In the News
Newsmax: Right Applauds, Left Aghast Over Court’s Campaign Finance Ruling
By John GizziBradley A. Smith, past FEC chairman and head of the Center for Competitive Politics, which promotes campaign finance deregulation, agreed.“The court’s conclusion was common sense,” Smith told Newsmax. “The law limited an individual to contributing the legal maximum to just 18 candidates. If the first 18 aren’t ‘corrupted’ by the contribution, why is candidate 19?“What’s remarkable is that four justices of the Supreme Court continue to believe that such overt limitations on political speech are constitutional. Moreover, to reach that conclusion the dissenters relied on a series of preposterous hypotheticals bearing no resemblance to reality. Fortunately, five justices aren’t swayed by such nonsense. A good day for freedom — and for competitive campaigns,” Smith said.
The Real News: Supreme Court Decision Opens Floodgates for More Campaign Cash
KEATING: Well, speech doesn’t equal money, but if you want to buy ads, print flyers, do mailings, you need money to do it. So imagine if Congress passed a law saying, well, anyone could run a national news network, but none of the news networks could take more than $25,000 in advertiser money, or no one could invest more than $25,000 in a national news network. You wouldn’t be able to have much of a national news network. Right? And the same is true. If people want to get together and organize on a cause, you know, whether it’s gun control or abortion rights or, you know, taxes, you name it, we don’t want Congress passing laws saying you can only give a certain amount to support a cause in the context of an election.
WBUR: On Point: High Court Rules Against Political Spending Limits
If Nazis can march in America and protestors can burn the American flag, said the chief justice of the US Supreme Court yesterday, then surely the First Amendment also protects big money contributions in American politics. And with that, the Roberts court tore another huge cap off American campaign finance controls. If you’re rich enough, you can now pour millions directly into whatever political party coffers you please. Supporters call it freedom. Critics call it the further hijacking of American democracy. This hour On Point: the high court’s move on big money politics.
Washington Post: States will rethink aggregate limits after McCutcheon
By REID WILSONOn the day of the ruling, the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance said it would no longer enforce the Commonwealth’s aggregate limits of $12,500 in donations to state candidates. The office said it was reviewing the Supreme Court’s ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission to determine whether a $5,000 aggregate limit on gifts to state political party committees would remain in effect.Twelve other states have at least some kind of aggregate limit on the books. They include Alaska, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to data compiled by the Center for Competitive Politics, a campaign finance organization that filed an amicus brief in support of overturning the federal aggregation limits.
Politico: Big money’s grip stronger than ever
By Alexander BurnsTo opponents of campaign finance regulation, the tangled mass of spending rules that remain intact serve to only confuse voters and snarl campaigns in an increasingly arbitrary regulatory maze. They point to a number of states that allow totally unrestricted political giving, like Virginia and Texas, to make the case that a system with fewer limits on giving would at minimum let voters know who’s trying to buy influence.Center for Competitive Politics President David Keating, an opponent of campaign finance restrictions, argued that the most appropriate check on money in politics would be the voters themselves – if they care.“They should raise the contribution limits or take them off altogether. Let the voters decide,” he said. “No candidate is required to accept a $10,000 donation or even a million-dollar donation.”
NPR: Supreme Court Lifts Major Limit on Campaign Spending
On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for donors to give more money directly to congressional candidates, mirroring a similar decision from 2010 with the Citizens United case. Supporters say the ruling protects the free speech rights of donors, while critics fear it will give wealthy individuals more influence in politics. We’ll discuss the ruling and look at its potential impact on state and national races.
NY Daily News: Democracy will thrive post-McCutcheon
By CCP Academic Advisor Joel GoraThose critics made similar predictions when the Citizens United decision came down four years ago, and they were wrong. Despite the tsunami of protest against that much-maligned and much-misunderstood ruling that importantly protected First Amendment free speech rights, no major realignment in our politics occurred.The alarmists are wrong again. Today’s decision is based on settled campaign finance law and vital First Amendment rights of free speech and political participation. It’s a result we should all celebrate, whether you’re a conservative or a liberal.
SCOTUS/Judiciary
Forbes: John Roberts Didn’t ‘Eviscerate’ Campaign Finance Law, But He Should Have
By Paul ShermanFinally, the decision has no effect on the individual contribution limits that cap the amount a donor may give to any one candidate, party or committee. The Chief pointedly refused the invitation—of McCutcheon’s lawyers, multiple First Amendment advocates who submitted friend-of-the-court briefs, and even his colleague Justice Clarence Thomas—to adopt a more speech-protective ruling that would have called these individual limits into question.That last point is the one that should leave First Amendment proponents disappointed, because all of the criticisms that were rightly levelled at the aggregate contribution limits apply with equal force to the individual contribution limits. Both limits are arbitrary, there is no evidence that they reduce actual corruption, and—with trust in government mired at near-historic lows—there is no evidence that they reduce even the ephemeral “appearance” of corruption. McCutcheon was a golden opportunity for the Court to adopt a rule of law that would have called the individual limits into question, but the Court decided to pass.
