CCP                                                         

Ravel’s Support for Ending PACs Exposes Her Long-Term Policy Goals

By Joe Albanese

[Ravel] wrote an op-ed last week in the San Francisco Chronicle advocating for a bill in Congress entitled the “No PAC Act” (H.R. 1743). As the name suggests, the Act would “prohibit a candidate for election to the office o[f] Representative in Congress or Senator from accepting contributions from any political committee other than an authorized committee of the candidate…” This would effectively outlaw the vast majority of PACs…

If Ravel wants to stimulate political giving from individuals and decrease giving by PACs, changing the incentives inherent in our heavily-regulated system is the best strategy.

Unfortunately, the pattern of Ravel’s statements and writings suggest that what she really wants is for citizen groups to face more restrictions and burdens on political participation, with no endpoint in sight. Making individual contributions more attractive – by raising contribution limits and thresholds for publicly disclosing personal donor information – rather than making other options worse does not seem to have even factored into Ravel’s thinking. When the only proposed solution to campaign finance reform is even more regulation, observers are left to conclude that safeguarding free speech is not a priority of self-styled “reformers” like Ravel, but controlling the political process is.   

IRS                                       

The Hill: GOP tax writers ask Sessions to review evidence against Lerner

By Naomi Jagoda

Two top Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to review evidence against the former IRS official at the center of the 2013 political-targeting scandal.

In a letter sent Wednesday, full committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and tax-policy subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to take a “fresh look” at the evidence against Lois Lerner “in order to assure the American people that DOJ’s prior investigation was handled fairly and to restore taxpayers’ trust in the IRS.”…

“It is clear that when the DOJ announced in October 2015 that it would not bring charges against Lois Lerner, the agency was following President Obama’s signal on how he wanted the investigation to be handled,” the lawmakers said. “Taxpayers deserve to know that the DOJ’s previous evaluation was not tainted by politics.”

Last week, Brady, Roskam and several other Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee urged President Trump to fire the current IRS Commissioner, John Koksinen.

Western Journalism: New IRS Documents Confirm IRS Inappropriately Targeted Tea Party Groups Under President Obama

By Andrew Kerr

Judicial Watch announced in March that the IRS had discovered almost 7,000 previously unreported documents pertinent to the IRS targeting scandal in response to a 2015 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit…

Last week, the watchdog group released 695 pages of those new documents containing admissions that IRS officials used “inappropriate political labels” to screen tax-exempt applications of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations.

In an August 2013 memo, Karen Schiller, then-acting director of Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements, admitted the IRS had taken “decisive action to eliminate the use of inappropriate political labels in the screening of 501(c)(4) applications.”…

Judicial Watch released a 2013 document revealing an “expedited process” for 501(c)(4) applications, but only if they spent “less than 40% of both the organization’s total expenditures and its total time” on political activities.

However, official IRS guidelines make no mention of a 40 percent limit on political activities for 501(c)(4) groups.

FEC                                        

Washington Examiner: Regulator who targeted Drudge turns focus to Facebook, Twitter

By Paul Bedard

The past chairwoman of the Federal Election Commission has revealed that groups in Holland and Russia used ads and fake news to influence elections, and suggested it could be worse in 2020 when “most of the advertising” moves from TV to the unregulated internet and huge political sites.

Speaking at a “Future of Democracy” forum last week at the University of California at Berkeley, Democrat Ann Ravel, who just stepped down from the agency, also raised the possibility of regulating political speech and ads on Facebook and Twitter.

Ravel, who pushed for regulation of internet sites and who GOP FEC members said wanted to crack down on conservative sites like the Drudge Report, said that without regulation of internet platforms the FEC’s regulatory role will become moot since it focuses mostly on legacy media like TV and radio.

“We know that there’s a lot of campaigning that’s moved to the internet, whether it’s through fake news or just outright advertising and there is almost no regulation of this, very little. And so that the disclosure that we expect as to who is behind campaigns is not going to exist soon,” she said at the university’s law school.

Independent Groups

Law Newz: Watchdog Claims They Have Evidence Bannon Was Illegally Paid as Trump’s Campaign Chair

By Rachel Stockman

The Campaign Legal Center, a non partisan watchdog group, has filed new evidence with the Federal Election Commission, which they say shows that a Trump supporting super PAC illegally compensated Steve Bannon, Trump’s current White House Chief Strategist, during the campaign.

The group also alleges that the same super PAC, Make America Number 1, engaged in unlawful coordination by using a common vendor…

The FEC letter that the Campaign Legal Center sent to the commission alleges that Make America Number 1 appeared to have paid Bannon through two “cover” firms, Glittering Steel LLC, and Cambridge Analytics. The letter contends that those companies are incorporated at the same address as Bannon’s consulting firm, Bannon Strategic advisors…

The watchdog group also sent a letter to California’s Attorney General asking for an investigation into whether the firms that received Bannon’s payments are complying with state law. Specifically, the group contends that Glittering LLC is registered in Delaware but engages in a practice of intrastate practice in California.

