In the News
Orange County Register: How campaign finance laws spawned permanent presidential campaigns
Luke Wachob and Scott Blackburn
What is often lost in the debate over the need for such laws, however, is their unintended effect on the campaign process. FECA and its progeny made it harder to run for office, particularly for outsiders – those who don’t have access to a cadre of political experts and a lengthy donor list. It set the stage for today’s 24/7, professionalized political culture.
It is hard to imagine a campaign today in the mold of stalwart liberal Eugene McCarthy’s, who saw America turning against the Vietnam War and the Johnson administration in 1967 and challenged the incumbent for the Democratic nomination. Despite beginning his run less than two months before the New Hampshire primary, the support of a few wealthy donors allowed McCarthy to quickly assemble an army of grass-roots anti-war supporters and conduct a campaign strong enough to scare the incumbent Johnson, out of the race.
IRS
Wall Street Journal: IRS Scrutiny of Conservative Groups Called ‘Delinquent’ in Senate Report
John D. McKinnon
Internal Revenue Service officials were “delinquent” in their treatment of tea-party and other groups, resulting in heightened and inappropriate scrutiny, according to a new bipartisan Senate report.
But Republicans and Democrats disagreed on more fundamental issues, particularly the question of whether IRS officials were motivated by their own political views or Obama administration influence as they considered conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status.
Senate Finance Committee members released the long-delayed report on the targeting matter as the Senate prepared to leave for its August recess. Lawmakers originally had hoped to complete their investigation into the IRS targeting more than a year ago, but had to extend their probe after the agency announced that years’ worth of crucial internal emails had been lost in a 2011 hard-drive crash.
New York Times: Senate Report Cites I.R.S. Mismanagement in Targeting of Tea Party Groups
Jackie Calmes
“This bipartisan investigation shows gross mismanagement at the highest levels of the I.R.S. and confirms an unacceptable truth: that the I.R.S. is prone to abuse,” Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement after his panel voted behind closed doors to release the report of more than 400 pages.
Mr. Hatch added that “the committee found evidence that the administration’s political agenda guided the I.R.S.’s actions with respect to their treatment of conservative groups.” But the committee’s senior Democrat, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, said in the same news release that the inquiry had found “pure bureaucratic mismanagement without any evidence of political interference.”
The Hill: IRS mismanaged Tea Party groups, Senate report finds
Bernie Becker
The committee, led by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), found that the IRS division overseeing tax-exempt groups showed little to no regard for the groups who in some cases faced years of delay on their applications.
“Not only did those organizations have to withstand delays measured in years, but many also were forced to bear a withering barrage of burdensome and inappropriate ‘development letters’ aimed at extracting information the IRS wrongly concluded was necessary to properly process the applications,” the report said.
Forbes: Gross Mismanagement At IRS, Says Senate Report
Robert W. Wood
After a long wait, the Finance Committee has released a bipartisan report on the IRS scandal. Since some private taxpayer information was at issue, there have been closed door sessions and interviews leading up to the report. The IRS wasn’t really targeting, it was just incompetent, the report seems to suggest. Top IRS managers did not stay informed about the applications involving possible political advocacy.
And management, top management at least, didn’t really monitor things. Lois Lerner was on top of the issues as early as 2010, but failed to tell her superiors, the report suggests. In fact, the report says that under Ms. Lerner’s leadership, the IRS Exempt Organizations unit launched seven initiatives to handle applications from Tea Party and other groups for tax-exempt status. Each of the seven initiatives failed.
People’s Pledge
Wisconsin Radio Network: Feingold continues push for ‘Badger Pledge’
Andrew Beckett
Feingold argues that doesn’t have to be the case though. The Democrat, long known for his opposition to what he calls “dark money ads,” has urged Johnson to sign a so-called “Badger Pledge.” The agreement would have both candidates agree to make a donation to a charity of the opponent’s choosing every time an outside group runs an ad that benefits them. The donation would be equal to 50 percent of what those groups spent.
