In the News
Washington Examiner: Courts should undo this dumb, unfair rule on campaign finance
By Bradley Smith
In Holmes v. FEC, my organization, the Center for Competitive Politics, represents plaintiffs who are challenging the timing of contribution limits in federal races, but not the limits themselves. Federal law limits donors to contributing $2,700 to a candidate for the primary election, and another $2,700 for the general election. Many incumbents, however, do not face a primary challenger. They can raise $5,400 per donor and effectively spend it all on the general…
This is not fair to donors, it’s not fair to challengers, and it serves no anti-corruption purpose. As President Barack Obama’s former White House Counsel Bob Bauer writes, “donors do not potentially corrupt candidates in the primary, or the general, or a run-off: the corruption, if it occurs, is the result of the amounts given through the date that the candidate is elected to office.”…
It wouldn’t be hard to make the insensible sensible here. Contribution limits should be apportioned by election cycle, rather than split between the general and the primary. A win for the petitioners in Holmes would make the law simpler and fairer, and that’s something we should all get behind.
Free Speech
Financial Times: Social media encounters maelstrom over free speech
By Brooke Masters
As a journalist, I normally favour more disclosure and more freedom when it comes to information.
But Twitter’s new fight with Donald Trump’s administration calls that principle into question…
Twitter is not the only social media company having to think about free expression. Facebook is under pressure to do something about the fake news postings that have flooded through its feeds. But it has been wary of acting as a censor…
It is easy to see why Facebook does not want to get into the business of deciding what is fake and what isn’t. Sifting through millions of posts would be hard enough, but the issue has also become tangled up in US politics because of Mr Trump’s propensity to describe things he does not agree with as fake news.
But just as the Twitter case shows there can be too much disclosure, the stream of lies on some Facebook feeds suggests there can be too much freedom to spread (mis)information.
Supreme Court
New York Times: Neil Gorsuch Is Sworn In as Supreme Court Justice
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
Neil M. Gorsuch was sworn in on Monday as the 113th justice of the Supreme Court, placing a devoted conservative in the seat once occupied by Justice Antonin Scalia and handing President Trump a victory in his push to shape the court for decades to come.
Justice Gorsuch, 49, took his judicial oath in the White House Rose Garden with Mr. Trump looking on. It was the fulfillment of a vital campaign promise made by Mr. Trump – one that allayed the reservations of many Republican Party stalwarts, who were otherwise repelled by his candidacy – to make the appointment of a strict conservative to the Supreme Court a top priority.
New Yorker: The Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court
By Jeffrey Toobin
Leo has for many years been the executive vice-president of the Federalist Society, a nationwide organization of conservative lawyers, based in Washington. Leo served, in effect, as Trump’s subcontractor on the selection of Gorsuch, who was confirmed by a vote of 54-45, last week, after Republicans changed the Senate rules to forbid the use of filibusters. Leo’s role in the nomination capped a period of extraordinary influence for him and for the Federalist Society. During the Administration of George W. Bush, Leo also played a crucial part in the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Now that Gorsuch has been confirmed, Leo is responsible, to a considerable extent, for a third of the Supreme Court.
Leo, who is fifty-one, has neither held government office nor taught in a law school. He has written little and has given few speeches. He is not, technically speaking, even a lobbyist. Leo is, rather, a convener and a networker, and he has met and cultivated almost every important Republican lawyer in more than a generation.
Harassment
People United for Privacy: Darcy’s Story: Death Threats, Violence, and Intimidation
Darcy spoke out against taxpayer funding for sports teams–and that’s when things got scary. She received death threats and someone even followed her home from work and left a dead animal at her doorstep. This is why we must protect the right to support causes we believe in without having our home address posted on the Internet by the government.
The Courts
Bloomberg BNA: Challenge to FEC on Disclosure Continues in New Lawsuit
By Kenneth P. Doyle
A federal judge who questioned Federal Election Commission rulings on campaign finance disclosure issues dismissed a motion claiming the FEC hasn’t complied with his orders, but the judge said he will eye a new lawsuit challenging dismissal of enforcement action against conservative nonprofit groups ( Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. FEC, D.D.C., Civil No. 14-1419, memorandum opinion and order 4/6/17).
The latest ruling by Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia came in a case filed by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. CREW challenged the FEC’s dismissal-due to a deadlocked, party-line vote of FEC commissiners-of enforcement action against two nonprofit groups that keep their donors secret and have spent millions of dollars to help elect Republican candidates…
Many of the political ads the groups sponsored didn’t expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate, the FEC Republicans said.
