In the News
CPI: Unions dramatically increase super PAC donations
By Michael BeckelUnion giving accounted for roughly $1 out of every $6 raised by all super PACs during the first half of 2013, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of federal campaign finance filings.By contrast, corporate super PAC donations held steady, totaling about $4 million during the first six months of both 2011 and 2013.“Super PACs give unions an important new tool in elections,” said David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for the deregulation of political spending.
Heritage: Political Speech and the IRS: Protecting the First Amendment
The First Amendment was intended to protect political speech and encourage participation in the political life of the nation. Campaign finance laws implemented over the past four decades have imposed various restrictions on political speech as have tax laws as they have been interpreted by the Internal Revenue Service. Congress is now conducting an investigation of the possible targeting by the IRS of conservative tea party and other groups because of their political views and beliefs, and lawsuits are pending over the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive donor and tax information by the IRS. Did the IRS unfairly target certain organizations? What is the status of their claims and the investigation? How far can the government go in balancing the interests of preventing public corruption with encouraging open and spirited political debate? Do IRS tax rules need to be changed to protect the First Amendment rights of advocacy organizations? Do current campaign finance rules restrict political speech and discourage participation by citizens and associations? Three experts, including a lawyer representing conservative organizations, the head of an advocacy group targeted by unauthorized disclosures, and a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, will discuss these issues. The panel will be moderated by a former FEC commissioner.
CCP
Dismissing Voters
By Luke WachobIn a recent interview with Bloomberg News, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg started up a chorus of that old familiar tune, “There’s Too Much Money in Politics.” Characterizing the Roberts court as “activist,” she expressed her dismay over the direction campaign finance law has trended in recent years. “You take the limits off and say, ‘You can spend as much as you want,’ and people will spend and spend,” she said. “People are appalled abroad. It’s a question I get asked all the time: Why should elections be determined by how much a candidate can spend and why should candidates spend most of their time these days raising the funds so that they will prevail in the next election?”We’ve heard this song and dance many times before, but it’s disappointing to hear such a naive perspective from an esteemed Supreme Court Justice. It’s also flawed, as her statement conflates the policy implications of the Court’s 2010 cases, Citizens United v. FEC and SpeechNow.org v. FEC, which together enshrined the right for all citizens to make unlimited independent expenditures on political speech, with the separate matter of candidate fundraising, which the government may still limit and heavily regulate. More disturbing than this conflation, however, is what Ginsburg’s perspective reveals about the mentality of proponents of regulating political speech.
Independent GroupsNY Times: Business Losing Clout in a G.O.P. Moving Right
By Eduardo PorterIt was, President Obama said, “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”Three years later, however, these fears have not quite materialized. Money is flowing to elections like never before. The 2012 elections cost some $6.3 billion, $1 billion more than the 2008 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that researches money and politics. Independent spending by outside groups on campaign advertisements and the like topped $1 billion last year.Corporate America, however, accounted for a comparative trickle. Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University, points out in a recent working paper that companies openly spent about $75 million from their treasuries on federal elections last year.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Mother Jones: Meet the Big-Money Dream Team Gunning for Mitch McConnell
By Andy KrollIn a sign of just how badly Democrats want to unseat Mitch McConnell, rainmakers from the Obama, Clinton, and Elizabeth Warren camps—political networks that rarely overlap—are uniting behind Kentucky’s Alison Lundergan Grimes.Grimes needs all the money she can get. McConnell, the Senate minority leader, is a prodigious fundraiser with deep ties to corporate America. He held the first fundraiser of his 2014 campaign the day after the 2012 elections, and subsequent fundraisers have been hosted by the political action committees of Koch Industries, Home Depot, Amgen, and Ford Motor Company. Grimes has privately told Democratic fundraisers that she’ll need a massive war chest of as much as $30 million to effectively compete with McConnell.
Huffington Post: Mary Landrieu’s Real Estate Ties Target Of ‘Multi-Phase’ GOP Offensive
By Christina WilkieSnellings’ clients have included Democratic super-lobbyist Tony Podesta, former Louisiana senator turned lobbyist John Breaux (D), Comcast lobbyist Melissa Maxfield and former Louisiana congressman turned oil industry lobbyist Chris John (D).The NRSC’s campaign centers around a web page called LandrieuForSale.com, which seeks to link the senator’s work to her husband’s real estate clients.
State and Local
New York –– NY Times: Catsimatidis Campaigns With Heart, Tongue and Checkbook Unfettered
By Thomas KaplanAt campaign appearances, no one would ever guess that John A. Catsimatidis was the billionaire in the room. But his riches have given him license to run this year’s most idiosyncratic campaign for mayor, one unfettered by the constraints, on spending, on rhetoric, or on imagination, that have dulled the actions and utterances of the mere mortals on the trail.While most politicians hold fund-raisers, where attendees give money to the candidates, Mr. Catsimatidis holds “friend-raisers,” where the candidate gives out swag. And while other candidates hone their talking points, he speaks in a stream of consciousness, and tosses around unconventional ideas: building a monorail alongside the Long Island Expressway and a new bridge over the Harlem River, and bringing the World’s Fair back to New York City.
New York –– New Republic: Wall Street Isn’t Shaping the New York Mayoral Race. Thank Public Financing.
By Alec MacGillisWhat gives? Are the one-percenters asleep at the switch? Are they confident that de Blasio’s bark will prove worse than his bite? Are they in fact open to some of what he’s talking about?There may be something to each of these. But the most obvious explanation for the absence of a massive push by the upper crust to stop de Blasio is that it wouldn’t be easy under the city rules.
