In the News
Washington Post: Group continues fight against Delaware campaign finance law
Associated Press
Attorneys for Delaware Strong Families filed a petition last week asking the court to hear the case.
The group is challenging a 2012 law regarding third-party entities working independently of political candidates to influence elections.
The law requires groups that spend $500 or more during an election period on third-party advertisements to disclose the source of donations. Those advertisements include communications, such as DSF’s voter guide, that refer to clearly identified candidates, even if they don’t urge a vote for or against them.
Open Secrets: An FEC warning on LLC gifts to super PACs?
Alex Glorioso
Disputes in these cases aside, the Republicans now are clearly on record saying that LLC contributions won’t fly in the future in at least some cases.
“What the Republicans are saying, in light of [Citizens United], is that they don’t think the defendants should be fined,” said Smith. “But they do say it’s potentially an issue…Presumably, the next time these cases come up, no one is going to say, they didn’t have fair warning. Now, you’re on the hook.”
Acton Institute: A ‘moral imperative’ or just another exercise in green politicking?
Bruce Walker
The ICCR resolution calls upon ExxonMobil Corporation to take action intended to mitigate climate change. ExxonMobil requested the SEC deny the ICCR resolution on the grounds it was based mainly on nonspecific greenhouse-gas reduction targets and unclear strategies to achieve them.
Since that post, I received an email from a subject matter expert that helps place the SEC’s decision in perspective. Legal Director Allen Dickerson from the Center for Competitive Politics, a free-speech nonprofit, commented:
The SEC’s decision was routine. It is extraordinarily easy, under U.S. securities laws, to put a proposal before a company’s shareholders, and politically active groups have done so with increasing frequency in recent years. But these policy proposals are seldom adopted. Shareholders generally want corporations to maximize the value of their investment, as management is legally obligated to do, and rebuff attempts to turn the annual meeting into an extension of the broader political arena.
Supreme Court
ABC News: High Court Rejects Challenge to Miss. Campaign Finance Law
Associated Press
The Supreme Court won’t hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality of a Mississippi campaign finance law that requires reporting by people or groups spending at least $200 to support or oppose a ballot measure.
The justices on Monday left in place an appeals court ruling that upheld the law over claims it is too burdensome.
Five Mississippi residents sued in 2011, arguing that the law limited their free speech and association rights. They were backing an initiative that voters ultimately approved to limit the government’s use of eminent domain to take private land. The group purchased posters, bought advertising in a local newspaper and distributed flyers to voters.
Danger of Disclosure
Washington Post: Fact-checking the Clinton-Sanders spat over Big Oil contributions
Glenn Kessler
There’s no evidence any of these actions were tied to campaign contributions. The link between such contributions and the State Department actions is especially weak because that reflects Obama administration policy, not just Clinton. (Indeed, pipeline approval authority had been delegated to a deputy secretary of state.)
Important context is also missing. The offshore-drilling vote cited by Sanders also banned oil and gas leasing within 125 miles off the cost of Florida. Moreover, Clinton voted against the 2005 energy bill, the energy industry’s top priority at the time.
Still, in the 2008 campaign Clinton did not hesitate to claim that Obama had made deals or cast votes in response to campaign contributions, despite also a lack of evidence.
Partisanship
Washington Post: Why are so many Democrats and Republicans pretending to be independents?
John Sides
Our goal isn’t to suggest that independents are real, but to ask, in essence, “If they are no different than partisans, why won’t they just admit that?”
People “go undercover” — or hide their partisanship behind the label “independent” — because they are too embarrassed to admit their partisanship. Being embarrassed to admit your partisanship leads you to avoid behaviors that are overtly partisan.
This is a big problem for democratic politics, since overtly partisan behaviors are often the behaviors that have the most political “voice.” In short, independents are just the tip of the much larger, more consequential iceberg of political inaction.
SEC
The Federalist: Elizabeth Warren Wants The SEC To Help Her Ban Free Speech
The Federalist Staff
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to prohibit organizations from “saying whatever they want about Washington policy debates,” according to a letter she sent to the agency on Thursday.
Warren sent a letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White calling for an investigation into alleged discrepancies between statements insurance executives made to their investors and complaints these same individuals made about the impact new government regulations would have on their businesses, The Wall Street Journal reports…
“Corporate interests have become accustomed saying whatever they want about Washington policy debates, with little accountability when their predictions prove to be inaccurate,” she said in the letter.
