In the News
Ed. Note: IFS Communications Director Luke Wachob joins FreedomWorks Federal Affairs Manager Dan Savickas to discuss the threats to First Amendment rights in H.R. 1.
Supreme Court
Billings Gazette: Gazette opinion: Montana campaign rule withstands Supreme challenge
Eight years of litigation to abolish Montana’s campaign contribution limits ended Monday with two words from the U.S. Supreme Court: certiorari denied.
Lair v. Mangan was among dozens of cases that the nation’s highest court declined to review in an order issued Monday.
The high court order allows the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to stand. The court upheld Montanans’ authority to limit how much money a contributor may donate to a candidate for public office…
The Montana Attorney General’s Office successfully defended the state contribution law, starting when Democrat Steve Bullock was attorney general and concluding under the leadership of Republican Tim Fox.
“I’ve never heard any Montanan say we need more money in politics and I’m glad to see the Supreme Court for once agrees,” Bullock said Monday. Montanans troubled by recent growth in campaign spending across the political spectrum will agree with the governor.
The Courts
Wall Street Journal: Cohen Hired IT Firm to Rig Early CNBC, Drudge Polls to Favor Trump
By Michael Rothfeld, Rob Barry and Joe Palazzolo
In early 2015, a man who runs a small technology company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for having helped Michael Cohen, then Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, try to rig online polls in his boss’s favor…
In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter, Mr. Gauger said…
Mr. Gauger said he never got the rest of what he claimed he was owed. But Mr. Cohen in early 2017 still asked for-and received-a $50,000 reimbursement from Mr. Trump and his company for the work by RedFinch…
Prosecutors wrote in a charging document that when Mr. Cohen asked Trump Organization executives for a $130,000 reimbursement for a hush payment he made to Stephanie Clifford, the porn actress known as Stormy Daniels, he also scrawled a handwritten note asking for $50,000 he said he spent on “tech services” to aid Mr. Trump’s campaign. Prosecutors didn’t name the company providing those services, but people familiar with the matter say it was RedFinch…
Richard Hasen, an election-law expert and law professor at University of California, Irvine, said Mr. Cohen had an obligation to disclose the payment to RedFinch as an independent expenditure if it was for campaign-related work he didn’t discuss with the Trump campaign. Had he coordinated with the Trump camp, the campaign would have been required to report any unpaid-for work as an in-kind contribution.
Congress
Cato: Three Problems with Taxpayer Financing of Election Campaigns
By John Samples
The new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has introduced H.R. 1, a bill with two public financing components: one a pilot program for vouchers, and the other a conventional if generous subsidy program for small donations. I focus here on the latter.
Public financing schemes have often focused on encouraging small donors in part to allegedly counter the influence of “Big Money.” The financing of campaigns by taxpayers fits easily into a number of dichotomies that structure our public discourse: small/large, vulnerable/powerful, poor/rich, left/right, and of course, friend/enemy. The realities are less exciting and persuasive than the rhetoric…
Here’s one problem: the government would be using its power of coercion to force people to support candidates and parties they do not support (indeed, to support people they don’t want their children to marry). This coercion would happen more to Republicans than Democrats at first, but Republicans might get better at claiming the subsidies over time. We would end up with the government coercing everyone without regard to partisan commitments.
Advocates of taxpayer financing also might think the scheme takes the side of “the people” (small donors) against the elite (current donors). ActBlue reports they had 4.9 million unique donors in 2018. That’s a large absolute number. But it constitutes about 3 percent of eligible voters in the United States. These ActBlue contributors are not average Americans. ActBlue donors are also a small portion of liberals in America. In 2016, about 26 percent of the nation identified as liberal or about 47 million people. Hence ActBlue got money from just over 10 percent of liberals. By any measure, ActBlue donors are a political elite. No doubt they are a political elite that believes their policy views represent what’s good for the nation and the average American. But they are not average Americans.
Vox: Democrats’ small-donor campaign finance proposal is a great deal for taxpayers
By Lee Drutman
As we begin to debate the House Democrats’ landmark “For the People Act” (HR 1), here’s one pushback we might expect to see: The small-donor public matching system in the bill costs too much public money.
It’s a standard argument that campaign finance reform opponents often make. But it only focuses only on the costs. It doesn’t take into account the benefits. A publicly funded campaign finance system will save taxpayers far more money than it costs them. It will pay for itself in more responsive and smarter public policy…
The small-donor matching system in HR 1 creates a 6-to-1 public match for every dollar raised in small-dollar contributions (under $200). No doubt, this will cost some money. A reasonable estimate might be about $3 billion over 10 years (under $1 per year per citizen), but a lot will depend on how widely it gets used…
Anything that takes members of Congress away from the gamut of lobbyist-sponsored fundraisers and cold-calling wealthy people and puts them in the living rooms of more representative groups of constituents would be a major game changer for the kinds of concerns that filter up to lawmakers as top priorities. This could significantly alter the premium parties now put on big-donor fundraising prowess in their candidate recruitment strategies. It could also pave the way for a new winning politics of economic fairness.
