fooled. But they want you to punish them anyway.”
Independent Rhode Island: Taxpayers should fund campaigns
By State Senator James C. Sheehan
Rhode Island currently has a system that provides matching funds to candidates for statewide office: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and general treasurer – but not candidates for the General Assembly.
In order to help ordinary citizens to run and shift the power away from special interests, I have submitted legislation (2019-S 0457) that would create a “democracy voucher” program that would be available to legislative candidates as well as statewide office candidates. I worked with the good-government group Common Cause to devise a campaign finance system that focuses on the voters rather than the state’s biggest donors.
Under the program, all Rhode Island voters would receive an equal number of democracy vouchers that they could assign to candidates of their choice. The funding could be used for primary races as well as the general election. Candidates would be eligible to receive voucher funds in an amount equal to $500,000 for candidates for governor, $250,000 for candidates for other general office, and $150,000 for candidates for legislative office.
In order to receive funds from the voucher program, candidates would have to raise a certain amount of funding privately – half of which must be from their own districts, in the case of legislative candidates – to show they have viable public support. They would also agree to limit the amount of their own money they contribute to their campaigns. (No more than $75,000 per election cycle for gubernatorial candidates, $18,750 for other statewide office candidates and $5,000 for legislative candidates). Additionally, participants would agree to participate in at least two debates before a primary and two before a general election. They must also adhere to lower contribution limits for individuals and political action committees – $500, instead of the $1,000 allowed under law.
The bill is based on a model that was implemented in Seattle in 2017.
Boston Globe: No union ‘loophole’ in campaign fund law
By Steve A. Tolman, Massachusetts AFL-CIO President
There is a glaring contradiction in the recent editorial, “Mass. should close campaign finance loophole for labor unions,” (March 9).
The editorial rightly characterizes Citizens United as an “awful” Supreme Court decision for taking the already outsized influence of corporations in politics and putting it on steroids. However, the Globe’s prescription is to give corporations and wealthy individuals even more power by eliminating one of the only remaining avenues for poor and working people to make their voice heard in politics: through unions and community organizations. This would bring Massachusetts one step closer to finishing the job that Citizens United started.
The Globe incorrectly characterizes existing campaign finance rules as containing a “union loophole,” only once mentioning that these rules are also used by nonprofit community organizations, mainly through in-kind contributions such as candidate training.
There is no shortage of avenues for business interests to make their voices heard. Corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money through super PACs; business owners, executives, and their families can donate thousands of dollars to individual candidates; and secret donors can finance barely disguised partisan organizations under the guise of “political education.”
With all of these avenues for the wealthy to influence our political process, how can average workers possibly hope to compete? Right now, they can’t. But through their unions and community organizations, they are at least allowed to play on the same field.
