In the News
Philanthropy Roundtable: Donor Privacy is the Focus of Supreme Court Appeal
Our amicus brief reflects our core belief in philanthropic freedom – the right of Americans to choose how and where to spend their charitable assets – and our commitment to safeguard the freedom of donors and private foundations to carry out their diverse charitable goals and missions, in order to preserve their distinctive contributions. Donor privacy and confidentiality are essential to a vibrant civil society, and unwarranted state incursions into private charitable giving will chill the exercise of First Amendment freedoms which insure that donors may give even to controversial philanthropic causes—such as the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s —without fear of harassment and reprisal. Donor privacy also protects those who choose to give anonymously for a variety of good reasons, including deeply held moral or religious beliefs, a sense of humility, a wish to lead a more private life, and the desire to minimize solicitations from other organizations.
CCP
Holmes v. FEC: Reply Brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
The Appellants, Mr. Jost and Ms. Holmes, would like to contribute the full $5,200 allowed by campaign finance laws, no more. They wish to do so after the primary election settles who will challenge of Congress with whom they disagree. If they give their money—in a single check—the day before the primary, there is no issue with the Federal Election Campaign Act. If they give their money in the same, single check the day after the primary, however, they would violate FECA. The Federal Election Commission has failed to and cannot justify this improper tailoring of FECA to their circumstances.
FEC
Washington Examiner: Bizarre: FEC chair suggests Putin, drug czars buying elections
Paul Bedard
In a bid to push federal contributor regulations on to local ballot initiatives, the Democratic chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission Thursday suggested that without new rules Russian President Vladimir Putin and drug cartels could buy elections.
“Do we want Vladimir Putin or drug cartels to be influencing American elections? The commission shouldn’t,” said Ann Ravel in her losing effort to expand federal campaign financing rules to state and local ballot elections.
GOP Commissioner Matthew Peterson fired first. “The chair began her statement by questioning the motives of I and a couple of my colleagues saying we don’t think it’s a problem that foreign nationals may be involved in ballot measure initiatives and I think that’s ludicrous,” he said. “We don’t have some sort of a moral warrant to promote the good and stamp out the bad. We are the Federal Election Committee that has a limited jurisdiction.”
Independent Groups
CBS News: Why did Ted Cruz’s PAC give half a million to Carly Fiorina’s?
Christina Ruffini
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has asked a Ted Cruz super PAC to explain why it gave $500,000 to another super PAC supporting one of his Republican rivals.
According to financial disclosures from June, Keep the Promise I – one of four separate committees backing Cruz – gave half a million dollars to CARLY for America, the political action committee supporting Carly Fiorina.
Super PACs are legally allowed to give money to other super PACs – they are only prohibited from donating directly to any political campaign. But it’s unusual for one of these groups to give money to an opponent, especially when the candidate it supports is still in the race.
“Keep the Promise I made the donation in June to Ms. Fiorina at that time because we thought she had important things to say that weren’t being heard, including her poignant and effective criticism of Mrs. Clinton, at the time, the likely Democratic nominee,” Kellyanne Conway, president of Keep the Promise I told CBS News in an email.
The Hill: Club for Growth goes after Kasich
Jonathan Swan
Issuing an anti-Kasich “white paper” on Thursday, the group’s president David McIntosh described the Ohio governor as “a lifelong politician with a long and mixed record on matters of economic liberty.”…
The Club for Growth, which advocates free market principles, tries to defeat Republican candidates — often incumbents — who are deemed too liberal. The group has been a thorn in the side of departing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), and played a role in the Tea Party’s surge in the 2010 midterm elections.
Candidates and Campaigns
Politico: I’m Trying to Run for President, but the Democrats Won’t Let Me
Lawrence Lessig
The Democratic Party could fix this by welcoming me into the race. Yet when I tried to talk about this with the chair of the Democratic Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, she scheduled a call, but then cancelled it. So far she hasn’t had the time to schedule another. I’ve had similar experiences at the state level, where the same game is played: The chair of the New Hampshire Democrats invited me to speak at their convention. I was given 5 minutes. Hillary Clinton took an hour.
These signals from the party affect the media, too. While news shows have been busy limning the depths of Donald Trump’s brain, there hasn’t been time to consider a Democratic candidate saying something that no other Democrat is saying—especially if the party itself doesn’t consider the candidate a real candidate. And while the Atlantic listed me as a candidate on their website from day one, it took some lobbying to get the New York Times to do the same.
CBS News: O’Malley announces detailed plan to reform campaign finance
Hannah Fraser-Chanpong
His plan, outlined in a 5-page white paper, calls for an overhaul of the Federal Election Commission, provides incentives for voters to participate in elections and for political candidates to prioritize small donations and, ultimately, moves the Congressional election system toward public financing within 5 years.
If elected president, O’Malley promises to “fundamentally restructure” the FEC, which he describes in his paper as “inherently partisan and perpetually deadlocked.” His plan would put a single administrator in place to oversee the agency and demands that updated, more restrictive regulations and disclosure rules be imposed on political action committees and other outside groups.
Washington Free Beacon: O’Malley Proposal Targets Clinton Super PAC Coordination
Lachlan Markay
O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, is pledging to close an apparent loophole in campaign finance law that has allowed Clinton’s campaign to directly coordinate with a Super PAC called Correct the Record.
Clinton supporters say that prohibitions on Super PAC coordination do not apply to Correct the Record because it conducts online communications free of charge, as opposed to paid advertising or other direct expenditures on the candidate’s behalf.
O’Malley takes direct aim at that arrangement in a campaign finance reform proposal unveiled on Thursday. An outline of the proposal demands an end to what O’Malley calls the “internet exemption.”
The States
Seattle Times: Seattle voters should reject campaign-finance reform measure, Initiative 122
Editorial Board
The vouchers give well-organized candidates, especially incumbents, an advantage. Some members of activist organizations are giddy at the prospect of swooping up as many vouchers as early as possible. The vouchers would be mailed in January, well before the August primary and November general election. Filing week isn’t until late May, meaning a candidate who decides to take on an incumbent would be starting behind since voters might already have awarded their vouchers…
Also, there seems to be a bigger play here. The I-122 campaign itself has raised more than $500,000, mostly from a few deep-pocketed, out-of-state donors who want to use Seattle as a testing ground for campaign-finance-reform ideas.
Louisville Courier-Journal: Ky leads nation in political ad spending
Adam Beam
The biggest spenders in Kentucky’s competitive race for governor are a pair of Louisville millionaires who want to see a Republican elected as the state’s chief executive.
But it’s not what you think.
Hal Heiner and Matt Bevin are not shadowy kingmakers, but political candidates who use their own money to fuel their campaigns…
“Sometimes the only option they have is self-funding because the money tends to go to incumbents, and it is very difficult for someone without a history in politics (to raise money),” he said. “You can make the argument both ways.”