Political Parties
Politico: Trump takes control of the GOP machine
By Gabriel Debenedetti
With the Republican National Committee firmly in his control, the White House and Trump’s political allies are now moving to lock down the state Republican parties, installing loyalists in top positions and laying the groundwork for the 2018 midterms and his 2020 reelection campaign in key swing states…
The effort to reshape the party infrastructure is being driven by a loose collection of pro-Trump activists in the states, and overseen by the White House political office run by former Chris Christie aide Bill Stepien. For Trump, a president who frequently talks about his election victory and is famously focused on who endorsed him and who refused to, it’s an opportunity to remake his fractured party…
Gaining control over more of those state-level operations would mean that in addition to controlling the RNC – where Trump allies like Ronna Romney McDaniel, the former Michigan chair, and Bob Paduchik, his Ohio chief, are now in charge – Trump and his political team would have a firm grasp on all the levers of Republican power and messaging ahead of the midterms.
Congress
Hartford Courant: Murphy Will Use Campaign Cash To Launch Anti-Trump Effort In Connecticut
By Russell Blair
With millions of dollars of donations flooding in and no Republican opponent in sight, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy will use money raised for his 2018 re-election campaign to mobilize opposition to President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
Murphy is calling the effort Fight Back CT, and will be hiring professional staffers to link up with existing grass-roots activist groups in Connecticut that have formed since Trump was elected.
“People are turned on today, they want to know how to be better organizers,” he said. “I want to be helpful in giving them those tools.”
Paid staffers will recruit and train volunteers to support Democratic candidates and focus on issue-based campaigning, contacting voters through phone banking and other methods. Murphy said he wants to tap into the “unprecedented” activism he’s seen.
The States
WVTF Virginia Public Radio: Candidates’ Free-Flowing Campaign Cash May Soon Be No More
By Michael Pope
The sky’s the limit in terms of what candidates can buy with all that money they raise from lobbyists and special interests. That’s something that Democratic Delegate Marcus Simon says needs to change.
“My opponent expensed, I think $3.85 at McDonald’s on a weekend while he was out canvassing. In my view, you may be out canvassing but you ought to be able to pay for your own meal at a fast food restaurant while you are out there doing it.”
Earlier this year Simon proposed creating new limitations. Republican Delegate Mark Cole had a similar bill, but neither even got out of committee. Opponents were concerned that with such strict rules, a candidate could accidentally run afoul of the law by doing something innocent, say sharing campaign donuts with family members. But Paul Seamus Ryan at Common Cause says that’s ridiculous.
“I don’t know of anyone who has ever been prosecuted taking home leftovers of a box of donuts for their family. The much more typical scenario is that candidates really abuse their donor’s money.”
This year on the campaign trail, candidates on both sides of the aisle have singled out this particular loophole as one worth closing.
Richmond Times-Dispatch: GOP about-face on ethics as much about Trump as Gillespie
By Jeff E. Schapiro
On Thursday, Gillespie announced his honesty-in-government plan. It was immediately embraced by Republican legislative leaders who had rejected some of its features when they were advanced by Democrats eager to wring advantage from the Bob McDonnell corruption scandal – even after the former governor’s conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016.
Among Gillespie’s proposals: Banning personal use of campaign dollars; lengthening from one to two years the cooling-off period before a gubernatorial aide can lobby the administration; extending the prohibition on fundraising when the legislature is at work to the one-day spring session as well as special sessions; and outlawing all gifts for the governor and his or her staff, members of the first family, Cabinet secretaries, and board and commission appointees.
With these recommendations, Gillespie, who closed his consultancy to concentrate on his candidacy, is addressing numerous risks.
First, Gillespie – simultaneously running a primary and general-election campaign – is trying to make it more difficult for Democrats to reduce him to caricature, as a schmoozer-for-hire handsomely remunerated for who he knows.
Missoulian: A glance at proposed campaign contribution limits in Montana
By Associated Press
A bill under consideration in the Montana House would raise the campaign contribution limits that individuals, political committees and political parties can give to state candidates. A glance at the limits being proposed:
Governor:
Individuals and political committees: $1,990 to a candidate per election cycle, which includes both primary and general elections.
Political parties: $47,700 to a candidate per election cycle.
Other Statewide Office:
Individuals and political committees: $990 per election cycle.
Political parties: $17,000 per election cycle.
Senate:
Individuals and political committees: $530 per election cycle.
Political parties: $2,800 per election cycle.
New York Times: Many Big Donors to de Blasio Have Yet to Chip In for Second Run
By William Neuman
Highlighting his fund-raising challenges, Mr. de Blasio was forced to make a quick series of trips in March to Florida, Illinois and California to seek high-dollar contributions, as he had difficulty raising large amounts in New York City.
Then the mayor spent most of last week on a West Coast trip, with fund-raisers in Seattle, Sacramento and San Francisco.
“Mayor de Blasio is incredibly proud of the grass-roots support powering his re-election effort and small donations from the people of New York City will continue to fuel this campaign,” Dan Levitan, a spokesman for the campaign, said in a written statement.
Mr. Levitan pointed to the push to bring in thousands of donors giving $175 or less, the threshold to initiate city-financed matching funds from the city’s campaign finance rules. The first $175 contributed by a city resident brings a match of six to one, so that a $175 donation brings the campaign an additional $1,050. So far, the campaign has raised $3.7 million and expects to receive more than $2.4 million in matching funds, according to the Campaign Finance Board.
