In the News

Washington Post: Legal team seeking to undo super PACs files suit to push FEC to act

By Matea Gold

A bipartisan group of congressional members and candidates is filing a federal suit Friday against the Federal Election Commission, seeking to force the agency to act on a complaint it brought against 10 super PACs in July.

The maneuver is part of a legal strategy aimed at rolling back SpeechNow.org v. FEC, the federal appellate court decision that led to the birth of super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations. Once the FEC takes up the complaint and dismisses it or deadlocks on it – as it is ultimately expected to do – the group plans to file a broader suit against the agency that it hopes will ultimately reach the Supreme Court…

“The lawsuit proposes a ridiculous theory and is a publicity stunt,” said David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, who launched the original SpeechNow case. He said the plaintiffs are seeking “to silence those who disagree with them.”

“It shows the real motivation of those behind the case,” Keating added. “They want government to limit speech.”

Bloomberg BNA: FEC Disclosure Rules for Ads Referring to Candidates Upheld

By Kenneth P. Doyle

Federal Election Commission disclosure requirements applied to political ads known as “electioneering communications” have been upheld by a three-judge federal court panel (Independence Institute v. FEC, D.D.C., No. 14-cv-1500, 11/3/16).

The special panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected a constitutional challenge to FEC disclosure requirements, which was brought by a Colorado-based nonprofit group called the Independence Institute…

The Independence Institute was represented in the case by attorney Allen Dickerson of the Center for Competitive Politics, a nonprofit that is critical of campaign finance regulations.

When asked during a court hearing in October about the type of ads the institute believed should be protected from disclosure requirements, Dickerson pointed only to the ad the group said it wanted to sponsor in Colorado in 2014. The ad referred to the position of Udall and Sen. Michael Bennet, both Colorado Democrats, on a federal sentencing bill. The ad was never aired.

Independent Groups

CPI: Super PACs, ‘dark money’ groups eschew presidential race for Senate

By Carrie Levine

In a striking departure from the 2012 election, super PACs and other non-candidate organizations have spent more on U.S. Senate races in July, August and September than on the presidential election, a new analysis shows.

The spending pattern may be the best evidence yet that the big money that would normally go to supporting the GOP frontrunner has instead migrated down ballot, especially to U.S. Senate races where there is a strong chance Democrats may take control…

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, at least initially showed disdain for super PACs, but has since changed his position and has actively courted them.

And yet, no group dedicated primarily to supporting Trump’s presidential candidacy ranks among the top 15 biggest spenders among super PACs and similar political groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. 

Moyers & Company: Outside Spenders Make Final Push To Win Congress

By John Light

Outside spenders have poured more than $170 million into contests for US House and Senate seats in the last two weeks of the campaign, our analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows. The groups behind this money – super PACs and dark-money nonprofits – do not directly contribute to politicians but instead spend on their behalf, supposedly without coordinating with the candidate, on things like advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.

The biggest spender, according to reports filed with the FEC between Oct. 24 and end-of-day Thursday, Nov. 3: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic party’s official arm for House campaigns, which has pumped some $31 million into these races in the last two weeks.

Candidates and Campaigns

USA Today: Exclusive Clinton op-ed: I’ll look for common ground

By Hillary Clinton

Here are four priorities for my first 100 days – issues I’ve heard about from Americans all over our country…
Third, to break the gridlock in Washington, we need to get secret, unaccountable money out of our politics. It’s drowning out the voices of the American people. So within my first 30 days, I will introduce a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. We should be protecting citizens’ rights to vote, not corporations’ rights to buy elections. 

USA Today: Exclusive Trump op-ed: We must clean up this corruption

By Donald J. Trump

Real change also means draining the swamp of corruption in Washington. We must fix a rigged system in which political insiders can break the law without consequence and where government officials put special interests above the national interest. If we want to make America great again, we must clean up this corruption…

It is time to cut our ties with the failed politicians of the past, and embrace a bright, new future for all of our people.

That’s what I’m offering in my Contract with the American Voter, a 100-day action plan to clean up corruption and bring change to Washington.

Politico: Johnson surges for fight to the finish in Wisconsin

By Kevin Robillard

The Wisconsin Senate race is quickly turning into Democrat Russ Feingold’s worst nightmares: GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is rapidly gaining on him, and big money – which Feingold spent his decades in the Senate fighting against – is pouring into the race late…

Feingold campaign manager Tom Russell bemoaned the rush of cash, saying the Democratic campaign proposed a bar on outside spending back in 2015. (Feingold’s signature accomplishment during his 18 years in the Senate was the McCain-Feingold law restricting political spending, though courts have since ruled many of its provisions unconstitutional.)

“We wish it wasn’t happening,” Russell said. “Without this money, Johnson wouldn’t have a chance in this race. I guess at this point, we see why he rejected the Badger Pledge.”