Reason: Ohio Silences Political Speech, Gets Hauled Before Supreme Court
By Damon RootThe right to speak freely about politics is one of the core protections secured by the First Amendment. It’s a guarantee that applies to all sorts of speech, from genteel discussion to the hurling of invective.Or at least that’s true in most places. The state of Ohio takes a dimmer view of this basic constitutional right. According to Ohio law, it is a misdemeanor offense to make “false” statements about political candidates. Who gets to decide what counts as false? Who else? A state agency staffed by political appointees endowed with the power to selectively silence political speech.That’s the unfortunate legal regime that produced the case of Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear later this month. The case originated in the run-up to the 2010 election when the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), an anti-abortion group, announced its intention to oppose the re-election campaign of Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) by, among other things, purchasing billboard ads claiming Driehaus supported “tax-payer funded abortion” by voting for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Wall Street Journal: Welcome to the Collective
By James Taranto
And here’s how Breyer sums it all up: “Accordingly, the First Amendment advances not only the individual’s right to engage in political speech, but also the public’s interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters.”The emphasis on “matters” is again Breyer’s. We’d have italicized “collective” as the key concept. As with the Second Amendment, he and the other dissenters assert a “collective” right, the establishment of which is purportedly the Constitution’s ultimate purpose, as a justification for curtailing an individual right.In this case they at least acknowledge the individual right exists. But then the First Amendment, unlike the Second, has no prefatory clause explaining its purpose; it simply says “Congress shall make no law . . .” Breyer has to venture outside the text to find a reason to read that prohibition equivocally.
Political Activity Law: More McCutcheon plus today’s political law links
Election Law Blog: McCutcheon Editorial Roundup
More Soft Money Hard Law: Justice Breyer’s Dissent in McCutcheon
By Bob BauerBeyond the various points of disagreement between Chief Justice Roberts’ plurality opinion and Justice Breyer’s dissent in McCutcheon, there is one striking, overall contrast to be drawn. Roberts makes a clear case against the aggregate contribution limits but, as Justice Thomas suggests, he may be less straightforward in revealing his doctrinal ambitions. Breyer’s jurisprudential orientation is no mystery, but his defense of it, in the particulars, is a puzzle.Does Roberts really mean to uphold and faithfully apply Buckley v. Valeo, or does he subvert it with a narrow reading? Whatever his actual intent, the construction of his argument is easy to follow. Not so Justice Breyer, who argues with undoubted sincerity for an expansive view of Buckley, one that yields considerable ground to regulation, and yet he fails to give much definition to its application.
NY Times: Party All the Time
By David BrooksThe laws rigged the system to make it harder for challengers to raise money. In 1972, at about the time the Federal Election Campaign Act was first passed, incumbents had a campaign spending advantage over challengers of about 3 to 2. These days, incumbents have a spending advantage of at least 4 to 1. In some election years, 98 percent of the incumbents are swept back into office.One of the ways incumbents secured this advantage is by weakening the power of the parties. They imposed caps on how much donors can give to parties and how much parties can give directly to candidates. By 2008, direct party contributions to Senate candidates accounted for only 0.18 percent of total spending.The members of Congress did this because an unregulated party can direct large amounts of money to knock off an incumbent of the opposing party. By restricting parties, incumbents defanged a potent foe.
NY Times: Ruling’s Breadth Hints That More Campaign Finance Dominoes May Fall
By ADAM LIPTAKAll of those limits may be vulnerable under the reasoning of the McCutcheon and Citizens United decisions, as well as the “soft money” ban, which limits individual contributions to political parties even if the money is to be spent on activities unrelated to federal elections.The next case may arrive soon. At their private conference on Friday, the justices are scheduled to consider whether to hear Iowa Right to Life Committee v. Tooker, No. 13-407, a petition from James Bopp Jr., one of the lawyers on the winning side in the McCutcheon case. It challenges an Iowa law that bans contributions from corporations but allows them from unions.Mr. Bopp said he had scoured Chief Justice Roberts’s controlling opinion in the McCutcheon case for hints and clues. “I didn’t see any real blatant signals about what they would entertain in the future,” he said. “On the other side, this is the latest in a series of cases from a five-member majority that is very friendly to the First Amendment.”
