CCP
Biden’s Run Would Have Approached Latest Announcement Date of Any Major Party Nominee Since FECA
Since contribution limits were first imposed, the average successful nominee, based on the 2016 calendar, announced over three months ago on July 13. Then-former Governor Ronald Reagan declared for the Presidency on November 13th, 1979, or 357 days before Election Day, the shortest campaign duration since federal contribution limits went into effect in 1975. The equivalent date this year would be November 17th, 2015.
“Candidates feel pressure to announce for President earlier and earlier as a direct result of low contribution limits, and that’s too bad,” said CCP President David Keating. “The original contribution limit of $1,000 is worth over $4,400 in today’s dollars, meaning that the first contribution limit was worth 64% more than the current one. We should raise or eliminate contribution limits so that potential candidates like Joe Biden can raise enough funds to better compete against other candidates who have tossed their hat into the ring earlier.”
IRS
Roll Call: It’s Time for Fair Treatment of Our Community Organizations
JC Watts and Ron Dellum
In these times of fierce partisanship, it is rare to find an issue on which two leaders from very different sides of the political spectrum can see eye to eye. However, on the issue of the Gift Tax, we agree the IRS is threatening the very foundation of our country and the great charitable organizations that serve as our foundation. It is because of this issue that we are deeply concerned for the future of our nation and the health of our communities.
In 2012, the IRS sent letters to many 501(c)(4) organizations threatening to impose the Gift Tax on donors of more than $12,000. Therefore, many donors merely capped their donations at $12,000, leaving many local organizations hurting for the funding they counted on to be able to make ends meet in years past. In 2012, the IRS targeted mostly tea party or heavily conservative organizations, but until the tax code is corrected, all organizations are under a heavy threat.
Independent Groups
Washington Post: Bernie Sanders’s inaccurate claim that the two Koch brothers will spend more than either major party on 2016 elections
Michelle Ye Hee Lee
About two-thirds of the $889 million “will help support research and education programs, scholarships and other efforts designed to change policies and promote a culture of freedom in the United States,” according to the newsletter. It includes money that will be donated to the United Negro College Fund, Youth Entrepreneurs, criminal justice reform and “other worthy causes that help people improve their lives,” it says.
The remaining one-third will be in direct electoral spending, including presidential, congressional, state and local races. (Donations by the Democratic and Republican parties, in contrast, are more focused on direct electoral efforts than issue advocacy.)
In a Sept. 29, 2015, interview with Forbes, Charles Koch rejected claims that the Kochs will spend close to $1 billion on 2016 campaigns. He said “a small fraction” will come directly from his brother and himself…
An anti-Koch message is a powerful one, and an energizing one for Sanders’s base. But this particular anti-Koch message reaches too far and thus earns Four Pinocchios.
Wall Street Journal: Carl Icahn to Invest $150 Million in Super PAC
Rebecca Ballhaus
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said Wednesday he is launching a super PAC to advocate for corporate tax changes and has pledged to spend at least $150 million of his own money on the effort.
In a memo sent to high-profile members of Congress entitled “Letter Discussing Desperately Needed Legislation,” Mr. Icahn said the super PAC will push for legislation to block corporate tax inversions, a term for when companies relocate in order to receive lower tax rates.
“While I plan to raise third-party funds, I believe my own commitment of $150 million to the PAC will be more than enough to make voters fully aware of the horrible consequences that will ensue if Congress fails to pass legislation immediately to stop these ’inversions,’” Mr. Icahn wrote in the letter.
Washington Examiner: Pro-Kasich super PAC: Hillary supporters stole our slogan!
Ryan Lovelace
A super PAC supporting John Kasich’s presidential campaign claims another super PAC affiliated with Hillary Clinton stole their lines.
New Day for America claims that Priorities USA took the slogan “John Kasich’s For Us” and repurposed it for their own political gain in a new ad that ends with text reading, “Hillary Clinton. Strong. For Us.”…
Priorities USA communications director Justin Barasky responded to the allegation with the following statement:
“Wait, who’s John Kasich?”
Free Speech
New York Post: More derailments in the MTA’s war on speech
Editorial Board
The agency didn’t want to run stridently anti-jihadist messages from conservative activist Pam Geller. But the courts ruled (correctly) that this unconstitutionally suppressed free speech.
So, to stay Geller-free, the MTA invented its “viewpoint neutral” ban on all politics.
Yet even that turned out to have holes.
The agency stuck to the plan by rejecting ads to promote a satirical film. A judge slapped that down as “arbitrary” and “unreasonable.”
Yet the ads did have a clear political message. For example, one read “Those Terrorists Are All Nutjobs” — with “nutjobs” written in graffiti-style over a crossed-off “Muslim” and the comment “more accurate.”
It’s a safe bet that Pam Geller is already at work on some “funny” ads that she can run under the “comedy” exception.
Concurring Opinions: What does it mean to vindicate a First Amendment right of free expression?