CPI: Clinton’s super-sized fundraising machine pushes legal boundaries

By Michael Beckel

Joint fundraising committees, often called “victory funds,” are not new in federal politics. Candidates routinely raise money through these collaborative operations that, by design, split the funds they collect among a number of beneficiaries, such as national and state party committees, as well as the candidate’s own campaign.

But instead of just transferring its cash to the signatories of the joint fundraising agreement, the Clinton campaign is also using a significant amount of the money the Hillary Victory Fund collects to finance pro-Clinton advertising.

This is innovative, to say the least. But it’s also worrisome to campaign finance reformers who see it as a way to shift costs onto groups funded by big donors, thereby evading campaign contribution limits.

Heat Street: Presidential Pollsters’ Political Contributions: Heavily For Hillary Clinton

By Leon Sculti

Recently, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, Time, the Columbia Journal Review and a host of other news organizations reported on a Center for Public Integrity study detailing the federal campaign-finance filings of journalists, reporters, news editors, television news anchors and other donors working in journalism. The study found that 96 percent of those contributions – or about $382,000 – went to the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, while the remainder went to Donald Trump.

But as we enter the final days of the most heated presidential campaign in modern U.S. history, not only major news agencies, but also their presidential polling partners, find themselves under increased scrutiny.

There is no evidence that any of the polling firms concerned have juiced their surveys or numbers in any way. Most pollsters, including those listed here, make much of their money doing corporate work and surveys, not political polling. However, perhaps there is an argument to be made for transparency among polling companies as to their donations – and journalists should be equally open. 

Politico: How Trump Took Over the Media By Fighting It

By Jack Shafer

No matter who claims the presidency on November 8, the 2016 election was a story about one human being’s domination of the media. Not since 9/11 has a single topic so colonized all of the media territories-print, television, and the Web-as thoroughly as Donald J. Trump did. Exactly how did he do that? It wasn’t through brute force: Trump ignored all the orthodoxies, eschewing the traditional campaign-building, almost ignoring the field offices and a “ground game.” By April, his campaign had only 94 payrolled staffers compared with Hillary Clinton’s 795. No focus groups, no pollsters, practically no outside speech writing, and little in the way of TV ads. He practiced a political version of lean business management.

Trump’s secret was almost exactly the opposite of what even the best-paid consultant would advise. He has run a media campaign directly against the media, helping himself to the copious media attention available to a TV star while disparaging journalists at every podium and venue.

Huffington Post: These Stars Are Telling You You One Last Time ‘Holy S**t, You’ve Got To Vote’

By Cavan Sieczkowski

With just four days until the election, some stars got together to tell American citizens to f**king vote.

Rachel Bloom, creator and star of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” leads the call in “HOLY S**T (You’ve Got To Vote),” a music video for Funny or Die starring other celebs including Elizabeth Banks, Moby, Naya Rivera, Amber Rose, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Jane Lynch.

Yes, there are expletives. Yes, they call Donald Trump an orange, talking STD. But they’re trying to get a point across. 

The States

Seattle Times: Bad judgment by state campaign-finance chief, but not egregious

By Editorial Board

The state Public Disclosure Commission is the referee of Washington’s campaign-finance laws. It’s a thankless job, especially in food-fight election years like this one. Like a referee, the agency must be fair, nonpartisan and respected.

Sadly, the PDC’s newly appointed executive director, Evelyn Fielding Lopez, has lost control of this year’s election game, and she needs to ask herself if she can still be an effective referee.

The state Republican Party filed an ethics complaint against her and demanded Lopez’s resignation after she waded into a superheated state Senate race in Vancouver. At issue is an unusual letter Lopez sent to state Sen. Tim Probst, the Democrat in that race, declaring that some attack ads against him inaccurately described PDC rulings.

Courthouse News Service: Food Group Fined Record $18M Over GMO Fight

By Julie Williams

The Grocery Manufacturers Association must pay a record $18 million for violating campaign-finance laws, a Thurston County Superior Court judge ruled.
The fine is the largest campaign-finance penalty in U.S. history, according to the state attorney general…

“GMA believes that there is no basis in law or fact to support this unprecedented, inequitable and clearly excessive penalty – nearly 18 times higher than any other Washington State public disclosure fine,” the group said in a statement.
The group said will “vigorously pursue its legal options to correct this injustice.” 

Sacramento Bee: California Legislature’s ‘reform’ of campaign spending was phony

By Dan Walters

Voters passed a 1998 ballot measure limiting contributions to legislative campaigns, but to thwart it, Democratic leaders wrote a much weaker version that voters ratified in 2000 (Proposition 34).

While it ostensibly limits direct contributions to legislative candidates, it exempts spending by parties and outside interests – gigantic loopholes that have made direct spending by candidates almost inconsequential and outside spending on their behalf dominant…

We would be better off removing the fallacious and duplicitous Proposition 34 limits and allowing candidates to collect and spend as much as they want – but with full and immediate disclosure so that they would be accountable for whose money they accepted and how it was spent.