In the News
Cato: Podcast: Can Spending Corrupt a Ballot Initiative?
Allen Dickerson and Trevor Burrus
The Supreme Court has an opportunity to clarify that spending money to influence voters on a ballot initiative isn’t a corrupting influence. Allen Dickerson with the Center for Competitive Politics and Cato’s Trevor Burrus comment.
CCP
Comments to the SEC on MSRB and FINRA Pay-to-Play Rules
David Keating
Under both rules, a municipal advisor or broker-dealer is barred for two years from doing business with any municipal entity to which it or a MAP or covered associate has made a political contribution (other than a permitted de minimis contribution). FINRA enforces both rules, and violation of the rules are subject to the full range of FINRA’s sanctions, including expulsion from membership (for municipal advisors or broker-dealers) and permanent bars from working in the securities industry (for MAPs and covered associates), as well as draconian civil money penalties and other relief.
Executive Action
The Hill: Obama considers campaign finance executive order
Jonathan Swan
If Obama issues this order, as The New York Times suggests is likely, it would be a rare offering from a president who came to office promising major changes to campaign finance law but who has disappointed activists who say he has done nothing to stem the flow of special-interest money into elections.
While the most significant actions to curb the influence of money require either Supreme Court action or congressional legislation — and Obama faces a Republican Party opposed to either — an executive order on disclosure is a unilateral move that reformers have been urging for years.
Roll Call: McConnell Counts Down Days Until Obama Leaves
Niels Lesniewski
In this particular battle, McConnell may find common ground with Sen. John McCain. The Republican from Arizona has sparred with the current majority leader on campaign finance questions, with McConnell leading the charge against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
But asked if there should be White House action on campaign finance, McCain said, “of course not.”
“It wouldn’t matter if I totally supported it, he shouldn’t act by executive order,” McCain said. “All of us take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. What he does is he gives ammunition to the opponents, and then they have great difficulty when it comes time to sit down and work on things. If he’s going to use an executive order, it’s probably going to have to go right to the courts.”
Independent Groups
Bloomberg: What Kind of Man Spends Millions to Elect Ted Cruz?
Zachary Mider
Critics warned that Citizens United would bring about a new era of corporate influence in politics, with companies and businesspeople buying elections to promote their financial interests. So far, that hasn’t happened much; big corporations, for instance, still play a negligible role in presidential election spending. Instead, a small group of billionaires has flooded races with ideologically tinged contributions. The result has been a shift in power away from the political parties and toward the whims of the donors themselves. In part, this explains the large number and variety of candidates fielded by the Republicans in 2016.
Daily Beast: How Citizens United Gave Us Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump
Jay Michaelson
Citizens United didn’t just unleash corporate spending; it enabled the creation of a whole new vehicle for influencing elections: super PACs. These pseudo-corporations don’t have to disclose their donors and can spend unlimited amounts on elections, as long as they’re not officially coordinating with specific candidates (which has turned out to be a joke).
Once the floodgates were opened, super PACs deluged local and national elections with money. In 2014’s senate races, outside groups spent $486 million, twice the amount they spent in 2010 before Citizens United.
Congress
Associated Press: Fundraising ‘do not call’? Florida lawmaker swears it off
Julie Bykowicz
The Republican in one of the year’s most competitive — and expensive — Senate races says that as of this month he personally has sworn off fundraising. He’s leaving that duty to his professional campaign fundraisers, vowing not to spend a single second of his own time wooing donors.
The unusual proclamation is born out of frustration, he says. For two years, he has seen firsthand how the chore of buck-raking has overtaken the business of legislating…
There are signs that tactic is trickling down the ballot, with talk in Congress of a “campaign finance caucus” that can devote time to the issue. The federal lawmakers speaking out against money in politics sound a bit self-loathing as they do so.
Wisconsin ‘John Doe’
Courthouse News Service: New Wrinkle in Wis. Campaign Finance Probe
Molly Willms
Two targets of a secret campaign-finance probe hamstrung by the Wisconsin Supreme Court say the recently ousted investigator made misrepresentations about his searches and subpoenas.
Named pseudonymously in the filing, Unnamed Movants 6 and 7 say former special prosecutor Francis Schmitz failed to comply with a court order to return property and disclose all search activity.
Schmitz has since been stripped of all his authority, ordered to return or destroy all seized items and documents and provide details of past searches. Since then, three democratic district attorneys, including Milwaukee’s John Chisholm, have intervened .
Donor Access
More Soft Money Hard Law: Political Self-Interest II: The Boundaries of “Ingratiation and Access”
Bob Bauer
The politician who holds public office can be expected to make the most of official position to advance the prospect of reelection or advancement, and this will mean special handling of political significant matters or the interests of political supporters. The Supreme Court in Citizens United and McCutcheon has concluded that the “ingratiation and access” associated with political support are not a problem of corruption.