IRS
Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Plan Contempt Vote on Former IRS Official Lois Lerner
By John D. McKinnonA House committee will meet next Thursday to consider a resolution holding former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer lawmakers’ questions.Ms. Lerner has been at the center of an ongoing controversy over IRS targeting of conservative tea-party groups for lengthy, intrusive reviews of their applications for tax-exempt status. She headed the IRS division that conducted the reviews until she was placed on leave last year. She eventually retired from the IRS after an agency review panel recommended her removal for mismanagement.
American Thinker: The IRS and the Tea Parties: Should You File That Form?
By James V. DeLongAs the scandal over the proposed IRS rules attacking citizen activists grows, the administration digs in. It is a good bet that the rules will be finalized soon, though perhaps the IRS will rethink some of the most blatantly unconstitutional sections, such as those forbidding all mention of the names of candidates. Even if the House voted to delay the rules, the double-whammy of Senate inaction and a presidential veto would kill the effort, so the Democratic grandees have no reason to bend.
Disclosure
The Foundry: Liberals Are Using Campaign Disclosures to Intimidate and Harass
By Hans von SpakovskyThe resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich over a personal $1,000 donation he made in 2008 in support of California’s Proposition 8 shows the dark side of campaign disclosure laws and how liberals are using them to intimidate, harass, and bully anyone who disagrees with them on social and cultural issues. The Mozilla staffers and others targeting the company are engaging in the type of intolerance and coercive behavior that they are always accusing others of exhibiting.Before Eich resigned, he pointed out that he had kept his personal beliefs out of Mozilla and that they were not relevant to his job as CEO. He was exactly right, although that did not prevent him from resigning. In a startling display of irony that was obviously lost on her, Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker, who approved of Eich’s resignation, said it was necessary because “preserving Mozilla’s integrity was paramount.” She seems not to recognize that forcing a founder of the company to resign because of his personal beliefs that have nothing to do with his qualifications as a corporate officer is the exact opposite of “integrity.”Eich is certainly not alone in his predicament. As the Heritage Foundation previously pointed out, other supporters of Proposition 8 in California have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racial scapegoating, blacklisting, loss of employment, economic hardships, angry protests, violence, death threats, and anti-religious bigotry. All committed by individuals claiming they are simply trying to gain “acceptance” and who complain about the supposed intolerance of society over their lifestyle.
Tax Financing
Dallas Morning News: Obama signs law cutting $18m convention subsidy
By Todd J. GillmanWASHINGTON — It’s official. President Obama signed a law this afternoon that ends public funding for the Democratic and Republican conventions.The funding amounted to $18.2 million for each party in 2012, and is separate from federal funds used to defray security costs — $50 million last time around for each convention. The cut puts extra pressure on Dallas and other cities vying to play host in 2016.The “Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act” ends payments for the conventions from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. That’s where funds go from the $3 optional check box on your April 15 tax form. The law shifts $126 million over the next decade to the National Institutes of Health for research into pediatric illnesses.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
National Review: McConnell’s Triumph
By Charles C. W. Cooke“This is an issue that I’ve been involved in for more than 25 years,” McConnell tells me. “I was a part-time teacher at the time that the Buckley v. Valeo case came down, so I initially started studying it from an academic point of view, and then later, in politics, I saw the practical implications of the Congress trying to micromanage political speech.”Since he was first elected in 1986, McConnell has participated in 20 filibusters against campaign-finance limitations. Most famous, perhaps, was his effort in September 1994 to block a bill that would have effectively facilitated a federal takeover of the election system. “The Congress, then controlled by the Democrats, with President Clinton in the White House, tried to push through public funding and spending limits for congressional campaigns,” McConnell recalls. “That was just twenty years ago. I led the all-night filibuster against that, which succeeded. But that’s how close we were to a total government takeover of congressional races.”
NY Times: How to Squeeze the Political Parties
EditorialDonors will now have a wide array of choices in where to spend their political dollars, thanks to the Supreme Court. The 2010 Citizens United decision, combined with lower-court rulings, opened the door to giving unlimited amounts of money to “super PACs” and nonprofit political groups, money that was spent on electing and defeating specific candidates. The court’s McCutcheon decision on Wednesday allows donors to give as much as $3.6 million to joint fund-raising committees set up by the parties, which can be used to benefit individual candidates.That makes the parties players in the big-money race for the first time, since an individual’s contributions to party committees had been limited to $74,600 per election cycle. But the parties will be competing with the super PACs for those six-figure checks, and the check writers know it. For that kind of money, donors expect something beyond a nice table at a fund-raiser and a photo with a party leader. And the parties, which are controlled by the top lawmakers, are in a position to provide it — tax benefits, special clauses in regulatory bills, spending that helps a particular industry.
