Independent Groups
Cincinnati: Evidence of post-scandal fixes at IRS remains scant
By Deirdre Shesgreen
WASHINGTON — More than six months after a top Internal Revenue Service official acknowledged the agency inappropriately scrutinized applications for tax exemption by tea party and other conservative groups, the scandal has faded from the headlines and moved to Congress’ back burner.
But it’s unclear how much has changed inside the IRS to fix the underlying problems that led to the targeting.
More Soft Money Hard Law: More on “Independence”—Expert Reader Responses
By Bob Bauer
As noted here Wednesday, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board is stymied by the question of whether an independent committee can have contact with a candidate and remain “independent” and able to make unlimited expenditures on the candidate’s behalf. The anonymous candidate seeking an opinion from the Board would like to raise money for a committee that intends to help him or her, later, on an “independent” basis. Under federal law, and subject to conditions, this is possible if the candidate has no say in how the money is spent. Reform critics think this result is indefensible. Their view of independence is that it requires complete separation of the candidate from the committee.
Politico: Buffy Wicks in talks to be Priorities USA director
By Maggie Haberman
A veteran of President Barack Obama’s campaign and his White House is in discussions to become executive director of Priorities USA, the former pro-Obama super PAC that is expected to morph into a paid media effort for Hillary Clinton, POLITICO has learned.
Buffy Wicks, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who has her own consulting business, has been engaged in discussions with officials at Priorities, who have been looking at ways to reboot their effort as an entity supporting Clinton, who is likely to run for president in 2016, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
LA Times: Corporations increasingly spying on nonprofits, group says
By Stuart Pfeifer
Corporations are increasingly spying on nonprofit groups they view as potential threats with little fear of retribution, according to a new report by a corporate watchdog group.
The large companies employ former Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, FBI, military and police officers to monitor and in some cases infiltrate groups that have been critical of them, according to the report by Essential Information, which was founded by Ralph Nader in the 1980s.
Disclosure
Free Beacon: The Secret Masters
By Matthew Continetti
The timing of a story by the campaign finance reporters of the New York Times, and its placement in the paper’s national edition, is fraught with meaning. Articles in which the totemic names “Koch” or “Adelson” appear have a habit of being published in the prime time of an election cycle, and share the uncanny ability to float, bubble-like, to the front-page. Stories that deal with the liberal moneymen who finance the Democratic Party and its affiliates, by contrast, tend to appear after the fact or when nobody is looking, and, like ballast, fall to the back of the A section, obscured by ads for Tiffany’s, Burberry, and Zegna. I wonder why.
CNN: Koch Bros.-backed group gave millions to small business lobby
By Chris Frates
NFIB and its affiliated groups received $2.5 million from Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a conservative advocacy group with deep ties to the Koch empire. Of the five men that sit on the group’s board, four are current or former employees of Koch companies and one is a friend of Charles Koch’s.
Freedom Partners gave the NFIB $1.5 million last year, the biggest single contribution the federation received, according to tax records. The Koch-backed group gave three other NFIB-affiliated group another $1 million, making Freedom Partners among the top two biggest contributors to those groups, records show.
CPI: League of Conservation Voters becoming ‘dark money’ heavyweight
By Michael Becker
The liberal League of Conservation Voters is fast becoming one of the nation’s strongest “dark money” forces — a realm conservative groups have typically dominated.
xNew documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service and obtained by the Center for Public Integrity show the nonprofit League of Conservation Voters spent a record $36 million in 2012, of which more than 40 percent — nearly $15 million — came in the form of “direct and indirect political campaign activities.”
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Washington Post: Fate of the filibuster in a post-nuclear Senate
By SARAH BINDER
So what made deploying the nuke politically feasible this time? The relative costs and benefits of deploying the nuke shifted measurably for the majority. First, fear of minority retaliation (which would have increased the majority’s costs of going nuclear) no longer weighed heavily on the majority’s calculations. As Majority Leader Harry Reid put it, “What could they do more to slow down the country? What could they do more than what they’ve already done to stop the Senate from legislating?” Second, Democrats’ perceptions of GOP overreach (which increased the partisan benefits of banning filibusters of nominees) finally persuaded more senior, reluctant Democrats to support Reid’s nuclear gambit. Perceptions of GOP overreach likely also made it easier for Democrats to shift the blame for going nuclear to the GOP, thereby making Reid’s nuclear gambit more politically feasibility. (That strategy worked, save for editorials like the Washington Post’s that decried the Democrats’ heavy-handed ways.) In short, even most long-serving Democrats (including Reid) likely calculated that there was a lot to win and little to lose by striking down nomination filibusters with a nuclear strike.
Politico: Obama to visit donor Katzenberg’s DreamWorks
By JENNIFER EPSTEIN
President Barack Obama will visit DreamWorks Animation — founded and run by a major donor — next week to discuss the economy, the White House said Thursday.
In the Los Angeles area for fundraisers Monday and Tuesday, Obama will speak at DreamWorks on Tuesday, principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said. He didn’t offer details on what the president would discuss.
Roll Call: Both Senatorial Campaign Committees Off Track for Start of 2014
By Kent Cooper
Without explosive fundraising in November and December, both national party Senatorial campaign committees will start 2014 with smaller war chests than at the start of the 2012 election year.
LA Times: Obama data, ad team alliances offer glimpse of future political ads
By Cathleen Decker
A partnership announced Thursday between the data analyzers who found Americans who might be persuaded to vote for President Obama and the ad creators who successfully pushed them to the polls provides a glimpse of the future of political advertising.
The partnership of GMMB, Obama’s chief ad creator and buyer, and Civis Analytics, a firm formed by the head of the campaign’s data analysis operation, puts in place two elements that the Obama campaign used to great effect to propel him to an easy reelection despite a still-sputtering economy in 2012. It is the second such alliance to form since the campaign’s end; the other, Analytics Media Group, was created by other senior members of the advertising and data teams.
FEC
Washington Post: FEC deadlocks, for now, on whether political committees can accept bitcoin
By Matea Gold
The Federal Election Commission on Thursday deadlocked on the question of whether federal candidates and political action committees can accept the virtual currency, with the three Democratic appointees saying they want the agency to take more time to study the issue and develop a formal policy to govern the use of bitcoins in campaigns.
Chair Ellen Weintraub stressed that the lack of action did not mean the panel would not approve bitcoin donations at some point, but said that the Internet cash raised many complicated questions – particularly about disclosure and whether bitcoins constitute money – that required more examination.
