CCP
Enabling the Harassment of Donors for Their Beliefs is Not Free Speech
Joe Albanese
To make his point, Donlan quotes Harry S. Truman: “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” Maybe that sentiment rings true for professional politicians. Some may also have little sympathy to muster for wealthy private donors, like Charles and David Koch, George Soros, Tom Steyer, or Michael Bloomberg, who, at least in the Kochs’ case, have been publicly denounced by elected officials for their advocacy efforts.
But this is a cavalier attitude to possess about individuals who face retaliation from, say, their boss or colleagues, because of a $250 donation to Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz. Such a consequence will only discourage Americans from getting involved in politics. No one should have to “stay out of the kitchen” for fear of harassment.
A question for Mr. Donlan: if there is no reasonable expectation of anonymous political speech, why stop at donations? We could disclose everyone who volunteers for a candidate or cause; attends a protest, meeting, or event; buys political bumper stickers, yard signs, or other merchandise; comments on the internet; or calls into a radio station. Oh, and we might as well do away with the secret ballot too. After all, what would make the political system more transparent than a complete, open record of all Americans’ political activities?
FEC
NBC Washington: Deadlock: FEC Commissioners Say They’re Failing to Investigate Campaign Violations
Tisha Thompson, et. al.
“People know that they can stretch the law and pretty much violate the law and there will be no enforcement,” FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel said in an interview with the I-Team.
“When people go to vote,” she said, “they should have the confidence that the Federal Election Commission did its job to root out corruption and to look for anyone who’s cheating before this presidential election. I don’t think voters can have that kind of confidence.”…
Petersen and the other two Republican commissioners provided a four-page statement to the I-Team explaining their interpretation of the law, which they explained is a “commitment to First Amendment rights” and “requires that a higher evidentiary threshold be met before the Commission launches an investigation into a person’s political activities and associations.”
RNLA: FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel on Disloyal Americans – A Gilda Radner Moment
Michael B. Thielen
Ravel’s proposal presumed that American citizens who work for Chrysler or Ben & Jerry’s are inherently disloyal Americans. When confronted with this mistaken premise, she at first doubled down, but 55 minutes later, after it sunk in, she changed her mind. Changing her tune, she said that perhaps she had not portrayed her concern correctly, that perhaps American citizens who work for Chrysler could be trusted, and the FEC simply needed greater assurances that Chrysler employees were indeed exercising America-first loyalties. It ended with a “never mind” moment.
Ravel for weeks had demagogued a false premise. And she completely missed that the advisory opinion she assailed, along with a dozen or more that preceded it and post-dated it, indeed set forth an elaborate set of guardrails to ensure that Americans associating in corporate-sponsored PACs make their political decisions free from foreign national participation or influence.
Washington Examiner: Regulator: Internet subjecting U.S. elections to foreign influence
Rudy Takala
“There’s all this money funneling through the Internet that probably comes from foreign sources, which is clearly illegal, and we don’t know it, and we don’t have the ability to get that information,” she added.
Ravel, a Democrat who last year filled her agency’s rotating chairmanship, has been criticized over claims that she supports regulating speech on the Internet. Ravel denied that was the case, and has said the issue is really about foreign money.
The Hill: Court rules against FEC in ad case
Jonathan Swan
A U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday that the country’s top election watchdog misinterpreted campaign finance law when it dismissed a progressive group’s complaints against two conservative organizations…
The FEC initially dismissed CREW’s complaints, finding no reason to believe that either group was spending most of their money on electoral politics…
Charlie Spies, a campaign finance lawyer who oversaw super-PACs supporting GOP presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, said, “Judge Cooper’s ruling is significant because it is the first evidence of success for CREW’s forum shopping strategy to limit political speech by non-profit organizations.”
“CREW is engaging in a well-funded effort to limit the speech of issue organizations that it disagrees with,” he added, “and this case is a partial victory for CREW because they found a judge to say the controlling FEC Commissioners’ ruling was arbitrary and capricious.”
Independent Groups
Washington Post: In major shift, Koch consolidates network of advocacy groups into Americans for Prosperity
Matea Gold
Network leaders cast the surprising move as a way to operate more efficiently and better coordinate their organizing reach on the ground, which has increasingly become the focus of the operation. The change means that three smaller groups that target Latinos, veterans and millennials will now operate as part of AFP. The leaders of the LIBRE Initiative, Concerned Veterans for America and Generation Opportunity are all expected to remain in place, but will be running their organizations as branded projects under the AFP banner.
“For us, the way to be most effective, particularly this election cycle, heading into final weeks, and most importantly into 2017 and beyond, is with our grass-roots operation,” Mark Holden, chairman of the board of Freedom Partners, the network’s funding arm, said in an interview. “What we’ve done in combining them under AFP is going to make us much stronger.”
Supreme Court
GW Today: Elena Kagan: ‘Every Case is Consequential’
Ruth Steinhardt
At the end of the conversation, a student asked which case during her time on the bench was, in her opinion, the most consequential.