Bangor Daily News: In the fight to clean up campaign finance laws, Golden’s at the forefront
By Tiffany Muller
The Bangor Daily News Jan 7. editorial, ” Maine Democrats ride wave of campaign cash,” points out that in the 2018 elections, outside groups supporting Democrats outspent their Republican counterparts in Maine. But it should also consider what Democrats are doing to fix the broken campaign finance system once elected.
So far, Rep. Jared Golden, Maine’s newest member of Congress, is fighting to remove the scourge of special interest money in politics…
Golden understands how broken our campaign finance system is, and he has a track record of fighting to fix it. During his time in the state legislature, Golden served on the committee that handled Maine’s election laws and repeatedly defended the state’s Clean Election system to curb the influence of special interest money.
As a Member of Congress, he’s working to fix the system at the federal level. One of his first acts after getting sworn in was to cosponsor the For the People Act (H.R. 1), the most comprehensive democracy reform legislation in a generation. The For the People Act is the most sweeping package of reforms since Watergate. It’s designed to crackdown on corruption, reduce the power of big money special interests and strengthen our democracy. It specifically addresses the problem of dark money in politics by requiring groups to disclose their donors…
Golden earned End Citizens United’s endorsement early in the race because of his proven record on reform and focus on strengthening our democracy. Following his endorsement, ECU activated its grassroots network of small-dollar donors to help Golden fend off the flood of corporate money in the race. In 2018, ECU’s members made over 5,000 grassroots contributions through the small-dollar fundraising platform ActBlue, directly to Golden’s campaign, with an average contribution of just $12.
Roll Call: New members, meet the ‘slush fund’
By Stephanie Akin
The newest class of congressional lawmakers – some of whom campaigned against corruption and corporate influence in politics – is rapidly adopting a practice that critics say is among the swampier in Washington.
More than two dozen new members of the House and Senate – including prominent freshmen such as New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney – have established so-called leadership PACs, according to data compiled by government watchdog group Issue One. Leadership PACs are fundraising committees that allow lawmakers to raise money for their colleagues and candidates.
The vast majority of House and Senate members have one, and many say they can be helpful tools to support other politicians and the issues they care about. But the PACs are not subject to the same restrictions on personal spending as individual campaign committees, leading to numerous examples of alleged misuse. Critics say they also allow politicians to evade campaign contribution limits and obscure donations from corporations and other powerful groups.
FEC
Politico: Democrats seek FEC assurance on campaign finance oversight during shutdown
By Katie Galioto
The partial government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, is affecting the Federal Election Commission’s ability to enforce campaign finance laws and investigate possible infractions, Democrats on the Senate Rules Committee wrote to the FEC on Wednesday.
Ninety percent of the agency’s 300 employees have been furloughed, forcing it to skip its first scheduled meeting of the year, according to the letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post.
“The lapse in government funding means that enforcement of campaign finance laws that hold politicians and political committees accountable has stopped,” said the letter to the FEC chairwoman, Ellen Weintraub. “Further, the FEC cannot investigate complaints regarding possible campaign finance violations.”
No FEC employees were present when Chinese hackers broke into the agency’s computer network during the 2013 government shutdown, the letter said, warning that the current shutdown’s effects extend “beyond proper enforcement of law.”
The nine senators who signed the letter asked Weintraub to address the FEC’s ability to perform its core functions during shutdown, which is in its 26th day with no end in sight.
The letter also sought reassurance about cybersecurity protections to prevent another attack on the agency’s network, and asked Weintraub how the shutdown’s effect on enforcing campaign finance law would affect the FEC’s ability to fulfill that role when the government reopens.
The Media
Reason: How Is It OK for CNN to Hire Possible Presidential Contender John Kasich?
By Matt Welch
[I]t’s easy to see the benefits from Kasich’s point of view-regular opportunities to self-promote and criticize the political competition in the run-up to a possible campaign announcement, and you get paid? Sign me up! But the real head-scratcher here is the behavior of CNN.
The first cable news network is also frequently the most sanctimonious defender of journalistic nobility, and loudest critic of the way President Donald Trump degrades the norms of America’s political and media culture. And yet here those same people are, paying a newsmaker for exclusivity, and creating a norm that was unthinkable even four years ago.
As CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter dryly phrased it, “In the past, CNN and other cable news channels have broken off ties with commentators once they took specific steps to run for office.” In fact, four years ago this month, that’s exactly what Fox News did with Mike Huckabee.
“I won’t make a decision about running until late in the spring of 2015, but the continued chatter has put Fox News into a position that is not fair to them,” the then-Fox host wrote to his supporters, explaining the mutual decision. “The honorable thing to do at this point is to end my tenure here at Fox so I can openly talk with potential donors and supporters and gauge support.” Fox had severed its contributor contract with presidential contender Ben Carson a few months prior to that.
This is what CNN used to do with potential candidates like Pat Buchanan. As Stelter put it back when he worked for The New York Times, “The benefit to the viewers” in hiring potential candidates as contributors “is less clear. Some experts say the arrangements can cloud the objectivity of the news organizations.”
Candidates and Campaigns
Politico: Democratic presidential hopefuls cast off PACs
By Zach Montellaro
One thing that every Democratic presidential candidate can agree on? They’re not taking money from corporate PACs. Every candidate who has either formally declared or launched an exploratory committee – Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former Rep. John Delaney and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro – have all disavowed corporate PAC money, something that is quickly becoming a litmus test in the Democratic Party. (Gabbard said she wouldn’t take PAC money in 2017, and her campaign did not respond to questions about her presidential campaign.)
Ultimately, presidential candidates are not leaving a whole lot of money on the table by disavowing corporate PACs. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign committee and her joint fundraising committee (Hillary Victory Fund) received a combined $8 million from “other committees” – which includes corporate PACs, labor union PACs and other candidates’ committees. Even if every dime that was donated to the JFC ultimately made it to the campaign (it doesn’t, because the JFC’s fundraising was split between the Clinton campaign, the DNC and state parties), “other committee” money would still only account for around 1.4 percent of the more than $585 million raised by Clinton’s campaign. A candidate could disavow any money not coming from individual donors and still not see much of a dent in what’s sure to be an expensive presidential campaign.
And some candidates have taken it a step further. Gillibrand, Warren and Castro have all said they’d disavow the efforts of any super PAC that tries to support them.
The States
Cato: Dark Money and ‘Lawless Prosecutions’ (Podcast)
Featuring Steve Klein and Caleb O. Brown
A new documentary showcased by PBS presents Montana as a success story of campaign finance reform and Wisconsin’s John Doe investigations as a failure. Steve Klein of the Pillar of Law Institute details some omissions in the Dark Money documentary.
American Prospect: House Democrats’ Anti-Corruption Push Resonates Well Beyond the Beltway
By Eliza Newlin Carney
New York legislators who just approved a slate of election reforms, including early and absentee voting and curbs on corporate political spending, had one eye on the democracy reforms that Democrats have placed front and center on Capitol Hill. Still further reforms, including statewide public financing, are now on the agenda in New York, which is just one of several states pursuing voting and campaign-finance changes in 2019…
Now that Democrats control Albany, they’re turning their attention to an even broader reform agenda already endorsed by Governor Andrew Cuomo. This includes tighter lobbying and ethics rules, and statewide public financing in the form of small donor matching funds, which is already in effect in New York City. New York City’s system of small donor matching funds is itself the basis for the public financing proposal included in HR 1, known as the For the People Act…
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, also endorsed legislation this month to throw out the state’s voter ID law, allow no-excuse absentee voting, ban corporate contributions, and impose caps on campaign donations, which in Virginia are unlimited in non-federal races.
In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has thrown his support behind a bill moving quickly through the legislature that would require “dark money” groups that spend big money on candidates to disclose their donors. Both Murphy and state Senate President Steve Sweeney, another Democrat, are under pressure to take action amid controversies involving their own links to secretive political groups…
[E]ach state that enacts election law, campaign-finance, and lobbying and ethics changes becomes a testing ground for reforms being debated on the national stage.
By Laura Nahmias, Nick Niedzwiadek and Daniel Lippman
The role of Public Advocate is the appendix of New York City government, if you will: it has the dubious distinction of being only major citywide elected position that people routinely argue they live can without. Its utility for New York residents just isn’t always that obvious.
But when we opened up the New York City Campaign Finance Board website to take a gander at all the money raised by the people running for the position in next month’s special election, we found no fewer than 23 candidates. Twenty-three candidates!
And they’ve raised a significant amount of money in a short period of time. Under new public campaign financing rules that recently took effect, the city will match small dollar donations at a rate of 8 to 1.
With estimated matching funds, Assemblyman Michael Blake is reporting he’s likely to have raised $1.09 million, while City Council Member Jumaane Williams is reporting he’ll have raised $1.06 million when all the public matching funds are added in.
