In the News
NY Times: Result Won’t Limit Campaign Money Any More Than Ruling Did
By NICHOLAS CONFESSOREThanks to super PACs, “a Newt Gingrich or a Rick Santorum and their followers were able to have their voices heard and their views more widely distributed,” said Bradley A. Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, which favors less regulation of campaign money.
Independent groups
NY Times: A Landslide Loss for Big Money
EditorialThe millionaires and billionaires who gave nearly $500 million to independent groups in the race to elect Mitt Romney and other Republicans not only bet on the wrong party, they bet on the wrong tactic. They believed that an endless drumbeat of television advertisements would be enough to drive voters away from President Obama and Democratic policies.
Washington Post: Karl Rove and his super PAC vow to press on
By Karen TumultyIn the post-mortems of the 2012 election campaigns, it is already being written that the much-feared super PACs — those ostensibly independent, billionaire-funded outside organizations and their hundreds of millions in negative ads — turned out to be a bust.
CNN: Big money lost, but don’t be relieved
By Richard L. Hasen(CNN) — Those who oppose the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling and the explosion of outside money in politics might be breathing a sigh of relief that more than $1 billion in outside spending in federal elections, which heavily favored Republicans, did not seem to buy the results that the big spenders wanted. After all, most of the candidates backed by Karl Rove’s Crossroads groups and the Chamber of Commerce, beginning with Mitt Romney, lost their races. But those concerned about the role of money in politics shouldn’t be relieved. Not at all. Here are three reasons to keep worrying:
Huffington Post: Democratic Super PACs Trim Conservative Advantage In Congressional Races
By Paul BlumenthalWASHINGTON — The 2010 election was a disaster for Democrats in Congress. The party lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate. Any and all measures would be needed to prevent a repeat, particularly with 21 Democratic Senate seats up for election.
Washington Post: Private consultants see huge election profits
By Dan Eggen and Tom HamburgerSome of the biggest winners in the most expensive election in U.S. history weren’t the politicians, but the private consultants who brought in tens of millions of dollars in fees for advertising, fundraising and other campaign activities.
Corporate Governance
The Harvard Law School Forum: The SEC is Now Actively Considering the Rulemaking Petition on Corporate Political Spending
By Lucian Bebchuk, Harvard Law School, and Robert J. Jackson, Jr., Columbia Law SchoolAccording to a WSJ.com report, the Director and Deputy Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance indicated that the Division is now actively considering a rulemaking petition that was submitted by a committee of ten law professors that we co-chaired. The petition urged the SEC to adopt rules that would require public companies to disclose information about their political spending. At a conference this week, both the Director and Deputy Director indicated that the Division is currently looking into whether to recommend that the SEC issue such a rule.
Lobbying and ethics
Roll Call: Office of Congressional Ethics Must Survive
By Norman OrnsteinAs I write, the elections are not over — but by the time you read this, voters will have chosen the 113th Congress. The 112th, of course, is far from finished; it will be back next week, like a new installment of “Friday the 13th,” to finish unfinished business (farm bill, anyone?) and to grapple with the “fiscal cliff.”
