In the News

Sioux Falls Argus Leader: 5 looming campaign ethics questions facing South Dakota

By Dana Ferguson

The sprawling reform package, known in South Dakota as Initiated Measure 22, was designed to limit the influence of outside money in state government. The 34-page law, narrowly passed by voters Nov. 8, creates strict new rules on lobbying and fundraising and establishes an independent ethics commission…

Free-speech groups have said they plan to challenge the law for limiting political free speech, a potential civil rights violation. David Keating, president of the Virginia-based Center for Competitive Politics, said he’d heard from at least one person interested in bringing a lawsuit following the law’s enactment.

“I think a court challenge is inevitable,” he said. “It’s just a question of when.”

Other attorneys said the law’s language approving an appropriation from the state’s general fund without consent of the state Legislature violates the South Dakota Constitution and could also be grounds for legal action.

Attorney General Marty Jackley, who will have the constitutional obligation to defend the law now that it is on the books, said he alerted voters to the possible constitutional problems with the law in his explanation of IM 22.

Pacific Legal Foundation: Sacramento city councilman reminded that the Constitution protects freedom of association

By Caleb Trotter

It seems that Sacramento City Councilman Jay Schenirer has grown weary of a watchdog organization (Eye on Sacramento) that routinely challenges proposed ordinances and policies, and generally serves as a vocal check on city government. Councilman Schenirer requested the group provide him with a list of its members, a detailed accounting of its funds and donors, and its organizational bylaws-all in the name of “transparency.”…

In 2014, in Center for Competitive Politics v. Harris, a non-profit organization challenged California Attorney General (now Senator-elect) Kamala Harris’ policy that required non-profits soliciting funds in California to provide the Attorney General with a document listing the names and information of all donors giving the organization more than $5,000 in a year. Since the Attorney General’s office routinely discloses that private information to the public “by mistake,” and since the United States Supreme Court held long ago that “inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly when a group espouses dissident beliefs,” the group urged the court to declare the policy unconstitutional.

FEC

CRP: FEC deadlocks, won’t investigate dark money group that spent all its funds on an election

By Robert Maguire

The Federal Election Commission announced today that it has deadlocked along party lines on whether to further investigate whether a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization called Carolina Rising should have disclosed the donors that funded its political ads in 2014 or register as a political committee.

The deadlock ensures that the agency will drop the matter.

The complaint against the group was filed in October 2014 by the North Carolina Democratic Party, but focused only on whether Carolina Rising should have disclosed the donors funding two ads that ran shortly before the election that year. The FEC’s Office of General Counsel said no, noting that there was no proof that Carolina Rising had received the funds “for the purposes of furthering” the ads, which is the criteria that triggers donor disclosure for a 501(c) nonprofit. 

Citizens United

Daily Caller: ‘Hamilton’ Can Lecture Mike Pence Thanks To Citizens United 

By Kevin Daley

The cast of the broadway musical “Hamilton” has the conservative justices on the Supreme Court to thank for their freedom to hector Vice President-elect Mike Pence at curtain call…

Though one might debate whether the curtain call appeal constitutes electioneering, it was obviously political speech directed at a particular office holder and given for a broad audience (Dixon urged attendees to record and disseminate the remarks that it might “spread far and wide”). What’s more, it was speech enabled from the “Hamilton” general treasury, without which there would be no production and therefore no medium for a St. Alban’s and Columbia educated New York actor to rhapsodize on behalf of his corporation. Given this confluence of facts, it is indeed fortunate that Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and the late Antonin Scalia secured for Hamilton Broadway, perhaps feeling that their art was not powerful enough to speak for itself, the right to explain it.  

The Courts

The Hill: Exxon to depose Massachusetts, NY AGs in climate case

By Timothy Cama

A federal judge is allowing Exxon Mobil Corp. to depose the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New York over those states’ climate change investigations into the oil giant…

Healey and Schneiderman are both investigating whether Exxon committed fraud by downplaying the science of climate change and its effect on its business in communications to the public and investors.
Exxon wants the federal court to dismiss the attorneys general’s investigative demands, arguing that they are illegal because they were made in bad faith and for political purposes.

The controversy has exploded in the last year as a representation of environmentalists’ demands to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change, and the companies’ charges that their rights to free speech are being violated. 

The Media

Dallas Morning News: ‘You’re fired,’ Houston TV station tells reporter who made pro-Trump Facebook post

By Tom Steele

A Houston television reporter has been fired after making a Facebook post that expressed joy at the winner of last week’s presidential election and criticized the Obama administration.

In a post Thursday on her professional Facebook page, Scarlett Fakhar thanked her supporters for their love and prayers.

“Fox 26 Houston fired me today for expressing my conservative views on my private Facebook page,” she wrote. “That is all I will say for now.”…

Fakhar later apologized on her personal Facebook page “for making public my personal views on the outcome of the election and other issues.  

