CCP
Standards for tax exemption for social welfare organizations
By Allen DickersonThe Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen, was recently quoted as stating that under “the framework Congress has set up,” § 501(c)(4) organizations are permitted to “spend a significant amount on politics”—up to 49% of their budgets. This unremarkable assertion reflects the general understanding of tax lawyers and nonprofit organizations. Nevertheless, a predictable group of campaign finance reform advocates wrote Mr. Koskinen a sharply-worded letter decrying his supposed misrepresentation of the law.But as one might expect, the Commissioner was correct. The reformers’ letter relies upon a cramped misreading of the Internal Revenue Code and misleading case law. Accordingly, CCP has responded with a letter of its own, which is available here. That letter makes three arguments.First, it points out that Congress knows how to prohibit political activity when it wishes to do so. It did so explicitly for Section 501(c)(3) groups—charities and educational groups, including the Center—but not for 501(c)(4) social welfare groups. This in itself is telling and fatal to the reformers’ argument.
The stuff foul-mouthed Larry Lessig says
In a post entitled “The sh*t Brad Smith says” (shot? shut? – you may as well spell it out, Larry) Larry Lessig quotes Brad Smith from yesterday’s Washington Post as saying, “[W]hen the rubber hits the road, most people say, ‘I don’t think my contribution should be disclosed.’“That’s news to me,” says Lessig. “In October, 2010, a New York Times/CBS poll found 92% of Americans thought it important for campaigns to disclose ‘where the money came from.’ I guess the public has seen enough!”Perhaps Lessig isn’t aware of survey data showing a marked decline in support for disclosure when individuals are asked to disclose information about their own political contributions. The leading study, by Prof. Richard Carpenter, is “Disclosure Costs: The Unintended Consequences of Campaign Finance Reform.” Carpenter found that while over 82 percent of respondents agreed that “The government should require that the identities of those who contribute to ballot issue campaigns should be available to the public,”–a finding in line with the Times poll Larry cites, asking a similar question– by a 56% to 40% margin respondents did not believe that *their* contribution information should be disclosed by government on the internet; and by a 71%-24% margin did not believe that their employer information should be disclosed (as is required under federal and many state disclosure laws.)
Wisconsin
USA Today: Wisconsin’s dirty prosecutors pull a Putin
By Glenn Harlan ReynoldsWhen Vladimir Putin sends government thugs to raid opposition offices, the world clucks its tongue. But, after all, Putin’s a corrupt dictator, so what do you expect?But in Wisconsin, Democratic prosecutors were raiding political opponents’ homes and, in a worse-than-Putin twist, they were making sure the world didn’t even find out, by requiring their targets to keep quiet. As David French notes in National Review, “As if the home invasion, the appropriation of private property, and the verbal abuse weren’t enough, next came ominous warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t tell anyone about this raid. Not even your mother, your father, or your closest friends. … This was the on-the-ground reality of the so-called John Doe investigations, expansive and secret criminal proceedings that directly targeted Wisconsin residents because of their relationship to Scott Walker, their support for Act 10, and their advocacy of conservative reform.”Is this un-American? Yes, yes it is. And the prosecutors involved — who were attacking supporters of legislation that was intended to rein in unions’ power in the state — deserve to be punished. Abusing law enforcement powers to punish political opponents, and to discourage contributions to political enemies, is a crime, and it should also be grounds for disbarment.
Amending the First Amendment
The Hill: Clinton: ‘Disclosure is not enough’ to limit money in politics
By David McCabeHillary Clinton elaborated Tuesday on her previous comments calling for campaign finance reform, saying that “disclosure is not enough” to limit the influence of very wealthy individuals in politics.“What good does it do to disclose if somebody’s about to spend $100 million to promote their own interests and to defeat candidates who would stand up against them?” she said, while appearing at an event in New Hampshire. “What good does that do?”“We need to get this corporate and unchecked money out of politics even if it takes a constitutional amendment,” she said, echoing her previous comments on the issue.She also suggested that her support for limiting big money in politics could influence her choice of Supreme Court nominees.
Wall Street Journal: Notable & Quotable: George Will
Free speech has never been, in the history of our republic, more comprehensively, aggressively and dangerously threatened than it is now. The Alien and Sedition Acts arose from a temporary, transitory fever and were in any case sunsetted and disappeared. The fevers after and during the First World War and in the early culture war era also were eruptions of distemper rooted in local conditions and local issues bound to disappear, which they did.Today’s attack is different. It’s an attack on the theory of freedom of speech. It is an attack on the desirability of free speech and indeed if listened to carefully and plumbed fully, what we have today is an attack on the very possibility of free speech. The belief is that the First Amendment is a mistake. . . .Yesterday the Democratic Party, the oldest political party in the world, the party that guided this country through two world wars and is more responsible than any other for the shape of the modern American state—the Democratic Party’s leading and prohibitively favored frontrunner candidate for the presidential nomination announced four goals for her public life going forward, one of which is to amend the Bill of Rights to make it less protective. It’s an astonishing event. She said that she wants to change the First Amendment in order to further empower the political class to regulate the quantity, content and timing of political speech about the political class—and so far as I can tell there’s not a ripple of commentary about this on the stagnant waters of the American journalistic community.