“Every case is consequential to someone,” Justice Kagan said. “You owe it to that someone to approach everything with a high degree of seriousness.
“Sometimes my clerks, I think, are amused and surprised by this,” she continued. “We’ll spend as much time on some abstruse question of civil procedure that no newspaper is going to report on as we will talking about the case that’s going to land on the front page of the New York Times. And I think that’s the way it should be.”
IRS
ATR: Koskinen’s IRS Failed to Search Five of Six Locations for Lois Lerner Emails
Alexander Hendrie
According to TIGTA official Timothy Camus, the IRS had six possible sources to search for Lois Lerner’s emails:
“The hard drive would have been a source, Blackberry source, backup tapes a source, the backup tapes for the server drives and then finally the loaner lap tops.”
When asked how many of these sources the IRS searched, Camus was unable to say for certain whether the IRS had searched for any. While Camus did acknowledge that agency employees initially checked her hard drive, it appears that more could have been done to recover data from this source. Instead, all data was deemed unrecoverable after a brief search:
“We’re not aware that they searched any one in particular. They did – it appears they did look into initially whether or not the hard drive had been destroyed, but they didn’t go much further than that.”
Influence
NPR: Bill Clinton: ‘It’s Hard’ To Think About Leaving Foundation
Arnie Seipel
Bill Clinton says that out of the hundreds of thousands of donors to the Clinton Foundation over the past 18 years, there must have been some people who gave to the foundation to gain influence with him and his wife.
But the former president told NPR that doesn’t mean any donors received anything improperly.
“It was natural for people who’ve been our political allies and personal friends to call and ask for things. And I trusted the State Department wouldn’t do anything they shouldn’t do,” Clinton told Steve Inskeep in an interview broadcast Monday on Morning Edition.
Candidates and Campaigns
Politico: 50-day countdown begins
Alex Isenstadt and Gabriel Debenedetti
Last week, Smart Media Group, a media buying firm that works with the Republican National Committee, sent an email to a group of top Trump advisers, including campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, TV ad maker Larry Weitzner, and senior communications adviser Jason Miller, briefing them on the latest in commercial spending.
The numbers were startling. As of Sept. 12, the email noted, Trump had spent $17 million on TV ads, a small fraction of the $126 million Clinton had invested. When outside groups were added to the mix, Trump’s deficit was even greater — $33 million to Clinton’s $244 million.
The States
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri high court denies appeal on campaign finance limits
Associated Press
A Missouri initiative to re-instate campaign contribution limits has cleared its final legal hurdle to appear on the November ballot.
The state Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request to hear a challenge of the proposed constitutional amendment…
The Supreme Court let stand an appeals court decision from last week, which said opponents must wait until after the election to raise claims that the measure violates free speech and association rights.
NW News Network: Tax Dollars For Political Campaigns? It’s On Washington’s Ballot
Austin Jenkins
Washington voters would each earn $150 in so-called “democracy credits” to spend in support of candidates who agree to abide by a set of restrictions. Initially, the program would apply just to candidates for the state legislature in even-year elections.
Funding for the “democracy credits” would come from closing a tax exemption that allows Oregon residents to shop tax-free in Washington.
“This is coercive, political donations that are taken from our tax money,” said I-1464 opponent Paul Guppy of the Washington Policy Center, a right-of-center think tank. He said tax dollars have no business in partisan politics.
“That is public money that is going to a candidate that me or my neighbors might be working to defeat,” Guppy said. “So you end up being in the ironic situation that your neighbor is designating tax money to a candidate that you strongly oppose.”
New Mexican: Ban on fundraising during special session looms large ahead of elections
Andrew Oxford
The moment Gov. Susana Martinez signs a proclamation for a special legislative session, state law will prohibit legislators from raising money for their campaigns until they adjourn, leaving less time for House and Senate members in tight races to fill their war chests before the Nov. 8 election.
The ban — standard anytime legislators convene — could also influence the year’s most contentious statewide race. Rep. Nora Espinoza, R-Roswell, and her campaign would be prohibited from raising money for her bid to become secretary of state.
Legislators anticipate the governor will call them back to the Capitol this month to pay down the state’s budget deficit and perhaps address other hot-button issues, such as her interest in reviving the death penalty.
San Antonio Express-News: Texas Ethics Commission unsure if AG’s Office will defend agency in future lawsuits
David Saleh Rauf
The Texas Ethics Commission says it’s not clear if Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office is willing to defend the agency in future litigation— and, as a result, is asking budget writers for a huge pot of reserve cash if it has to hire outside lawyers to handle court fights.
Commission officials will make their case Monday to staff from the Legislative Budget Board for an extra $300,000 during the 2018-2019 budget cycle to cover possible legal costs for private attorneys.
The additional money, commission officials say, is needed because of uncertainty that has been sowed by the attorney general refusing to represent the agency in a recent lawsuit.
