In the News
Oklahoman: Citizens United remains one of Democrats’ favorite boogeymen
Editorial Board
It was Obama who famously sounded the alarm about Citizens United when he called out the high court’s justices during his 2011 State of the Union speech. He warned it would “open the floodgates of special interests …” Opponents have run with that narrative ever since. Say something often enough, and maybe it’ll stick.
But as Bradley A. Smith, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, noted in a Reuters article last year as the five-year anniversary of the decision approached, “political spending has not exploded under Citizens United.”
Instead, Smith noted that total political spending in 2014, after adjusting for inflation, was only 1.5 percent higher than in 2006, which was the last midterm election before Citizens United.
Supposedly ruinous “outside spending” hasn’t choked the system, either. It comprised 13 percent of total political spending in 2014, Smith said. In 2000, a decade before Citizens United, the total was 17 percent.
Tax-Financed Campaigns
Reason: Imbalance of Campaign Cash Doesn’t Bother Democrats This Election
Ira Stoll
This imbalance of campaign cash — Mr. Trump’s shoestring campaign struggling to subsist on less than half of Mrs. Clinton’s vast fortune — is precisely the sort of “inequality” that Democrats and even the occasional misguided Republican often propose to deal with by means of government redistribution of wealth.
It’s almost enough to make a cynic suspect that the left’s support for campaign finance “reform” of this sort isn’t really about “encouraging competition” at all, but more about providing a kind of welfare subsidy for candidates that the left favors.
A lot of newspaper editorial writers and left-wing Democrats favor campaign finance “reform” that includes taxpayer-financed campaigns and strict spending limits. These same newspaper editorial writers and left-wing Democrats also think that Donald Trump is a coarse and ignorant bigot who is unfit for any public office. Holding those two views simultaneously puts them in a predicament, because following their positions to their consistent, logical conclusion would dictate that their own tax dollars be taken from them and given to a candidate they think is a bigot. It would also dictate that the anti-bigot candidate—Clinton—be forced to limit her spending against the bigot.
Independent Groups
Washington Post: Koch network seeks to defuse donor frustration over Trump rebuff
Matea Gold
Later, in a closed session for donors in one of the Broadmoor resort’s rose-colored villas, Koch and senior network officials detailed their reasons for staying out of the presidential contest. The 700 major contributors who support the organization were divided over the GOP nominee, they told attendees, and they think the network will have a greater influence by focusing on Senate races instead of splitting its resources.
But their main argument came down to credibility: If the network lent its weight to bolster Trump, who does not share the organization’s positions on such core issues as free trade and limited government, how could it deny similar support to any other Republican in the future?
Washington Post: Women are finally breaking into the top tier of political donors
Matea Gold
So far, 37 women rank among the top 150 donors to super PACs this cycle, according to federal campaign finance data analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics and The Washington Post. That includes some of the largest contributors, such as Wisconsin roofing company billionaire Diane Hendricks, Bay Area clinical researcher Laure Woods and Marlene Ricketts, the matriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs.
Together, the biggest female donors of 2016 contributed nearly $63 million to super PACs through the end of June. That puts them on track to surpass major female donors in the 2012 elections, when 31 women made it on to the top 150 list and gave super PACs a combined $70 million.
IRS
Daily Caller: New FBI Docs Show IRS Tea Party Applications To ‘Black Hole’
Ethan Barton
The IRS sent applications associated with the Tea Party to “Group 7822,” a special team apparently developed specifically to snare targeted organizations’ tax exemption requests, FBI narratives of interviews called “302s” obtained by watchdog Judicial Watch show.
“The FBI 302 interviews with Cincinnati IRS employees reveal that the agency adopted a series of policies seemingly assuring that Tea Party and other conservative group tax exempt applications would not be approved before the November 2012 presidential election,” a Judicial Watch statement said.
Lobbying
The Intercept: In the Hillary Clinton Era, Democrats Welcome Lobbying Money Back Into the Convention
Zaid Jilani and Alex Emmons
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley made attacks on special interests a cornerstone of his short-lived Democratic presidential primary campaign — decrying Hillary Clinton’s “cozy relationship with Wall Street.” Just a few short months later, his concern about moneyed interests influencing the Democratic Party seem to have evaporated.
