In the News
The Hill: Before reforming the FEC look at Montana’s mess
Paul Jossey
One corollary to the political-money obsession is the complaint that Federal Election Commission enforcement for alleged wrongdoers is too feeble. Critics say its bipartisan structure hampers its ability to regulate all this spending. But the commission’s structure is no accident. As the Center for Competitive Politics noted last year, it was part of the fallout from President Nixon’s partisan skullduggery. Nixon built an enemies list. The White House implemented a staff memo to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”
Despite the ominous history, progressives insist campaign regulation requires a strongman. A fearless enforcer, imposing Congressional will. Someone who will take the law to its most speech-limiting extreme. And leave pesky constitutional concerns to others…
But power when regulating campaign speech is no virtue. Congress need not enact WTPA to see this model’s deleterious effects. Our democratic laboratories already created one.
Daily Signal: Connecticut Limits Free Speech Using Campaign Finance Rules
Fred Lucas
The state’s sanction against the legislative candidates was for mentioning Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, a Democrat, by name in mailings that referenced “Malloy’s bad policies” and “Malloy’s tax hike” for their own races in 2014, when Malloy was also on the ballot. The lawmakers used similar reference in campaign literature this year and in 2012, but face no sanction because Malloy appeared on the 2014 ballot….
“What Connecticut is trying to do is both ridiculous and likely unconstitutional,” Keating told The Daily Signal in an email.
Still, Keating added that politicizing a program was likely inevitable once the state has the purse strings to campaign funding.
“A government that funds speech will seek to control that speech,” Keating said. “Bureaucrats who control the funding will try to penalize candidates for trivial violations.”
New London Day: Campaign finance reform vs. reality
Paul H. Jossey
Polls show most people view political spending negatively, as an ill-defined corruption. Candidates notice. Many presidential candidates this year heaped scorn upon “big money,” Super PACs, “dark money,” and so on.
That politicians would embrace popular, feel-good platitudes in an attempt to win support is unremarkable. More interesting is how these former candidates who want more speech limits behaved when the pressure to win conflicts with their rhetoric…
Dan Malloy became the first Connecticut gubernatorial candidate to take public campaign funds. His $6.5 million taxpayer haul included a sworn promise to forgo private contributions over $100. But when reformer bona fides collided with a close reelection, rules became optional. State Democrats helped their vulnerable candidate spending over $300,000 on mailers using prohibited cash.
CCP
CEOs May Influence Their Employees’ Contributions – and That’s Okay
Joe Albanese
In sum, there is no widespread conspiracy among CEOs and corporate executives to force, fool, or bribe employees into supporting their narrow political interests. It is both reasonable and transparent for executives to share their or their firms’ political preferences with the public or with employees. Individual contributions are not publicly disclosed below $200, so the potential for rewarding, shaming, or punishing individual employees is low. (Ironically, it is regulatory activists who want more public disclosure.) Loosening disclosure requirements and raising this exceedingly low threshold would make it even more difficult for executives and managers to see their employees’ contributions. This would ensure that those who take their employers’ judgement into account when contributing are doing so completely voluntarily.
Why should we put so much stock in the political speech rights of business executives? Despite the unnecessary controversy surrounding this subject, speech coming from a business is not much different than speech coming from a union or an advocacy group. If individuals do not surrender their free speech rights when they combine their resources into a larger organization, it shouldn’t make much of a difference if that organization makes a profit by providing goods and services to customers.
Independent Groups
CRP: Super PAC spending hits $500 million, while 501(c)s hit the brakes
Soo Rin Kim
The two biggest spending super PACs? Conservative groups that supported candidates who dropped out several months ago, Right to Rise USA, which supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Conservative Solutions PAC, which propped up Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. The two groups still maintain a lead over Priorities USA Action, which backs Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton — though that will change…
While super PACs have poured a record amount of cash into this election cycle, spending by dark money groups and politically active nonprofits overall has slowed compared to its volume in 2012.
By this time in 2012, 501(c) nonprofit groups had spent about $63 million, or about 22 percent of all $289 million in outside spending. But so far this cycle, these nonprofits reported outlays of $62 million — a mere 9 percent of the $660 million in total outside money spent.
Daily Caller: The People And The Power
Dan Backer
In the self-congratulatory echo chamber of Washington, it’s easy to attack outsiders for doing exactly what insiders did to achieve power: build organizations, raise money, hire staff, pay vendors, promote ideas. But when Washington insiders stop listening, voters will find someone who will. Those tired of the status quo recognize the truest thing said by both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders: you will never solve the problem by giving power over and over again to the same people who created, and profit from, the problem. Political elites will always try to silence outsiders in favor of a system where they write the rules and rig the game. That’s something “Bernie’s Revolution” learned the hard way.
The Hill: Vigilant companies can avert Watergate scandal replay
Karl Sandstrom and Bruce Freed
During a banner election season for big spending and so-called “dark money,” companies and their directors face threats from spending political money similar to those connected to the Watergate complex break-in. Today’s business leaders must deliberately confront the modern-day risks, not consign them to the history books…
Some of the new arrivals make a “dark money” pledge that their donors will never be disclosed. Others assure donors that they’re complying fully with all applicable laws. Often missing from their money requests is the most basic information about a recipient group’s internal governance, its actual pre- and post-election plans and any reporting commitments to donors.
