In the News
Boston Globe: Campaign finance reform group asked to clean up its records
By James PindellBut to advocates for less campaign finance regulation, the commission inquiries into Mayday are ironic.“If more speech regulation is such a good idea, then how come a Harvard Law professor with a multimillion-dollar budget can’t follow the laws that exist now?” said David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics.Mayday was founded last year with the premise of being “the super PAC to end all super PACs.” The group raised $10 million for the 2014 midterm elections, but lost six of the eight races it was involved in.
The New Orleans Advocate: Gov. Bobby Jindal organizing national fundraising
By Gregory RobertsDavid Keating, president of the nonprofit Center for Competitive Politics in northern Virginia and a plaintiff on the winning side of the Speechnow case, thinks the courts were right to rule in favor of the freedom-of-speech guarantee in the First Amendment, which he calls “probably the best invention ever.”As a result of the 2010 decisions, Keating said, “There’s more speech, so there’s more controversy, which I think tends to attract more turnout — and the elections have definitely been more competitive.”
Independent Groups
CPI: Hybrid PACs generating few greenbacks
By Dave LevinthalThere’s a certain irony that Ready for Hillary is probably the nation’s most renowned hybrid political action committee, since this curious kind of political group likely wouldn’t exist but for a Supreme Court decision sparked by a roundly anti-Hillary Clinton movie.Late Saturday night, the group, which is dedicated to supporting a Hillary Clinton presidential run, reported raising $8.9 million during 2014 — among the biggest hauls for any political group that publicly discloses its funders.That includes about three-quarters of a million dollars raised during the year’s final five weeks.But Ready for Hillary is an anomaly: Hybrid PACs, legalized in 2011, haven’t really caught on in American politics.
Huffington Post: Groups With Liberal Ties Tapped To Re-Elect The GOP Establishment
By Paul BlumenthalTea party activists were further agitated by the scant information available about Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. It pushed for increased public and private investment in alternative energy. It ran an issue ad praising Alexander’s “bold” energy plan in 2013. But whose money was funding that message?If the tea party groups had known the full story, they might have gone ballistic.A Huffington Post examination of tax records, accessed on CitizenAudit.org, found that in its first year of operations, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions was funded with $1 million in seed money from two nonprofits often linked to liberal causes. From June 2012 through June 2013, the group received $500,000 each from the Advocacy Fund and the Trust for Energy Innovation.
Wall Street Journal: Ready for Hillary PAC Raised Nearly $9 Million in 2014
By Rebecca BallhausReady for Hillary, a super PAC formed in 2013 to raise money for a presidential campaign by Hillary Clinton, raised nearly $9 million in 2014, more than twice as much as the previous year and more than the groups affiliated with most Republicans known to be considering a 2016 presidential bid.The Ready for Hillary group is not directly affiliated with Mrs. Clinton, but is collecting names and email addresses of her supporters that it will make available to her campaign should she decide to run. It has ramped up its fundraisingoperation in the last year, hosting events featuring top officials from the administration of former President Bill Clinton. Its national finance council–which requires members to give or raise $25,000 each–now has more than 894 members, according to a spokesman for the group. And though the group would be barred from coordinating with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign should she decide to run, its fundraising success indicates the pull Mrs. Clinton’s name would have among donors.
Corporate Governance
The Atlantic: If Corporations Are People, They Should Act Like It
By Kent GreenfieldThe movement against “corporate personhood” does not spend much time talking about these aspects of the concept. When the left cries that corporations are not people, what they mean is that corporations should not be able to claim the constitutional rights that human beings can. Yet even here, there is reason to praise corporate personhood. Remember, the opposite of a constitutional right is a government power. If corporations have no rights, then governmental power in connection with corporations is at its maximum. That power can be abused, and corporate personhood is a necessary bulwark.In 1971, for example, the government sought to stop the New York Times, a for-profit, publicly traded media conglomerate, and the Washington Post, which had gone public as a corporation only a few weeks previously, from publishing the leaked Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court correctly decided that the newspapers had a First Amendment right to publish. That was one of the most important free speech decisions of the twentieth century. At the time, no one seriously suggested that the correct answer to the constitutional question was that the Times and the Post, as corporations, had no standing to bring a constitutional claim at all. (And for those of you saying to yourselves, “Well, this isn’t a good example, since the newspapers are protected by the First Amendment’s press clause”: the Court has never given any greater substance to the press clause not already covered in the freedom of speech. And the current proposals to end corporate personhood do not claim to save media corporations any more than pharmaceutical or oil companies.)