“I’m really kind of agnostic on it,” he said. “I really don’t care one way or another.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland ducked the question. “It’s above my paygrade,” he quipped.
Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said he would never have banned lobbyists like Obama did in the first place. “I wouldn’t have done it,” he said. “It’s not a matter of wrong or right. It’s a matter of making sure we have the resources to put on a convention.”
Conventions
Newsweek: Despite Controversies, Corporate Money Flowed At Conventions
Emily Cadei
Leading into the conventions, the focus had been on companies like Apple, JP Morgan Chase and Ford Motor, all of which declined to sponsor either the Democrats’ conclave last week in Philadelphia or the Republicans’ counterpart the week before in Cleveland. Apple, in particular, made headlines in June for pulling out over Donald Trump’s controversial candidacy. The heated criticism of big money in politics—in both parties’ primaries—has also spooked some traditional donors. But the DNC email leak, campaign finances records and on-the-ground evidence from the past two weeks show that many, many other interests with heavy lobbying presences in Washington and state capitals came to play.
Influence
BBC News: The Simpsons mock Donald Trump and endorse Hillary Clinton
The standalone clip, entitled 3am, has been posted on YouTube.
Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with a copy of a book called Great Speeches by A. Hitler in the video.
When Homer signals that he might vote for Trump, Marge says: “If that’s your vote, I question whether I can ever be with you again.”
Homer replies: “And that’s how I became a Democrat.”
Candidates and Campaigns
CPI: Democrats want reform — but court big money in the meantime
Carrie Levine and Michael Beckel
Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, while surveying the Ritz lobby, said he and many other lawmakers live a “dual existence.”
By day, Wyden said, he crafts and fights for legislation that would require more disclosure and transparency in campaign finance and reduce the influence of big donors.
And then, he said, “my staff sends me home at 7 or 8 o’clock at night with a bunch of call sheets to call people on the West Coast … and I’m calling with my little tin cup out.”
More Soft Money Hard Law: Political Morality and the Trump Candidacy
Bob Bauer
Of course, the politician who engages in odious conduct while denying it has no call on the voters’ admiration. But just the public tribute paid to moral standards is connected to the “habit of reluctance” the electorate might hope for in a politician who considers a morally dubious or flawed course of action. That the politician feels he must deny his duplicity or promise-breaking suggests that, at some level, he feels that honesty and promise-keeping counts, and in that recognition is the potential, down the line, that he will recognize some limit.
Some voters may be enchanted with his forthrightness about Trump’s program. Voters like the sound of winning. They will also have to appreciate that the deal he is offering is the whole deal, in all of its parts—including that part in which he can walk away from it as he chooses, whenever he conceives it in his interest to do so. In this world of the deal, self-interest rules and decisiveness in pursuing that self-interest is prized: there is no question of a “habit of reluctance.”
The States
Nashville Public Radio: Georgia Resident Runs In Tennessee Republican Primary, While Offering Donors Get-Rich Secrets
Michael Edward Miller
This might sound like something out of a late-night infomercial, but Allan Levene says he will offer get-rich seminars on how to “create a substantial income without having to go to work ever again” to top campaign donors, according to his campaign website. He calls it a “unique sweetener” to compel people to donate.
“If I win, then I will reveal to them techniques they’ve never even heard of, that I’ve developed … which I applied probably 10 years ago and have proven very effective,” Levene says.
Don’t Comply: Tax-Payers Forced to Fund Local Campaigns in Seattle
Andre’ Gabriel Esparza
All the talk of campaign finance reform that we’ve heard from the mouths of some politicians and the talking heads in the media has come to fruition. Another money grab disguised again as a tax has reared its ugly head in Seattle, Washington.
Labeled “Initiative 122”, passed with 60% saying yes to more money taken from them, and 40% saying no to having their hard-earned income extorted. Seattle will now be the country’s 1st city to issue taxpayer-funded “democracy vouchers.” …
The so-called “Honest Elections” campaign raked-in 52% of its cash from outside of the Seattle city limits. With the chip-ins averaging out to be around $7,134 in contrast to the $166 that was thrown in the cage match between Kshama Stewart and Pamela Banks in the year’s City Council election that turned out to be the most expensive city election in Seattle’s history.
