In the News
Las Vegas Review Journal: State Supreme Court defends political speech
EditorialPolitical speech enjoys special protection under the First Amendment because democracy cannot survive if government has the power to limit expression of high public interest and social concern.But that doesn’t stop elected officials from attacking political speech that targets them or their interests. Because they’re always focused on their next election, they consider all political speech to be campaign speech that’s subject to disclosure requirements and fundraising limits. In other words, they want their opponents flushed out and put on a leash.Last week, the Nevada Supreme Court issued an important defense of the First Amendment and a clear reminder to officeholders that political speech and campaign speech are not one and the same, and that political speech doesn’t require registration with the state.In a 5-2 ruling that reversed a lower court decision, the Supreme Court held that a 2010 flier produced by conservative nonprofit Citizen Outreach targeting then-Asssemblyman John Oceguera did not urge voters to support him or his opponent, and therefore did not require the organization to register with the secretary of state’s office and disclose its donors.
Bloomberg: Koch brothers’ group allowed to keep California donors’ names secret
A Koch brothers advocacy group can keep its donor list secret for now, with a federal judge ruling that revealing the identities would chill free speech.The ruling comes as billionaires Charles and David Koch seek to raise almost $1 billion in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a nonprofit foundation started by the brothers, persuaded the judge on Tuesday to block California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s demand for the names and addresses of its donors while the group challenges the state’s disclosure requirements. The foundation, which promotes limited government and free markets and conservative causes, claims its contributors may be at risk of being targeted by its opponents, and would-be donors could be scared off, if their identities became known.Continues: U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, in granting the group’s request to prevent Harris from seeking the information until the legality of the request has been resolved, cited a separate case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco halted the attorney general from enforcing the demand on the Center for Competitive Politics while that case was before that court.
Independent Groups
MSNBC: FEC gives blessing to Hillary Clinton shadow campaign
By Alex Seitz-WaldThe work of Hillary Clinton’s shadow campaign may be unprecedented, but it’s not illegal, according to a new ruling from the Federal Election Commission.The FEC has cleared both Hillary Clinton and the pro-Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary of alleged wrongdoing, depriving Republicans of one line of attack and giving at least some official blessing to a novel approach that could serve as a model for future campaigns.The case arose from a complaint filed by the anti-Clinton group Stop Hillary PAC, which argued that Clinton and Ready for Hillary violated campaign finance laws when the super PAC rented an email list belonging to Clinton’s dormant Senate campaign last year.
Disclosure
Vox: This political scientist estimated politicians’ beliefs via 100 million campaign donations
By Andrew ProkopBut here’s the interesting part: the charts aren’t tracking what the candidates have done — how they’ve voted or what they’ve said. Instead, they’re based entirely on who’s given them money.It might not be intuitively clear why looking at donors would tell us anything useful about what candidates actually believe. But Adam Bonica, the Stanford political scientist and cofounder of the site Crowdpac who created the metric used in the charts, argues that fundraising data allows for a better quantitative comparison among presidential candidates than past votes or positions do.That’s because there are over 100 million records of political donations over several decades — donations from people who, presumably, have their own views on issues and donate mostly to candidates who share those views. “It’s an indirect measure based off of aggregating a lot of people’s beliefs about a candidate,” Bonica told me.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
CNN: 2016ers could face a bumpy road to Wall Street cash
By Chris MoodyWashington (CNN)The 2016 money race is well underway, but one group of presidential hopefuls is at a distinct disadvantage as they try to lure donors: Sitting governors.These state executives — including Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mike Pence of Indiana, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and John Kasich of Ohio — are grappling with an arcane rule that is intended to combat pay-to-play corruption, but could have broader implications.The rule — approved in 2010 by the Securities and Exchange Commission — bans financial firms that do business with state and local governments from receiving state contracts for two years if employees donate more than a few hundred dollars to governors and other public officials.
NY Times: Rand Paul Is Looking to April to Announce Plan to Run for President, Associates Say
By Jeremy W. PetersWASHINGTON — Senator Rand Paul is eyeing April 7 as the day he will announce his plans to run for president, people close to him said, a step that would position him ahead of his potential Republican rivals as a declared candidate and allow him to begin raising money directly for his campaign 10 months before the Iowa caucuses.Mr. Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky and the heir to the robust Ron Paulgrass-roots network, will take the next month to continue talking with members of his family about whether they are comfortable moving forward with the exhausting and, at times, agonizing rigors of a modern presidential campaign.Only his family’s doubts could change his mind at this point, said associates of the senator, who insisted on anonymity because Mr. Paul’s plans had not yet taken final shape.