Ronald K.L. Collins
To raise this question is to raise a more puzzling one. What exactly does it mean to vindicate a First Amendment freedom of expression claim? In today’s volatile atmosphere of supercharged liberalism and fortified conservatism, it can mean almost anything depending on which side of the ideological fence one stands. If you have a collective or “democratic” political-theory view of the Amendment — e.g. like that of Justice Stephen Breyer or Dean Robert Post or Professor Burt Neuborne — then that very much informs your constitutional calculus as to whether a First Amendment right has been vindicated or violated. By that collective constitutional measure, the “fairness doctrine” and he “net neutrality” one are formulas for vindicating First Amendment rights. But that view is radically different from, say, an atomistic understanding of the First Amendment like the one championed by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Floyd Abrams, and the Cato Institute.
FEC
Washington Examiner: Dems, GOP want MORE money in politics, FEC commish agrees
Paul Bedard
State and local political parties, starved of money and ignored by candidates more focused on super PACs, are finally getting some attention.
A former Obama Justice Department official and a Republican commissioner with the Federal Election Commission are backing a rewrite of rules to let the non-Washington parties raise more money and coordinate spending with candidates.
Spencer Overton, the former Obama aide, wants state and local committees to spend the first $200 of every donation in a coordinated campaign with candidates, now unlawful.
And Lee E. Goodman, of the FEC, wants to raise the amount people can donate to state and local parties and junk FEC spending restrictions.
WV Metro News: The FEC goes after small potatoes with Murray Energy settlement
Hoppy Kercheval
Some months before the 2012 Presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Murray Energy Vice President for Marketing, Sales and External Affairs Rob Murray saw signs throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania that read, “STOP the WAR on COAL—FIRE OBAMA.”…
Now three years later, the FEC has released its finding, a settlement where Murray Energy agrees to pay a $5,000 fine.
This action has to constitute the smallest of small potatoes for the federal agency created after Watergate to administer and enforce federal election campaign finance laws. Does this mean that anybody who prints signs for or against a particular candidate is going to have to make sure they dot the i’s and cross the t’s of complicated election laws and file reports of their “costs of public communications” to the government?
Candidates and Campaigns
FiveThirtyEight: Joe Biden Made The Right Call
Harry Enten
There are a ton of problems with declaring late. First, you don’t have a lot of time to raise money, and raising money isn’t easy. If it were, Biden would have raised more than $11.4 million in all of 2007 during his last run for the presidency. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have $33 million and $27 million on hand, respectively, through September. PACs and super PACs backing Clinton had nearly $16 million on hand through June. That’s a lot of money that can be used for advertising, direct mail, staff, travel, etc.
Declaring late also means you have limited time to recruit staff and build a campaign. Biden’s own former chief of staff, Ron Klain, is working on Clinton’s campaign, for example. A lot of veteran Democrats recognize how difficult it would have been for a Biden campaign to successfully organize.
Huffington Post: New Rules Help Hillary Clinton Tap Big Donors For Democrats
Paul Blumenthal
Hillary Victory Fund — a super joint fundraising committee that distributes money to the Clinton campaign, the DNC and 33 state party committees — sent $600,000 to the central party committee in September, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The Clinton campaign’s super joint fundraising committee is out of the ordinary for two reasons. First, presidential candidates do not normally enter into fundraising agreements with their party’s committees until after they actually win the nomination. Second, Clinton’s fundraising committee is the first since the Supreme Court’s 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC decision eliminated aggregate contribution limits and Congress increased party contribution limits in the 2014 omnibus budget bill.
Washington Post: Lessig learned. Now let him debate.
Jonathan Capehart
Yeah, yeah, I know what I said last week. That no one should support his Democratic presidential bid because he promised to resign after passing a much-needed campaign finance reform package. That such a pledge neutered his ability to be an effective chief executive and would make his vice presidential choice a powerful president-in-waiting.
Everything changed last Friday when he was asked about his resignation pledge during an appearance on “Real Time With Bill Maher” on HBO. “Yeah, that was stupid,” Lessig said to laughter. “That was totally stupid.” And then the Harvard law professor explained why he backed off.
The States
Washington Times: Wisconsin Assembly passes campaign finance overhaul bill
Associated Press
The Wisconsin Assembly has passed a bill allowing candidates to coordinate with outside issue advocacy groups, activity that was at the center of an investigation into Gov. Scott Walker.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in July ruled that candidates can coordinate with groups that do not expressly call for a person’s election or defeat. The bill passed by the Assembly on Wednesday would put that into state law.
The bill would also double how much candidates can accept from individuals and allow unlimited corporate donations to political parties and legislative campaign committees.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Assembly approves splitting GAB into elections and ethics agencies
Patrick Marley and Jason Stein
On a nearly party-line 58-39 vote, the Assembly voted to disband the state Government Accountability Board and replace it with an elections commission and an ethics commission. The accountability board consists of six former judges, while the new commissions would each be made up equally of Democrats and Republicans selected by the state’s most powerful politicians.
