In the News
Maine Wire: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Spend More?
Luke Wachob
The narrative that tax–financed campaigns have been a success in Maine is a creation of politicians who prefer to get money without having to ask for it, coupled with activists who want to see government play a larger role in campaigns. Every government program that spends money has a constituency ready to fight for it, but when we look at the actual evidence, little appears to have changed as a result of Maine’s decision to provide tax dollars to candidates starting in 2000…
Or take claims about diversity. The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal made false assertions common among proponents of tax-financed campaigns when he wrote in September that Maine’s program “allowed waitresses, teachers, firefighters, convenience store clerks and others to run for office and win. Women benefited especially, running in greater numbers than had been possible before. Thanks to public funding, the state soon had the most blue-collar legislature in the country.”
That is just not true, no matter how often it is repeated. The gender diversity, and diversity of occupational backgrounds, of Maine legislators remains largely unchanged from the days prior to public financing. In fact, there were more women in the Maine Legislature every year from 1990-1994 than there have been in every Legislature since the implementation of public financing in 2000 (save for 2007 and 2008, which saw an equal number of women legislators as 1990).
Independent Groups
New York Post: The 2016 race has debunked all that ‘dark money’ hysteria
Noah Rothman
Harvard University Professor Lawrence Lessig’s quixotic presidential candidacy ended on Monday — surely before most voters knew it even existed. Maybe because the point of his run — the need for “campaign finance reform” — has already been proved false.
For years, many on the left have been prophesying the republic’s doom. A dark and Orwellian future, they said, would be the ultimate effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. Yet the 2016 presidential election decisively debunks this.
The good professor is so fixated on this menace that he failed to notice the rationale for his candidacy imploded.
West Kentucky Star: Super PACs Level Attorney General Field
Richard Nelson
Our political experience has been one where we value free speech — and more of it, not less. Business owners have enjoyed speech rights to their fullest and they spend billions peddling their products and convincing consumers their lives would be incomplete without x,y, or z brand. When ads are annoying, people turn the channel or tune it out. When the message is convincing and marketed product is good quality then consumers buy. Shouldn’t this be the approach to political advertising as well?
IRS
The Hill: Cruz asks feds to save documents in IRS probe
Jordain Carney
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wants the Justice Department to save documents related to its two-year investigation of allegations that the IRS targeted conservative groups.
“This Administration’s recent announcement … has finally made it abundantly clear that the responsibility of ensuring a thorough, fair, and impartial investigation of IRS employees and their potential criminal conduct will fall to the next presidential administration, and relevant materials must be protected accordingly,” Cruz, who is running for president, wrote in a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
He sent the letter Monday, after the DOJ announced last month that it was closing its probe.
Washington Post: Obama administration lawlessness: the top five
David Bernstein
- Failing to prosecute anyone at the IRS for the 501(c)(4) scandal. That the IRS put its massive bureaucratic thumb on the scales against conservative activist groups is one of the great political scandals in recent U.S. history. When the news first broke, President Obama properly declared that he “will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives.” But tolerate it his administration did.
Contribution Limits
San Francisco Chronicle: Campaigns begin earlier under term limits, fund caps
John Wildermuth
The financial realities of running in a state the size of California also play an important role. As the cost of campaigning goes up, it takes more and more time to raise the money needed for an effective statewide campaign.
In 2002, for example, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis raised $64 million for his re-election campaign, including direct contributions of $1 million from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, $750,000 from the state prison guards union, $325,000 from Hollywood producer Stephen Bing, $235,000 from Netflix founder Reed Hastings and plenty of other six-figure donations.
But under the contribution limits that kicked in after that election, direct donations to a candidate for governor in 2018 are capped at $28,200 each for the primary and general elections. For down-ballot races, such as the campaign for attorney general, there’s a $14,100 limit…
It takes plenty of those maximum $28,200 checks for a candidate to stay on the air, so an earlier start to campaigning — and collecting money — is always better, he added.
Candidates and Campaigns
New York Times: Lawrence Lessig Ends His Long-Shot Presidential Bid
Nick Corasaniti
Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard professor who began a late campaign for president, announced that he was ending his bid for the Democratic nomination, citing his exclusion from the debate stage.
“No doubt a better candidate could have gone further, though I doubt anyone could have worked harder, but regardless, I must today end my campaign for the Democratic nomination and turn to the question of how to best to continue to press for this reform now,” Mr. Lessig said in a video posted to his YouTube page.
Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard professor who began a late campaign for president, announced that he was ending his bid for the Democratic nomination, citing his exclusion from the debate stage.
He entered the race in September, much later than other candidates, on a mission to change the country’s campaign finance system.
Bloomberg: Lawrence Lessig Was Wrong
Jonathan Bernstein
Lessig complained the Democrats excluded him from their debates. If true, good for them. Republicans should have taken tighter control of theirs, too. Remember, dozens of people “run” for president every cycle — people none of us ever hear about, but who nevertheless enter at least one primary. Lessig never gave anyone reason to believe he belonged in the “major candidate” category. He didn’t have conventional qualifications for the job, and made no pretense of interest in being president. There’s no reason parties should elevate issue activism to the national debate platform.
If Lessig wants to move his issue to the top of the Democratic agenda, there are other ways to do that. His brief “candidacy” only hurt the cause he claims to care about – as was easy to predict from the outset.
The Media
Media Matters: CBS, PBS, And MSNBC Lead The Way While Overall Network And Cable Coverage Of Money In Politics Lags
Daniel Angster, Michaela Halnon and Makenzie Murphy
Overall Network News Had Little Coverage Of Money In Politics, But CBS And PBS Stood Out With The Most Coverage. From when the first presidential candidate officially declared their campaign on March 23 until October 15, the date of the most recent FEC filing deadline, PBS made 27 mentions of money in politics and aired five segments covering the topic while CBS mentioned it 35 times and dedicated 4 segments. ABC and NBC, however, only mentioned money in politics a total of sixteen times each. ABC aired zero segments on the subject while NBC aired two.
Wisconsin ‘John Doe’
Associated Press: Wisconsin elections board says new law restricting John Doe probes moots lawsuit claim
Scott Bauer
The state’s elections board is asking a judge to dismiss as no longer relevant one of the claims that Wisconsin Club for Growth made against it in a lawsuit related to the investigation into Gov. Scott Walker.
The Government Accountability Board said in the filing made Friday and posted Monday on the court website that the claim is moot because it deals with the John Doe law that has since been changed.
Walker on Oct. 23 signed into law a bill ending secret John Doe investigations into political misconduct including bribes, theft and campaign finance violations.
FEC
Roll Call: Reid Wants to Hire Post-Retirement Aide With Campaign Cash
Hannah Hess
The Nevada Democrat wants to use campaign cash from the Searchlight Leadership Fund, his leadership PAC, to pay an aide to help clean out his office, book post-Senate media appearances and cover other costs associated with winding down his tenure in leadership and the Senate.
According to an Oct. 22 letter that Reid’s lawyers sent to the FEC, the assistant would “review, organize and arrange for transportation and storage of archival and office materials; manage officially-related correspondence; fact-check and draft materials relating to [his] tenure in office; schedule and organize appearances in which Leader Reid will discuss his tenure in office; and perform related clerical duties.”
The States
MPR News: Minnesota to pay $100,000 in lawyer fees in campaign lawsuit
Associated Press
A settlement involving Minnesota campaign regulators requires the state to pay more than $100,000 in costs and attorney fees for a group that sued over contribution limits.
A letter submitted Monday to a federal judge says the settlement could be ratified this month by a panel of state lawmakers. It would then go before U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank for approval.
The Institute for Justice sued in 2014 over a law capping the number of large donations that candidates could accept before facing lower contribution limits. The group argued it was an infringement on free speech and the judge suspended the caps.
Oregon Register-Guard: Campaign reform activists look to curb Oregon contribution limits
Associated Press
Daniel Lewkow of Common Cause Oregon said if the Legislature does not pass a bill putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot to curb campaign contributions his group will work to collect the 177,000 signatures to do it themselves.
“People like legislators to act on issues, not to ignore issues,” Lewkow said last week, adding that voters “cannot be more clear that they want them to act on money in politics.”
Reuters: Maine to vote on revamping pioneering campaign-finance law
Associated Press
Maine is set to vote Tuesday on a measure proponents hope will revitalize the state’s pioneering system of public campaign finance, once hailed as a model for the United States but now criticized by opponents who call it “welfare for politicians.”…
The controversial Maine ballot question underscores the increasingly tense national debate over how best to regulate campaign finance in the wake of Citizens United, the landmark 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed unlimited independent spending by corporations and labor unions in election campaigns.