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
USA Today: Christie remains coy on campaign plans
By Bob JordanASBURY PARK, N.J. — Gov. Chris Christie remains coy about his White House ambitions even with the launch of his presidential campaign fund and a nonstop political travel schedule.The new political action committee can accept donations to pay for expenses such as polling, staff and travel. But Christie on Monday said having a PAC only means “that there are a group of people who want to be supportive of me continuing to look at the problems in the country.”Is it a campaign kickoff?“No,” he said.
New York
City Journal: New York’s Campaign-Finance Delusion
By Stephen EideIf New York City’s experience is any indication, tighter campaign-finance regulations won’t open up Albany politics but will instead reinforce the already-formidable power of unions in the state. Over the last 25 years, New York City’s political leadership has become more liberal, and unions stronger, with each new wave of campaign-finance reform. This isn’t surprising when you look at how the campaign-finance rules have been designed. Union contributions to campaigns in the city are legal, and each union local is recognized as a separate contributor. Corporate contributions, by contrast, have been banned since 1998. The CFB has always objected to unions’ special dispensation under city law, but politicians write the laws. Labor has the upper hand in New York State as well, so unions will likely enjoy favorable treatment in any state-level campaign-finance overhaul.Even if state politicians disallowed New York City–style deference to unions, labor would have other means to flex its might—most notably, through independent expenditures. In today’s campaign-finance landscape, so-called Super PACs and politically active nonprofits operate outside the regulated system of campaigns and parties. The best-known outside groups are directed by Karl Rove (GPS Crossroads) and Charles and David Koch (Americans for Prosperity)—but many exist on the left, too, often with strong union backing. They emerged in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision and related rulings, which struck down restrictions on nonparty organizations while leaving in place those imposed on campaigns and parties. Deep-pocketed special interests thus have a powerful incentive to pursue their agendas outside the system, thereby avoiding many of the disclosure regulations—and all the spending and contribution limits—to which parties and candidates are subject.
Wall Street Journal: Bronx’s Carl Heastie Gains Early Support to Be Assembly Speaker
By Mike Vilensky
A quiet Bronx power broker who says he wants rank-and-file lawmakers to have more sway in the New York state Assembly, Carl Heastie has emerged as the front-runner to succeed Sheldon Silver , who departs as the chamber’s speaker on Monday.In less than a week, Mr. Heastie has sewn up the support of many of his Democratic colleagues, including Majority Leader Joseph Morelle and Assemblymen Joseph Lentol and Keith Wright, speaker contenders who withdrew and threw their support behind Mr. Heastie.
State and Local
Massachusetts –– Boston Globe: Statute against lying in campaign ads faces legal test
By Stephanie EbbertIn the first test of its constitutionality, a state law that makes it illegal to lie in campaign ads is being challenged by a Republican political action committee whose treasurer is facing criminal charges over a negative mailing in the last election cycle.The Jobs First Independent Expenditure Political Action Committee aims to strike down a 1946 state statute that bars anyone from knowingly making false statements about a candidate.Jobs First argues the state law is unconstitutional, providing a “chilling effect” on free speech by protecting elected officials from criticism.
Montana –– Independent Record: Panels tabling Motl’s campaign finance bills
By Charles S. JohnsonLegislative panels have rejected a series of bills to beef up Montana’s campaign finance reporting laws, although a comprehensive disclosure bill by Gov. Steve Bullock is expected to be introduced this week.By Friday, Republican-controlled House and Senate State Administration committees had tabled — and likely killed — five of the six major bills introduced at the request of state Political Practices Commissioner Jonathan Motl. The one bill that has advanced simply changes Montana law to reflect a federal court decision. (See related info box.)
Pennsylvania –– Washington Post: Pennsylvania state treasurer quits, will plead guilty to campaign finance charges
By Reid WilsonPennsylvania state Treasurer Rob McCord, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, resigned abruptly on Friday and said he would plead guilty to federal campaign finance charges.Federal investigators were looking into allegations that McCord solicited campaign contributions in exchange for official acts, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The probe has been going on for several months.McCord’s attorney, Robert Welsh, said in a statement that McCord would admit to campaign finance violations.