Independent Groups
NY Times Magazine: The Next Era of Campaign-Finance Craziness Is Already Underway
By Jim RutenbergThere may be no political adviser closer to Rand Paul than Jesse Benton. Benton was integral to Paul’s Senate run in 2010 and was a top strategist for both of Ron Paul’s Republican presidential campaigns. When a fellow Kentuckian, Senator Mitch McConnell, needed help with his re-election campaign last year, Rand Paul lent him Benton. Benton also happens to be married to Paul’s niece. So it would have been natural to expect Benton to move into Paul’s campaign headquarters as soon as he declared his candidacy for president.Not going to happen. On April 6, the day before Paul made his formal announcement, National Journal reported that instead, Benton will be running America’s Liberty PAC, the principal Paul-supporting super PAC — the class of technically independent campaign organization that is free to spend as many millions of dollars as it can raise, without all those nettlesome regulations that limit donations to formal presidential campaigns to $5,400 a person.Then there is the longtime Jeb Bush adviser Mike Murphy. Murphy guided Bush through the rocky shallows of early-stage presidential politics and helped manage Bush’s successful push to lock down most of the Republican Party’s top donors for the 2016 race, effectively sidelining Mitt Romney and hobbling Chris Christie. Not long ago, it would have been taken as a given that Murphy would join Bush’s formal campaign once it was announced — but people close to the campaign expecthe will join Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, instead. And Gov. Scott Walker’s former campaign manager and chief of staff, Keith Gilkes, announced late last week that he would not be joining Walker’s formal campaign but rather Walker’s super PAC, Unintimidated PAC — this in spite of legal investigations into Walker’s aides’ interactions with outside conservative groups.
Wall Street Journal: Philanthropies as Creatures of Government
By James PieresonMr. Bloomberg is just one of a growing number of philanthropists who seem eager to subsume their own power in the private sector to the whims of politicians and government bureaucrats. Whether it’s foundations participating in the bailout of Detroit or lining up to fund the president’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative, to help men and boys of color, government seems to be calling the tune with foundations singing along from behind.The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently detailed the successful efforts of the Annenberg Foundation in helping Los Angeles get more federal grants through a program called LA n Sync. “From the beginning,” the Chronicle explains, “those behind LA n Sync designed a disciplined approach to big bids for federal funds. They identify major grant opportunities and assemble an A-team of civic, nonprofit, or business partners. Weaker parties are asked to stand down. Then LA n Sync backs the effort with grant writers, matching funds, and endorsements from elected officials and other power players.”It sounds promising until one realizes that Washington is setting priorities for the residents of Los Angeles. Annenberg picked winners and losers among the businesses and nonprofits of the city based on those priorities. The foundation is acting more as a middleman between the federal government and the city of Los Angeles, than as an independent foundation with its own agenda and priorities.
Washington Post: The robots are here: Jeb Bush and the first super PAC-run campaign
By Philip BumpWhen we speculated last fall that a campaign run by political action committees was on the horizon — an electoral system that operates completely separately from the candidate — it seemed a bit like political science fiction, a rise-of-the-robots future to contemplate.Well, the robots are here.Jeb Bush’s imminent presidential campaign is expected to outsource a great deal of its campaign efforts to Right to Rise PAC, according to the Associated Press. The report, which cites several unnamed confidantes of the Bush organization, outlines how Right to Rise will function as Bush’s campaign exoskeleton. It will reportedly run television spots and direct mail, and may also operate the campaign’s field program — that is, voter contact — up to and including Bush’s get-out-the-vote efforts.
Kochs
USA Today: Charles Koch: We like 5 GOP candidates in primaries
By Fredreka SchoutenWICHITA, Kan. — Charles Koch said he is considering throwing his political might into the Republican presidential primary for the first time and is likely to provide financial help to several contenders before settling on a single candidate.Koch, his brother David and their team have identified five candidates who have the right message and “a good chance of getting elected,” he told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview at Koch Industries’ headquarters. They are Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida.“Those are the ones we have talked to the most and who seem to be the possible leaders,” he said.
State and Local
Pennsylvania –– Philly.com: Ethics Board looks to strengthen city campaign finance laws
By Claudia VargasThe Philadelphia Board of Ethics is asking City Council and the Nutter administration to require local political candidates and committees to report their campaign finances more frequently than the current mandate.In a letter sent to Mayor Nutter and Council President Darrell L. Clarke on Friday, ethics board chairman Michael Reed asked that Council consider amending the city code section that pertains to campaign finance rules.
