In the News
The Libertarian Republic: Apparently Liberals Only Hate Free Speech If It’s Not Theirs
By Luke Wachob
Bill Maher, a liberal comedian and host of HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher”, announced plans to use his show to attempt to unseat one Republican Congressman in the 2014 elections. Maher may sound like he’s poking fun at politics when he says he will be “entering into the exciting world of outright meddling with the political process,” but the project he’s calling the “flip the district” campaign sounds a lot more serious than satire, promising to target a competitive race featuring a particularly outrageous incumbent. “We want the chance to win,” said Scott Carter, the show’s executive producer.
Just weeks prior, Harvey Weinstein announced on the Howard Stern show that he will be making an entire film to promote his views on gun control. Explaining the project, Weinstein said: “I don’t think we need guns in this country. And I hate it.” He went as far as saying the NRA would “wish they weren’t alive after I’m done with them.”
Independent Groups
The Nation: The IRS Swings on Dark Money but Misses the Target
By Nan Aron
The IRS now says that any (c)(4) that acts in any way within the context of the electoral process is by definition engaged in candidate-related activity, even if the work is not aimed at supporting or opposing any specific person.
The effect will be to discourage get-out-the-vote efforts, candidate scorecards or voter registration work.
Groups would be significantly constrained from doing work around issues or pending votes in Congress in the period leading up to elections if their advocacy work mentions anyone running for political office—which in the case of the House of Representatives, for instance, is virtually everyone. Why should public debate about issues be constrained just because a bill is scheduled for a vote near election time?
LA Times: With election on horizon, each party is tracking the opposition
By Maeve Reston
In the midst of a busy 2012 election cycle, Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s offhand remark to a local television station about what constituted “legitimate rape” might have slipped under the radar. But Akin was a prime target for an opposition research powerhouse, American Bridge 21st Century, and their Akin tracker was on the ball.
Within hours, the Democratic “super PAC” had uploaded the clip to YouTube and pushed it to reporters — ensuring that it blew up on Twitter and headed to the top of national news. Akin’s candidacy was doomed.
Washington Post: Unions, trade associations worried about possible IRS rule changes
By Holly Yeager
Perhaps most significantly, the IRS proposal would define things like get-out-the-vote efforts, voter-registration drives, voter guides and other mentions of candidates — including incumbents, near Election Day — as “candidate-related political activity,” even if the efforts are nonpartisan and don’t tell people how they should vote. If “social welfare” groups did too much of that work, they wouldn’t be able to keep their tax-exempt status.
But trade associations and unions do a lot of that work, too. Just think of the glossy mailings and “legislative updates” that flood your mailbox and inbox, especially during high political seasons.
“The rule is so broadly phrased and so categorical, it would be totally inappropriate for unions,” said John Sullivan, associate general counsel at the Service Employees International Union. “It would seriously affect their ability to function as membership organizations.”
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
NY Times: Chastened G.O.P. Tries to Foil Insurgents at Primary Level
By JEREMY W. PETERSFEB.
The Republican Party establishment, chastened by the realization that a string of unpredictable and unseasoned candidates cost them seats in Congress two elections in a row, is trying to head off potential political hazards wherever it can this year.
In House and Senate races across the country, many of the traditional and influential centers of power within the party are taking sides in primaries, overwhelming challengers on the right with television ads and, in some cases, retaliating against those who are helping the insurgents. In Mr. Black’s case, one by one, powerful Republicans started backing his rival, Barbara J. Comstock, a member of the State House of Delegates. First Mitt Romney endorsed her. Then came Citizens United and the president of Americans for Prosperity, the group financed by the wealthy Koch brothers.
Washington Post: How to fix our polarized politics? Strengthen political parties.
By RICHARD PILDES
My suggestion is that, if we are looking for solutions, we should re-define the problem of effective governance in our era as one of political fragmentation rather than one ofpolitical polarization. By fragmentation, I mean the external diffusion of political power away from the political parties as a whole and the internal diffusion of power away from the party leadership to individual party members and officeholders. It is political fragmentation that makes it that much more difficult, in a political world that rests on polarized parties, for party leaders nonetheless to engage in the kinds of negotiations, compromises, and pragmatic deal-making that enable government to function effectively, at least in areas of broad consensus that government must act insome way (budgets, debt-ceiling increases). And because of political fragmentation, party leaders in all our political institutions have less capacity to play this kind of leadership role than in many previous eras. When political fragmentation that makes it that much harder for party leaders to command their parties is added to highly polarized parties, the mix is highly toxic to the capacity of our political institutions to function effectively.
State and Local
California –– LA Times: Donor who broke campaign finance law in 2010 faces $45,000 penalty
By David Zahniser
A San Fernando Valley businessman who admitted to illegally reimbursing campaign contributors during the 2011 municipal election faces a $45,000 fine from the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission.
Juan Carlos Jaramillo, 52, has already agreed to pay the proposed penalty, which stems from his fundraising activities for Rudy Martinez, who lost to City Councilman Jose Huizar in a Boyle Heights-to-Eagle Rock district.
Colorado –– Denver Post: Colorado Secretary of State offers opinion on parties independent expenditures
By Kurtis Lee
Political parties in Colorado that want to operate independent expenditures free of contribution limits received the green-light on Thursday in an opinion offered by the secretary of state’s office.
The opinion, penned by Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert, explicitly states, “a political party may form an independent expenditure committee … and may raise funds in any amount from any permissible source.”
District of Columbia –– Washington Post: Jeffrey Thompson is said to have secretly pumped $100,000 into 2008 Brown campaign
By Mike DeBonis and Ann E. Marimow
The D.C. businessman at the center of a long-running federal corruption investigation secretly spent more than $100,000 to help elect a D.C. Council member in 2008, according to a court filing and people familiar with the case.
Jeffrey E. Thompson, a former city contractor, had previously been implicated by prosecutors in funding unreported “shadow campaigns” on behalf of Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) in 2010 and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008.
Another secret effort, on behalf of former council member Michael A. Brown, was laid out by prosecutors and attorneys for Brown in a joint court filing Friday.
Vermont –– AP: Lawmakers will try to fix campaign finance law
MONTPELIER — Vermont lawmakers are planning to take up what’s being called a technical corrections bill to fix a mistake in a recently passed campaign finance law. But some legislators who were unhappy with the law passed last month say they may push for bigger changes.
Lawmakers were told last week that the language in the bill signed into law by Gov. Peter Shumlin took away old campaign contribution limits, but didn’t put new ones in place until next year. That means there would be no limits for the 2014 election.
Some lawmakers say when the measure that would fix the problem comes up in the House — which is likely to happen this week — they may push for lower limits and for identification of the employers of campaign donors.
Read more…