Influence
New York Times: Donald Trump Met Secretly With Interest Groups
Maggie Haberman
Donald J. Trump’s private meeting in Washington on Thursday featured nearly a dozen industry leaders, including a veteran lobbyist and the chief executive of a major airline trade organization, attendees confirmed…
Yet Mr. Trump routinely makes “special interests” and lobbyists a focus of derision in his stump speeches, making the meeting something of a surprise.
Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said that the candidate’s adviser, Senator Jeff Sessions, had arranged a meeting with people for whom he has “great respect.”
Business Insider: Bernie Sanders drops sarcastic press release following Democratic debate announcement
Maxwell Tani
Afterward, Sanders’ campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, released an aggressively worded statement criticizing Clinton for making the Sanders campaign change a date for a rally that it was planning to hold on the same day.
Briggs wrote:
Fortunately, we were able to move a major New York City rally scheduled for April 14 to the night before. We hope the debate will be worth the inconvenience for thousands of New Yorkers who were planning to attend our rally on Thursday but will have to change their schedules to accommodate Secretary Clinton’s jam-packed, high-dollar, coast-to-coast schedule of fundraisers all over the country.
The press release also noted that the Clinton campaign had “long opposed” a debate in Brooklyn, the site of her campaign headquarters.
FEC
Poughkeepsie Journal: Elections commissioner to Vassar students: Fix campaign finances
Amanda J. Purcell
Discovering ways to fight back against big money campaign finance is the reason why students invited Federal Election Commission member Ann Ravel to speak at Vassar College Monday.
The main function of the Federal Election Commission is to provide disclosure of where campaign funds are coming from, but, Ravel said, “There is no question that it is not working.”…
The lack of accountability by candidates and their big donors has already had an impact, Ravel said. Urgent voices of minorities and women needed in politics are not getting to the floor, Ravel said.
One of the ways in which this can be reversed is through voting for candidates not funded by corporations, Ravel said.
Activism
NPR: Once Ruled By Washington Insiders, Campaign Finance Reform Goes Grassroots
Peter Overby
It was raining lightly when marchers of the Democracy Spring coalition set out Saturday, trudging past Independence Hall in Philadelphia on their way south toward Washington, D.C.
“I came on the train. Two days. Slept in the train station last night,” Miram Kashia said, laughing. A self-proclaimed climate action warrior, she traveled from North Liberty, Iowa. She blamed political money’s influence for blocking action on the climate, and added, “I’m retired but it’s a full time job for me, being an activist.”
Candidates and Campaigns
NPR: Small Donors Power And Inspire The Sanders Campaign
Tamara Keith
That ability to raise large sums of money in tiny increments has enabled the Sanders campaign to outspend Hillary Clinton on television advertising in more than a dozen states. It’s also allowed him to claim purity, while implying Clinton is beholden to big-money interests.
“We have revolutionized campaign financing in the United States of America,” Sanders said over the weekend. “I don’t have a superPAC. I don’t get money from Wall Street or anybody else and I am proud of that.”
Wall Street Journal: Bernie Sanders’s Cash Keeps Flowing
Colleen McCain Nelson
Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to rake in contributions for his presidential run despite remaining a clear underdog in the race for the Democratic nomination, all but ensuring his battle with Hillary Clinton will continue for months.
Mr. Sanders’s latest fundraising haul—$44 million in March—was amassed as his path to the nomination narrowed substantially, leaving him with a daunting deficit in convention delegates. Such a feat amounts to defying political gravity, campaign-finance experts say: When candidates start losing primaries, as Mr. Sanders did during the first half of the month, the flow of donations typically slows significantly.
UPI: Are Trump and Sanders rewriting the rules on money in politics?
Heath Brown
A persistent question raised in this presidential election cycle is whether assumptions about American politics need to be rewritten, especially those related to money.
The rise of self-funded Donald Trump and small donor-supported Sen. Bernie Sanders has led some to argue that we should worry much less about the harmful effects of money on politics.
In my forthcoming book, Pay-to-Play Politics: How Money Defines the American Democracy, I show why the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision was expected to stop candidates who didn’t have the financial aid of super PACs or mega-contributors. Yet, so far during this campaign cycle, super PACs have done little to back the successful campaigns of Trump or Sanders. In fact, PACs have recently done more to oppose these candidates.