Congress

USA Today: Colorado Rep. Ken Buck pens tell-all book on Washington’s ‘swamp’

By Fredreka Schouten

In it, Buck says lawmakers are mostly “fat and happy alligators who feel pretty darn comfortable in the swamp.” He casts Republican leaders as “playground bullies” who go to great lengths, including yanking subcommittee chairmanships and canceling lawmakers’ overseas trips, to punish dissenters. And he decries a “pay-to-play” system in which plum committee assignments and leadership slots are tied to lawmakers’ fundraising skills instead of their policy expertise…

Buck views his effort as a principled stand against a free-spending and undisciplined Washington.

His top goal: urging voters to agitate for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He said it would restore fiscal discipline to Congress and help drive out big money in politics because lawmakers would no longer have the leeway “to give everybody everything they wanted” in spending bills…

Buck’s title echoes the campaign slogan of President Trump, who talked often during the presidential race of reducing the influence of special interests in Washington. In the book, Buck encourages Trump to follow through on his campaign pledges, such as slowing the revolving door between the executive branch and lobbying firms.

Candidates and Campaigns

Bloomberg BNA: Close Special House Elections Attract Big Spending

By Kenneth P. Doyle

A surge in Democratic fundraising in the wake of President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential race has helped make Democratic congressional candidates competitive in special elections for U.S. House seats from Kansas and Georgia that usually are safely Republican.

While it remains uncertain whether electoral victory will follow the Democrats’ success in raising money in these unexpectedly close races, the phenomenon has already had an effect-big spending by outside groups on the Republican side, funded by corporations and undisclosed donors…

Dominating the outside spending in these races are the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super political action committee linked to House GOP leaders, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, a national party committee…

Ossoff has raised more than three times the $1.8 million collected by Dan Moody, the top fundraising Republican in the Georgia race, according to the most recent FEC reports. He also has raised more than all the Republican candidates combined.

U.S. News & World Report: US Sen. Warren Rakes in $5.2M in First 3 Months of This Year

By Steve LeBlanc, Associated Press

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is revving up her already formidable fundraising juggernaut, raking in more than $5.2 million in the first quarter of the year to bring her campaign account to more than $9.2 million.

The spike in donations represents about a five-fold increase from the last quarter of last year, when she pulled in about $1 million.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and a frequent critic of Republican President Donald Trump, is facing re-election next year. The push to bulk up her campaign account comes amid recent polls suggesting support for her may be softening among some Bay State voters.
The fundraising totals released Wednesday by her campaign continue to reflect strong backing for her from her core supporters. 

Campaign officials say about three-quarters of the latest haul came from Warren supporters outside Massachusetts…
Warren started the year with about $4.8 million in her campaign account, the biggest piggybank of any Senate Democrat facing voters next year, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finance records. 

The States

Tennessean: Final order: Williamson Strong is not a PAC

By Melanie Balakit

The Williamson Strong case inspired other Williamson County residents to submit PAC complaints to test the state’s definitions of a PAC.

The Registry will take no action on these cases until at least August. The Registry said it will wait for the outcome of a state bill that would eliminate the PAC definition without a minimum spending requirement.

House Bill 0550, sponsored by Rep. Tim Wirgau, R-Buchanan, would require groups to register as a PAC if they spend more than $1,000 in a year to support or oppose a candidate. The bill would also require any group who spends money to support or oppose a measure to register as a PAC.

Williamson Strong still has a pending federal lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of the state’s campaign finance laws…

Williamson Strong’s nominal spending on web fees did not count as political expenditures because their online posts during the election did not expressly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate, the order states. Additionally, the group acted as a media organization.

The order, written by Judge Michael Begley, dissolved a fine that Williamson Strong had for failure to register as a PAC.         

Portland Mercury: The Buck Stops Elsewhere

By Doug Brown        

The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously last Thursday to send the county’s brand-new campaign finance policy, approved by 89 percent of voters last fall, for a court validation proceeding. That means that well before its September start date-before anyone has even formally complained about it-there will be a preemptive court battle to determine the law’s constitutionality… 

Last year’s Measure 26-184, the “Honest Elections Multnomah County Charter Amendment,” capped how much money people and political committees can give to a candidate for county office (county commissioner, county chair, auditor, sheriff, and district attorney), and how much money can be spent to advocate independently for a candidate-neither of which are regulated under Oregon’s permissive finance laws…

Weber and other county officials stand by the decision.

“We’re aware there are constitutional issues with what the voters passed,” Weber says. “We are asking the court to tell us if we can implement this as written and what parts we can implement without violating our citizens’ constitutional rights.”