But the case law and commentary sometimes dress up the politics in claims about the importance of freeing politicians to have contact with voters and constituents– to learn from them, to stay close to the people etc. It is suggested that what is at stake is democracy. The complexities of the political art, which include what it takes to be a successful politician, are delicately kept out out of the discussion.
Candidates and Campaigns
Center for Public Integrity: Tracking TV ads in the 2016 presidential race
Chris Zubak-Skees
As candidates claw their way through presidential primary season, TV audiences across the country are being bombarded with political ads from campaigns, political action committees, super PACs, parties and nonprofit groups. Fueled in large part by loosened restrictions on political spending, an ongoing Center for Public Integrity analysis of data from ad monitoring service Kantar Media/CMAG provides a picture of who is on the air, and where.
NPR: NPR’s Interview With Hillary Clinton
Ari Shapiro
Bernie Sanders has said he would have a litmus test. Anybody he would nominate would have to commit to overturning the Citizens United campaign finance decision. Would you have a litmus test? What would your criteria be?
Well, I believe strongly that we need Supreme Court justices who truly understand the impact of their decisions, and I think some of the recent decisions — Citizens United being one, voting rights being others, the extension of more and more rights to corporations vis-a-vis real people — I think has created some unintended consequences. So I would want somebody who understands when you blow open the door and say money is speech and you have a, in my view, somewhat misguided hope that all of the money that would then be pouring into our political system would be disclosed in real time — which, of course, it is not and in some instances never is — that you would have someone who has … experience as a lawyer, as a judge in the real world who would say, hey wait a minute, that really undermines and corrupts our political system.
The States
KRTV Great Falls: Motl further outlines campaign-finance case against GOP Rep. Wittich
Mike Dennison
“There is a group of entities organized around and with National Right to Work that provided unreported, undisclosed, paid personal services to a group of candidates in the 2010 primary elections,” Motl told MTN News this week.
Motl outlined the allegations in documents he filed in court late last week, as part of his civil complaint against state Rep. Art Wittich, R-Bozeman – who bought services from one of the groups.
Wittich’s case is scheduled to go to trial in late March before a Helena state judge, when Motl will try to prove that Wittich and the groups violated state campaign laws.
Motl says Wittich received services from the collection of groups for which he did not pay – and that those unreported services amount to illegal, corporate campaign contributions.
Charleston Gazette-Mail: House committee advances bill to toughen campaign finance reporting
David Gutman
The West Virginia House Judiciary Committee moved to strengthen campaign finance reporting rules on Wednesday, advancing a bill that would require candidates to promptly disclose contributions received while the Legislature is in session.
The bill, which passed on a bipartisan voice vote, would require candidates to disclose such contributions greater than $250 within 10 calendar days of receiving them.
It applies both to legislative candidates and to candidates for statewide office — governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, and agriculture commissioner.
CBS St. Louis: Nixon Focuses on Ethics in Final State of the State Speech
Associated Press
His speech Wednesday night echoed parts of his first address to lawmakers after assuming office in 2009, when he implored the Legislature to “pass a real campaign finance reform bill.” He has called for some kind of ethics revamp in every State of the State since.
“Missouri’s ethics laws are a disgrace, the weakest in the nation,” Nixon said. He went on to say Missouri needs to “clean up its act.”
Event Reminder: CCP-Cato Institute Conference on January 26, 2015: The Past and Future of Buckley v. Valeo
On January 30, 1976, the United States Supreme Court handed down Buckley v. Valeo, still its most important decision at the intersection of campaign finance and the First Amendment. The Court brought forth a per curiam opinion that invalidated significant parts of the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act. The Buckley Court denied Congress the power to limit campaign spending. But not completely. The same Court decided Congress could restrict contributions to candidates to prevent quid pro quo corruption or “the appearance of corruption.” Giving citizens an “equal voice” in elections, however, could not justify suppressing speech.
Buckley remains a vital precedent that restrains and empowers Congress. But should Buckley be considered a First Amendment failure? Or did it embrace inevitable compromises that were both worse and better than everyone desired? How does Buckley affect the law and American politics and campaigning today? Does the decision have a future? Please join us to discuss these essential questions of First Amendment law and politics.
The January 26 event is free of charge and will be held at The Cato Institute at 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW in Washington, DC. The program will begin at 9:00 AM and conclude at 12:30 PM with a luncheon to follow. Speakers are still being finalized, but CCP Chairman Bradley A. Smith will be speaking. More information, including an agenda, can be found here. All those interested in attending should RSVP at the following link.