“It was wholly inappropriate, as a journalist, to do that,” she wrote.  

New York Times: Facebook Considering Ways to Combat Fake News, Mark Zuckerberg Says

By Mike Isaac

After more than a week of accusations that the spread of fake news on Facebook may have affected the outcome of the presidential election, Mark Zuckerberg published a detailed post Friday night describing ways the company was considering dealing with the problem.

Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chairman and chief executive, broadly outlined some of the options he said the company’s news feed team was looking into, including third-party verification services, better automated detection tools and simpler ways for users to flag suspicious content.

“The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “We believe in giving people a voice, which means erring on the side of letting people share what they want whenever possible.”   

Trump Administration

Politico: The heiress quietly shaping Trump’s operation

By Kenneth P. Vogel

Rebekah Mercer, a 42-year-old who homeschools her young children, rarely visits Trump Tower and has a relatively narrow official portfolio in Trump’s transition effort. Her influence comes instead from her close relationships with the people and groups carrying out the day-to-day work of building Trump’s administration and political apparatus, some of whom have been the beneficiaries of millions of dollars of funding from her family.

Mercer’s influence in Trump’s transition effort – detailed here for the first time – calls into question Trump’s campaign trail boasts that his own fortune, which he used to partly fund his campaign, would make him independent from deep-pocketed donors and special interests he railed against on the campaign trail. And the entanglement of connections between Trump’s aides and Mercer’s big-money political operation has prompted complaints from campaign finance watchdog groups, and grumbling from Republican operatives who contend that Mercer has too much control over Trump’s GOP. 

CNN: Chilled by Trump tweets? You should be

By Dean Obeidallah

This weekend we saw President-elect Donald Trump lash out twice at Americans who were exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression. His reaction should chill every American with its implication: A President Trump may well try to suppress speech…

If a President Trump continues on this path unchallenged, the result could be new limitations on free speech. For one thing, comedy shows and even other critics of the prospective President may begin to self-censor.

Why? Well, as we have seen, a certain sect of Trump’s fans has viciously attacked critics on his behalf…

There is also anther concern. Trump’s comments on the campaign trail have to make you wonder if he truly values freedom of the press or expression. During his campaign, Trump defended violent attacks upon those protesters who dared to interrupt him.

And Trump has even vowed to change the libel laws to crack down on the media criticizing him.

Wall Street Journal: The Trump Family Political Business

By Editorial Board

One reason 60 million voters elected Donald Trump is because he promised to change Washington’s culture of self-dealing, and if he wants to succeed he’s going to have to make a sacrifice and lead by example. Mr. Trump has so far indicated that he will keep his business empire but turn over management to his children, and therein lies political danger…

Mr. Trump’s best option is to liquidate his stake in the company.Richard Painter and Norman Eisen, ethics lawyers for George W. Bush and President Obama, respectively, have laid out a plan, which involves a leveraged buyout or an initial public offering…

Mixing money and politics could undermine his pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington. If a backlash allows Democrats to retake the House in 2018, Mr. Trump and his business colleagues would field subpoenas from the House Oversight Committee. Ranking minority member Elijah Cummings this week expressed his enthusiasm for such a project, and answering daily questions about this can’t be how Mr. Trump wants to spend his political capital. 

The States

Spokane Spokesman-Review: With I-735, Washington voters called for campaign reform, but Republicans in Congress unlikely to take action

By Jim Camden

Speaking with about as clear a voice as they ever do in Washington, voters last week told their congressional delegation to come up with a constitutional amendment to rein in campaign spending.

Initiative 735 has statewide support from nearly 63 percent of the voters, and is passing in all 10 congressional districts with about 65,000 ballots still to count. So what kind of action can voters expect?

In the short term, not much. But supporters say they’re building a movement that won’t go away.

Constitutional amendments that would fit the general description of I-735 – the initiative did not include specific language – are currently pending in the House and Senate. But only a few weeks are left in the current Congress, and most of the “lame duck” session will be taken up with trying to pass legislation to keep the federal government running for at least a couple of months until the new Congress gets settled next year.

Washington Times: Groups ease off events for lawmakers under new lobbying law

By James Nord

South Dakota interest groups are hesitant to hold events for state lawmakers because of new limits on lobbyist gifts included in an anti-corruption initiative that took effect this week…

The new law has spurred uncertainty among lobbyists and lawmakers. Secretary of State Shantel Krebs said her office has received hundreds of calls about the wide-ranging initiative, while groups such as the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce have canceled upcoming events – or are weighing whether they’ll still be held.

Last session alone, lawmakers were invited to dozens of breakfasts, dinners and gatherings held by groups ranging from trade associations to local chambers of commerce. It’s likely the number of shelved events will grow because organizations are reacting to the law change with caution, South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry President David Owen said.