KEYT: Former Challenger Files Lawsuit Against Rep. Lois Capps
November’s Republican challenger to Rep. Lois Capps filed a lawsuit in Santa Barbara Superior Court Tuesday, claiming he was defamed in the weeks leading up to the election where he lost the race against the incumbent.Chris Mitchum filed the suit, naming Capps, her campaign committee and unnamed others as responsible for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit centers on advertisements by the Capps re-election campaign that Mitchum claims quoted him out of context.In the commercials, which aired on radio stations and television stations including KEYT 3, KCOY 12 and KKFX 11, the ad quotes Mitchum as saying “I do not intend to go to Washington to represent the 24th District.” The comment, made by Mitchum in an interview with Cal Poly TV in San Luis Obispo, said in full, “I do not intend to go to Washington to represent the 24th District to bring back baseball fields, that’s not why I’m going. I’m going to fight for my country and I happen to be from the 24th District.”
Clintons
Wall Street Journal: Foreign Government Gifts to Clinton Foundation on the Rise
By James V. Grimaldi And Rebecca BallhausThe Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency.Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline.In 2009, the Clinton Foundation stopped raising money from foreign governments after Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state. Former President Bill Clinton, who ran the foundation while his wife was at the State Department, agreed to the gift ban at the behest of the Obama administration, which worried about a secretary of state’s husband raising millions while she represented U.S. interests abroad.
Politico: All-too-ready for Hillary
By Edward-Isaac Dovere and Gabriel DebenedettiAlready, two themes are becoming clear: The Clinton campaign, determined to avoid the 2008 mistake of being caught unprepared for the changes in politics and campaign tactics, will rely heavily on Obama alumni to get it up to speed. And between the Obama infusion and the Clinton loyalists quickly returning to the fold, there will be few prominent slots open for up-and-coming Democratic operatives looking to break in.That’s created more than just anxiety that the Obama-Clinton drama of 2008 will linger — it’s also created fear that a new generation of Democratic operatives will be left out of the 2016 cycle entirely.The staff overlap may also complicate efforts to show a necessary distance between Clinton from Obama — and it’s already sparked worries that the Clinton operation might repeat some of the Obama operation’s mistakes, particularly in messaging that’s often fallen short when not centered on the force of his personality.
First Amendment
Washington Post: Americans only figured out free speech 50 years ago. Here’s how the world can follow our lead.
By Lee C. BollingerBut this was only the beginning of America’s halting evolution into a far more tolerant society. A repentant Holmes and his brilliant new colleague, Justice Louis Brandeis, wrote eloquent dissents in later cases that began to steer our jurisprudence in a different direction, leading eventually to Near v. Minnesota , a 1931 decision banning government censorship in advance of publication and establishing the doctrine of “prior restraint,” which later allowed this newspaper to publish stories based on the Pentagon Papers. In 1940, Cantwell v. Connecticut held that an anti-Catholic message was shielded from state interference intended to protect perceived religious sensibilities from offense.Progress stalled in the 1950s, amid the Cold War and the witch hunts of McCarthyism. In Dennis v. United States , the court upheld the convictions of 11 Communist Party leaders for advocating the overthrow of the government. In Beauharnais v. Illinois , the court allowed the state to punish the distribution of a leaflet by a white supremacist on the grounds that Illinois’ troubled history provided ample reason for alarm about racial violence. A powerful culture of “states’ rights” preserved a constitutional policy of deference to local control.All this was about to change. It was common at the time for judges to elevate state libel protections above the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech and the press, inhibiting what many newspapers were willing to publish. In 1964, the Supreme Court overruled one such decision out of Alabama, in New York Times v. Sullivan , and declared the “central meaning” of the First Amendment to be the right of citizens to discuss public issues, including criticism of public officials. In this case involving the civil rights movement, the justices unanimously committed America to a realm of expression in which debate would be “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” Sullivan was widely understood, right away, to have established a national norm, and it was followed by numerous decisions expanding on this new sensibility.
State and Local
Pennsylvania –– Newsworks: Eliminating well-intended campaign finance limitations will make city elections more fair
By Daniel FeeGiven the above, is there any way to say that races today are fairer or more competitive than they were in 2007? Not really.But there are ways to address these issues without risking corruption. And it starts with loosening — if not eliminating — the City’s campaign finance limits.I know many people believe that big money controls races and that everything possible must be done to stop its inherently corrupting influence. But we shouldn’t get stuck on the theory of how things should be. The reality is that big money is still here. Almost every day there’s a new article about unaccountable SuperPACs preparing to invest in the mayoral and council races. These outside groups are an unaccountable and harmful, but logical, consequence of the campaign finance limits.
Virginia –– Washington Post: In post-McDonnell scandal Va., pols take another stab at ethics reform
By Jenna PortnoyRICHMOND — After two rounds of ethics reform and much handwringing by legislators, political patrons in Virginia can still give elected officials unlimited donations and perks through their campaign committees.Lawmakers did pass a few new reforms. But even those measures have fewer teeth than what some, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe, had pressed for after his predecessor’s conviction on public corruption charges.Both the House and Senate agreed with McAuliffe and imposed a $100 annual cap on gifts — with notable exceptions. Only McAuliffe (D) wants to create an ethics council with subpoena and audit powers. The Senate would authorize random inspections of financial disclosures, but the House called for neither idea. Both chambers will consider the other’s bill in the next two weeks.