Feingold says “that has real teeth. That actually would prevent these from happening.”
Johnson has so far refused to sign the pledge. In a statement, campaign spokeswoman Betsy Ankney offered the following explanation for why that’s the case – “Senator Feingold has yet to tell Wisconsinites everything about his own shady outside money group and how much it supported him, his staff, and his personal ambition. Until he comes clean about that, there’s nothing else to talk about.”
Citizens United
Tampa Bay Times: The loud voice of big money
Editorial
Ten Republican candidates for president are expected to be on stage tonight for the first televised debate of the 2016 campaign, with seven others watching from the sidelines. One reason the field is so crowded is the unprecedented flood of unlimited contributions flowing into political committees, enabling anyone with a handful of wealthy backers to buy their way into the race. Wrong-headed court decisions have directly tied money to free speech, and the consequences of a broken campaign finance system are becoming clearer in an election where attracting millionaire donors is more important than building grass roots support and offering fresh ideas.
Candidates and Campaigns
National Journal: How to Win a Primary for Free
Zach C. Cohen
Yet that’s exactly what Robert Gray did last night. The 46-year-old, self-employed truck driver from Jackson spent no money and barely campaigned despite technically running for governor of Mississippi. Gray won 51 percent of the Democratic primary vote anyway, besting attorney Vicki Slater and physician Valerie Adream Smartt Short.
Gray didn’t even vote for himself, though it didn’t hurt his 60,000-vote margin much. He told the Associated Press that he was too busy.
“I mean, I didn’t really do too much campaigning,” Gray told National Journal. “I would go to a couple of places and, you know, that’s 20 or 30 people, and I decided then that it wasn’t—there was a lot of time that wasn’t being used pretty well. I know my two opponents, they campaigned real, very hard. But still they wasn’t getting to the mass majority of people.”
Quartz: Jeb Bush’s shadow campaign chalks up a fishy donor disclosure to an administrative error
Tim Fernholz
One of most intriguing donors to Right to Rise is the US Sugar Corporation Charitable Trust, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that gave $505,000 to the Super PAC over the first half of this year. Or so it seemed when those records were released six days ago—now, Right to Rise says that the money came from the US Sugar Corporation itself.
“Since our filing on Friday, the report has been amended to accurately reflect that the contribution came from the U.S. Sugar Corporation,” Paul Lindsay, a spokesperson for Right to Rise, told Quartz in an e-mail.
Washington Post: What we can learn from Jeb Bush’s interactions with a dude with daisies in his beard
Ben Terris
Rod Webber perched on a ledge inside the old opera house, waiting for his moment as Jeb Bush answered questions at a candidate town hall meeting. He wore a top hat, a wrinkled tie, a suit vest and a daisy woven into his Old Testament-caliber beard. He clutched a bouquet of rumpled yellow flowers.
In short, he looked like someone who could put a presidential contender and his staff on edge.
The States
Boston Business Journal: Businesses fight state ban on direct campaign contributions
Shira Schoenberg
“This is about fairness and equality,” said Jim Manley, a senior attorney at the Goldwater Institute, who represents the businesses. The Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, a conservative, nonprofit think tank that does not charge fees to its clients.
Under current campaign finance law, businesses are not allowed to contribute directly to candidates. Unions can contribute up to $15,000 to a candidate, with $15,000 annual donation limit. Individuals can contribute up to $1,000. Businesses cannot establish and fund political action committees that donate to candidates, even though unions can.
Connecticut Post: Democrats sue state agency probing Malloy campaign
Ken Dixon
The committee is asking for an immediate judgment to kill the SEEC’s investigation into the use of the Democrats’ federal contribution account, which Republicans charge was spent in violation of Connecticut’s 10-year-old, publicly funded elections program, which gave Malloy about $6.25 million under the promise that no contractor money would be used.
