CCP
Some Strangely Declare Modern Philanthropy a “Problem”
By Joe Albanese
Proponents of greater government regulation of political speech have long sought more restrictions on advocacy organizations and think tanks that participate in public policy debates – whether by stripping groups of their nonprofit status, forcing them to publicize the identities of their supporters, or even targeting them for abuse from powerful regulatory agencies like the IRS. Such groups are consistently demonized by the anti-speech lobby as a fundamental threat to American democracy.
Pro-regulation activists typically assure skeptics that such regulations wouldn’t threaten “true charities” (it’s unclear what constitutes a “false” charity). This vague term suggests that only nonprofits that disengage from all policy debates and partisan elections should be free from government intrusion…
Yet, whether knowingly or not, pro-regulation activists are undermining American civil society. They say it is unacceptable for nonprofit groups to advocate for social welfare in their words and deeds, whether through policy research or providing charitable services outside of the government. The message here is clear: government should be the dominant institution in everyday life, and must consolidate power from all other groups, even though a vibrant non-government civil society is a hallmark of healthy democracies.
Free Speech
Wall Street journal: Jonathan Haidt on the Cultural Roots of Campus Rage
By Bari Weiss
When a mob at Vermont’s Middlebury College shut down a speech by social scientist Charles Murray a few weeks ago, most of us saw it as another instance of campus illiberalism. Jonathan Haidt saw something more-a ritual carried out by adherents of what he calls a “new religion,” an auto-da-fé against a heretic for a violation of orthodoxy…
The fundamentalists may be few, Mr. Haidt says, but they are “very intimidating” since they wield the threat of public shame. On some campuses, “they’ve been given the heckler’s veto, and are often granted it by an administration who won’t stand up to them either.”
All this has become something of a preoccupation for the 53-year-old Mr. Haidt. A longtime liberal-he ran a gun-control group as an undergraduate at Yale-he admits he “had never encountered conservative ideas” until his mid-40s…
In 2015 he founded Heterodox Academy, which describes itself as “a politically diverse group of social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and other scholars” concerned about “the loss or lack of ‘viewpoint diversity’ ” on campuses.
Supreme Court
NBC News: Dems Hit Gorsuch Filibuster Threshold, Moving GOP Closer to ‘Nuclear Option’
By Leigh Ann Caldwell
The Senate Judiciary Committee Monday voted along party lines to advance Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch out of committee, pushing his nomination to the Senate floor where a filibuster now awaits.
Earlier in the day, Senate Democrats gained enough votes to block the nomination on the floor, a move that appears certain to lead Republicans to change Senate rules and allow Gorsuch to be confirmed with a simple majority of 51 votes, instead of the current 60-vote threshold.
Four Democrats announced their opposition to Gorsuch Monday morning, including three on the Senate Judiciary Committee who spent the morning debating his nomination.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Sunday indicated that he will proceed with the co-called “nuclear option” to change Senate rules and avoid a filibuster.
“Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed this week. How that happens will really depend on what will happen with our Democratic friends,” said McConnell on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Republicans currently hold 52 seats in the Senate.
Chicago Tribune: One way or another, confirm Judge Gorsuch
By Editorial Board
Our hope, now fading, is that Gorsuch gets to the high court the old-fashioned way – confirmed with the support of at least 60 senators, including several Democrats. There’s something assuring, not to mention refreshingly constitutional, about senators from both sides of the aisle coming together to fulfill their responsibility to provide “advice and consent” on judicial nominations. Since Gorsuch, who’s been on the federal bench for a decade, clearly is qualified, he should be confirmed – by Republicans and Democrats…
Democrats say Gorsuch doesn’t deserve the Supreme Court seat because they believe he’ll allow his political convictions to color rulings from the bench. He gave a strong defense of his judicial philosophy and commitment to the Constitution, but of course declined to discuss specific cases to avoid accusations of being prejudicial. Democrats characterized his caution – similar to that of several sitting justices during their confirmation hearings – as evasiveness…
Senators, all of you know that Gorsuch will be a good justice. He deserves to be confirmed – and likely will be. If you also quash the filibuster, that’s on you.
New York Post: Gorsuch filibuster will be the dumbest in US history
By Rich Lowry
A Gorsuch filibuster would be an act of a sheer partisan pique against the wrong target, with the wrong method, at the wrong time.
The effort to portray Gorsuch as out of the mainstream has fallen flat. He has the support of President Barack Obama’s former solicitor general, Neal Katyal. He got the American Bar Association’s highest rating. He’s been endorsed by USA Today. He will receive the votes of at least three Democratic senators. Some radical.
