Independent Groups
Time: Why 2016 Campaign Spending Is Heating Up Now
Philip Elliott
Enter the super PACs, trying to remedy a problem of their own creation. Their goal is to raise familiarity with each’s preferred contender enough so that he or she qualifies for the first debate. Under the current rules, only the top 10 contenders in national polls—in a crowded field now numbering 14 and expected to climb—will make the stage on Aug. 6 in Cleveland.
It’s why boosters for Jindal, who entered the race last week, are sending cash to his main advertising firms. At the same time, supporters of Rick Perry told the FEC they accounted for $578,000 in June spending; they are trying to make sure the former Texas Governor qualifies for the debates during his second White House bid. Boosters for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas spent $13,126 during the last four weeks, too.
Wall Street Journal: The Coalition to Arm California’s Democratic Moderates
Allysia Finley
Govern for California, as the group is known, operates like a venture-capital firm in directing donors to promising candidates. It also makes independent expenditures, though these are often less valuable than direct contributions.
Yet Govern for California is more focused on education and fiscal reform—pensions, taxes, Medicaid—than environmental and social-justice issues. And Mr. Crane says moderate Democrats will become more courageous as their numbers grow. The outfit plans to target 11 open seats next year. But first, Govern for California needs to expand its network of 100 some donors.
The California legislature controls nearly $120 billion in state tax revenues, the education of nine million students, and health care for 12 million low-income citizens. It’s hard to find an investment or charity with as much of a social impact.
Supreme Court
NPR: ‘Jiggery-Pokery’: The Justices Have A Punny Way With Words
Lauren Leatherby
Supreme Court justices have also enjoyed weaving imagery into their opinions and dissents.
When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented in Board of Education v. Earls in 2002, she conjured a picture of “nightmarish images of out-of-control flatware, livestock run amok, and colliding tubas disturbing the peace and quiet of Tecumseh.”
In 2000, Justice Scalia took issue with his fellow justices’ use of the phrase “narrowly tailored,” writing in his Hill v. Colorado dissent, “narrow tailoring must refer not to the standards of Versace, but to those of Omar the tentmaker.” And in 2008, Scalia wrote “the city ought not to fear that today’s victory has propelled it from the Free Speech Clause frying pan into the Establishment Clause fire.”
Bloomberg: Supreme Court’s Next Big Case: Union Dues
Noah Feldman
From the standpoint of First Amendment theory, however, the compromise was highly imperfect. If nonmember employees really have a right to free association, how can they be compelled to pay money to an organization they don’t want to join and that purports to represent them in bargaining with their employer?
What you need to know about the Friedrichs case for now is only that there’s no reason for the Supreme Court to agree to hear it except that four justices — the number required to take a case — think they might be able to get a fifth on board.
FEC
CLC: In Search of Qualified FEC Commissioners
Larry Noble
The law that established the FEC requires that a commissioner “be chosen on the basis of their experience, integrity, impartiality, and good judgment.” In fact, a commissioner does not have to be a lawyer and the commission has a long history of having non-lawyers serve as members. And, there is certainly no requirement that a commissioner have been a Washington D.C. election law attorney who is representing SuperPACs, political parties, candidates and special interests. As recently as the mid-1990s, three of the six commissioners were not lawyers, and only one had represented party committees or federal candidates in private practice before coming to the FEC.
Washington Post: This kid will be running for president for the next three decades, against his will
Philip Bump
Meet Andrew Lessig, the first declared candidate for the 2048 election…
“I remember getting a bunch of election law stuff from the FEC after a while and not realizing what I had gotten myself into,” he said. The problem with setting up a candidate committee is that you are required to regularly file with the government to detail how much money you raised and spent and so on…
At some point, he e-mailed an FEC commissioner.
“Please Mr. Commisioner,” he wrote, “Let me cease Campaigning, and please don’t fine me for my bad paperwork.”
Privacy
The Arizona Republic: Regulator Bob Stump says nonprofit invading his family’s privacy
Ryan Randazzo
The Checks and Balances Project obtained Stump’s text message logs from 2014, but not the messages themselves, through a public records request. On Tuesday, they published the names of those Stump communicated with most often, as well as their cellphone numbers.
“Not content merely to impugn my integrity, this left-wing, dark money group has now invaded the privacy of my family and friends by publishing the names and numbers of my mother, my aunt, my former girlfriend, several of my closest friends, and everyone I have texted or called in the last year,” Stump said Tuesday.
“It is one thing to attack a public figure,” he said. “I expect it. It is quite another to publish the names and numbers of his family members and friends, none of whom signed up for this.”
The States
The Tennessean: Williamson Strong challenges state campaign finance laws
Melanie Balakit
[Tennessee’s Registry of Election Finance] said its individual founding members did spend money — including on stickers, Facebook advertising, voter registration data, a Web domain and Web hosting fees — but none of those purchases supported or opposed individual board candidates. It said it encouraged voting, but not for certain candidates.
The Registry found Williamson Strong’s pattern of behavior during last year’s election political in nature, citing social media posts and email correspondence among the group’s founding members. The Registry also determined that it did not matter how much Williamson Strong spent.
“Despite refusing to allow Williamson Strong to present any argument in its defense, the Registry had to reinterpret a section of the Tennessee code that Williamson Strong was not even charged with violating in order to find a violation. Simply put, this was a results oriented decision that ignored the facts, the operative law and basic due process. We look forward to being exonerated by the District Court,” Stranch said in the news release.
IndReporter: One super PAC loses URL to another
Jeremy Alford
This is the second time such a digital doozie was dished up for Angelle supporters. GeauxAngelle.com is the campaign’s website, but the handle wasn’t scooped up and secured on Twitter. Instead, @GeauxAngelle belongs to an anonymous party who supposedly has no connections to the campaign and sometimes masquerades as the candidate in posts.
Sentinel Source: Money from away is aiming to affect New Hampshire’s elections
Editorial
If a national political action committee taking aim at Ayotte more than a year before she’s up for re-election — assuming she’s not a GOP presidential running mate by then — seems a bit much, Karl Rove sticking his nose into state budget negotiations is even more galling. The Senate Majority PAC ad noted that Rove’s GPS Crossroads super-PAC has been airing ads attacking Hassan over her budget stance. The Rove-backed ads aren’t even the first funded by outside money to attack Hassan recently. Something called Impact America, a Virginia-based super-PAC, has been running radio ads criticizing Hassan. That follows a reported $1 million TV ad buy blasting her and the establishment of an anti-Hassan website.