CPI: Super PAC that seemingly scammed James Bond actor fined
Michael Beckel
The Federal Election Commission today announced a $7,150 fine against a shady super PAC that seemingly scammed nearly $50,000 from “James Bond” actor Daniel Craig as well as additional funds from scores of lesser-known donors.
The super PAC, known as Americans Socially United, was launched in 2015 to support Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had denounced super PACs — and Americans Socially United in particular — during his primary bid against Hillary Clinton.
It was operated by alleged fraudster Cary Lee Peterson, a self-described “congressional lobbyist and election campaign guru” who the FBI arrested earlier this year in connection with a securities fraud case.
American Prospect: Nonprofit Structure Backfires on ‘Our Revolution’
Eliza Newlin Carney
Even more troubling to some progressives was the suggestion by some campaign-finance watchdogs that as a sitting federal lawmaker, Sanders might have violated election laws by setting up a nonprofit organization. Campaign-finance laws subject any entity “directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained or controlled by” a federal official or candidate to strict limits on the size and source of contributions. But tax-exempt organizations operate outside those campaign-finance and disclosure rules.
“I believe it is unprecedented for a federal office holder to set up a (c)(4) to get involved in candidate elections,” says Paul S. Ryan, deputy executive director of the Campaign Legal Center. Even if Sanders has no current role in the organization, says Ryan, any Sanders-established group would have to raise money under the campaign-finance regulations.
Baltimore Sun: Van Hollen camp jumps gun on outside group
John Fritze
Van Hollen’s campaign is referring to a recently formed political entity called Move Maryland Forward, which might be “shadowy,” but which analysts said does not appear to meet the definition of a “dark money” group. And it’s too early to claim the group is refusing to disclose donors.
The group, which has spent $31,500 on billboards, wasn’t created until late July, so it did not have any donors to disclose in the second quarter of 2016, the most recent period for which campaign finance reports have been released…
spokesman for the group, the Annapolis political consultant Kelley Rogers, said it intends to be a super PAC, an entity that may raise unlimited sums of money but which also must disclose its donors.
FEC
CPI: Federal Election Commission questions existence of ‘God’
Carrie Levine
“Dear Candidate,” began the letter the FEC’s Reports Analysis Division sent to God for President, H. Majesty Satan Lord of Underworld Prince of Darkness!, Captain Crunch, Rocky Balboa and a cast of other characters seeking to challenge Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include an accurate name of the candidate and an accurate principal campaign committee … when you filed FEC Form 2.”
The Courts
Covington and Burling, LLP: The Senate’s District Court Win in the Backpage Subpoena Fight Could Have Significant Implications for Congressional Investigations
Brian D. Smith, Robert Kelner and Derek Lawlor
Finally, and potentially most significant, it appears that the D.C. Circuit will have an opportunity to address the limitations that constitutional protections place on congressional investigations. Although Congress takes a dim view of many privileges and protections, including the attorney-client privilege and executive privilege, Congress readily acknowledges that it is bound by constitutional limitations such as the First Amendment. There is very little recent case law addressing constitutional protections in the context of congressional investigations, even as the Supreme Court’s views on the First Amendment and other constitutional rights have evolved over recent decades.
Candidates and Campaigns
Washington Post: How Trump charms wealthy donors in private — by seeking their advice
Matea Gold
Private meetings with top contributors turn into strategy brainstorming sessions. High-priced dinner fundraisers are transformed into impromptu focus groups.
During a July lunch at a Southampton, N.Y., estate, he spent at least an hour asking the 60 heavyweight contributors in attendance to each share their pick of whom he should tap as his running mate. At a photo line with donors in Minneapolis in August, he polled whether he should continue using a teleprompter at public events.
At a mountainside chateau in Aspen last week, he quizzed locals about how the campaign could better compete in Colorado. And in a pistachio orchard outside a supporter’s home in Tulare, Calif., this week, he queried farmers about how to create a “permit” system for undocumented workers.
Reuters: One secret of Trump’s low-cost campaign: free labor
Michael Conlin and Grant Smith
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has run an unusually cheap campaign in part by not paying at least 10 top staffers, consultants and advisers, some of whom are no longer with the campaign, according to a review of federal campaign finance filings.
Those who have so far not been paid, the filings show, include recently departed campaign manager Paul Manafort, California state director Tim Clark, communications director Michael Caputo and a pair of senior aides who left the campaign in June to immediately go to work for a Trump Super PAC.
The States
Sacramento Bee: Public financing of elections could expand in California
Jeremy B. White
Publicly financed election campaigns, long a goal of reformers who decry the role of money in politics, could proceed in many California locales under legislation sent to Gov. Jerry Brown Wednesday.
Such campaigns have been largely prohibited in California since 1988, when voters both barred publicly financed campaigns and imposed limits on direct campaign donations. Publicly financed campaigns essentially give public dollars to qualified candidates, whether it’s a match to private donations or a public lump sum that limits taking private money…
Senate Bill 1107, by Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, would overturn that ban.
News and Observer: Ethics panel: Donations can buy clothes but not clean them
Seanna Adcox
It’s OK for state representatives to use campaign cash to buy clothes for the Statehouse, but it’s never OK to pay the dry cleaning tab with donations, the House Ethics Committee said Thursday.
That advice is part of a committee-approved list of what House members can and can’t legally buy with donations. It won’t be used to punish past spending.