From the moment of his announcement by President Trump to the very last question at his confirmation hearings, Gorsuch has been an exemplary performer, whose deep knowledge has been matched by his winning temperament…
In short, Democrats are departing from the Senate’s longtime practices and excoriating the GOP for responding with a tactic Democrats themselves pioneered. Process questions are always a festival for partisan hypocrisy. This is still a bit much.
The Courts
U.S. News & World Report: Vermont’s Campaign Finance Law Survives Legal Challenge
By Associated Press
A challenge to Vermont’s campaign finance laws has been struck down in federal court.
Dean Corren, an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor, sued the state in Vermont’s federal district court for violating his First Amendment rights, alleging that a restriction on fundraising for publicly-financed candidates is unconstitutional. The court issued its decision Tuesday.
The federal suit came amid a state-level case against Corren. During his campaign, Corren accepted public financing, which bars him from accepting other contributions.
In October 2014, the Vermont Democratic Party solicited 19,000 recipients inviting them to Democratic candidate rallies, including for Corren.
Former Attorney General Bill Sorrell saw that as an in-kind contribution and sued Corren over the violation, a case that is still pending in state court but will proceed with Tuesday’s decision.
Congress
Providence Journal: In radio address, R.I.’s Sen. Whitehouse paints Gorsuch as big-money judge
By Katherine Gregg
With a starring role in the Senate Democrats’ weekly radio address, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island on Friday spelled out his reasons for voting nay next week on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee: federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch.
“Judge Gorsuch needed to convince me he would not join the posse of Republican appointees that has relentlessly stretched the law to benefit Republican partisans and corporations at the expense of everyone else. He needed to convince me he would stand up to real threats to our democracy like dark money.
“Over and over again during his hearing, he dodged and ducked and failed,” Whitehouse said…
In Friday’s address, Whitehouse focused on “the effect of unlimited, secret political spending – or ‘dark money’ – on our political system since the 2010 Citizens United decision [by the Supreme Court], and how this dark money has propped up Gorsuch’s bid for the Court.”
Independent Groups
The Hill: Dem super PAC hits GOP senators over internet privacy repeal
By Harper Neidig
A super PAC aligned with Democrats will run digital ads attacking Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) over their support for a bill that would eliminate Obama-era internet privacy protections.
The ads from American Bridge 21st Century accuse the Republican lawmakers of voting to “sell your privacy to the highest bidder.”
Flake and Heller are considered two of the most vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in the 2018 cycle…
“Senator Jeff Flake led the charge to overturn FCC rules that kept consumer’s most private information safe,” Joshua Karp, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement.
“Because of Jeff Flake and Dean Heller, who have funded their campaigns with hundreds of thousands of dollars from the telecom industry, are giving their campaign donors permission to sell Americans’ internet history, from financial materials to health information, to the highest bidder. And not only is your online privacy for sale to big corporations – but so is the Republican Senate.”
USA Today: End Citizens United raises $4 million, projects $35 million haul for midterms
By Fredreka Schouten
End Citizens United, a political action committee focused on driving big money out of politics, is raising some big money of its own.
The group collected more than $4 million during the first three months of this year and projects it will raise $35 million ahead of the 2018 midterm elections for Congress, according to fundraising details provided first to USA TODAY. That would be a significant surge from the $25 million the PAC took in for the 2016 election, its first election cycle in operation…
The group’s donors “feel like the system is rigged against them, where those who can write the biggest checks get the biggest say,” she said. “This is their way of fighting back.”
Adding to the momentum: Democrats are “furious” about President Trump’s win and “ready to fight back” against his agenda and his nominees, including his Supreme Court pick, Judge Neil Gorsuch, Muller said.
In recent weeks, the political action committee has helped urge its contributors to donate $500,000 to the congressional campaign of Democrat Jon Ossoff, a first-time political candidate in Georgia.
Candidates and Campaigns
CBS News: This Texas Democrat thinks he can beat Ted Cruz using Bernie Sanders’ playbook
By Jacqueline Alemany
The Democrat gunning to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas is ripping a page straight out of the playbook of Sen. Bernie Sanders, framing himself as an outsider who wants to harness the grassroots and eradicate the corrupting scourge of money in politics.
Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a mop-haired 44-year-old El Paso native first elected to the House in 2012, embarked on a four-city tour of Texas on Friday to launch his underdog campaign against Cruz, who is up for re-election next year.
Throughout the day, O’Rourke talked up his “people driven” campaign for Senate, eschewed big money and party labels and emphasized job creation…
“People want a full-time senator. Someone focused on this state — not on running for President,” he said. “Someone who puts country before party and isn’t chasing big money, and believes public service is a calling and not a career.”…
Cruz raised nearly $90 million from super PACs during his 2016 presidential campaign, with $6 million going to a single analytics firm. O’Rourke has pledged not to take PAC money from wealthy donors, instead focusing on grassroots small-dollar fundraising.
The States
National Review: In New York, Big Brother Is Watching Your Free Speech
By David French
When free speech threatens government power, government has a tendency to get curious about the identity and funding of dissenting speakers. This was true in the civil-rights era, when the state of Alabama tried to force the NAACP to divulge its membership lists. It was true during the Obama administration, when the IRS targeted the Tea Party for illegal scrutiny not merely by asking in some cases for donor lists but also by inquiring about the political activities of family members of tea-party leaders and the login information of tea-party websites. And it was certainly true in the state of Wisconsin, when law enforcement used terrifying dawn and pre-dawn raids to gather information about First Amendment-protected issue advocacy about labor-union reform.
But why threaten to batter down a door when you can just pass a law that batters away at the Constitution?
That’s the state of New York’s approach, and it’s now facing one of the more important First Amendment challenges that you’ve likely never heard of. The case is called Citizens Union of the City of New York v. The Governor of the State of New York, and the law it’s challenging is a sprawling, complex monstrosity that imposes extraordinary regulations on speech about political issues, not just in support of political candidates.
Chattanooga Times Free Press: Tennessee Senate votes to double the ceiling on campaign cash
By Andy Sher
The Tennessee Senate on Monday amended a House campaign finance bill to allow doubling the campaign cash that individual donors, special interest political action committees and political parties can give senators during their four-year terms.
Twenty-six Republicans and a lone Democrat easily pushed the amended bill through on a 27-2 vote.
Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Jeff Yarbro of Nashville questioned the increases over what some Senate Republicans described as a “parity” measure…The bill began as a House GOP effort to let representatives and senators create a loophole in the state’s long-standing in-session ban on fundraising and sought to let members raise political money during veto-override sessions.
But in committee, senators added a provision allowing their contribution limits to reset every two years, instead of every four years as the law has long directed.
Tennessean: Tennessee lawmakers look to double audits of campaign accounts
By Joel Ebert and Dave Boucher
Tennessee Senate leaders are pushing to change state law so that campaign ethics officials review twice as many campaign finance reports as they do now.
The proposal, spearheaded by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, and Sen. Ken Yager, R-Kingston, would require the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance to audit 4 percent of all campaign accounts during any two-year election cycle. Currently, the 10-person registry staff conducts audits of 2 percent of accounts, in addition to reviewing complaints received about specific candidates.
“The number of audits that we perform has long been of interest to me because I think we need to do more audits,” Yager said Friday.
“I think it is so important for accountability to the public and transparency,” he added. “To me that is just the bedrock of our ability to govern. Once our credibility is ruined or gone then we can’t properly govern.”
Yager said he’s looked at doubling the number of audits of campaign reports for some time.
Montana Public Radio: Gov. Interviews Commissioner Of Political Practices Nominees
By Corin Cates-Carney
Governor Steve Bullock and members of his staff interviewed candidates for the job of Montana’s next Commissioner of Political Practices, this afternoon.
Governor Bullock spent a little over ten minutes in each of his interviews with Ben Tiller, an attorney with the State Auditor’s office, and Jeff Mangan, a former Democratic legislator…
SB: What is your opinion of the Citizens United decision?
JM: Corporations aren’t people. So it’s not something that I support…
SB: What is your opinion of the Citizens United decisions?
BT: It’s the law of the land as it sits. And it’s contrary to the policy that Montana passed legislatively in 2012. We have decided that as a state and a body politic we would like to think more about individuals making speech than corporations. Of course, the understanding in Citizens United was that corporations are groups of people and therefore they have First Amendment protections.
Crookston Times: Minnesota Republicans aim to clamp down on DFL doughnut stand
By Associated Press
Republicans say Democrats operating a doughnut stand at the Minnesota State Fair should disclose to patrons that their purchase is a political contribution.
The group has been registered since 1977 and contributes the profits to local Democratic-Farmer-Labor groups, the Pioneer Press reported.
Republican Rep. Randy Jessup of Shoreview has proposed a bill that would require the doughnut booth’s operators to tell each customer before the sale that proceeds may be used to make a contribution. The measure would also limit where the proceeds could go.
“I ask all of us: Do you want to defend this type of an operation?” Jessup said. “Does the end justify the means? Is it right to deceive people making a purchase and then having it become a political contribution?”
The bill is only one paragraph long and doesn’t mention the State Fair, fried foods or the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
