In the News
Cato Daily Podcast: Governor Cuomo’s Twin Stabs at Free Speech and Association
Caleb Brown
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo would have state agencies boycott those who would boycott Israel and he does his best to circumvent the Citizens United decision. David Keating of the Center for Competitive Politics comments.
Independent Groups
Politico: Trump’s fundraisers see no chance of hitting $1 billion
Alex Isenstadt
To address the emerging shortfall, Trump – who once blasted the influence of big money in politics – is considering leaning heavily on super PACs. The campaign may give its informal blessing to as many as two outside groups, according to two senior Trump advisers. One, overseen by California venture capitalist and longtime Trump friend Tom Barrack, launched its first national TV commercial this week – a 30-second spot that goes after the Clintons. The group has hired veteran Republican strategist Alex Castellanos, and will be meeting in Washington, DC later this week with potential pollsters and digital ad makers.
USA Today: Charles Koch and his company launch ‘end the divide’ ad campaign
Fredreka Schouten
The advertising, which starts Friday, aims to “get a national conversation going,” Koch told USA TODAY. “Let’s stop attacking people we disagree with and trying to silence them. Let’s instead try to find common ground and learn from each other so we can innovate.”
The campaign comes as Koch and his aides work to retool parts of his vast policy and political empire and direct more money and effort toward public policy and social change. The network recently launched a new arm, dubbed Stand Together, which has set attacking poverty and boosting educational quality as early goals. And Koch officials have disbanded an opposition-research unit that gathered information about liberal groups, Democratic candidates and others.
Congress
Politico: Senate Dem’s agenda aims at campaign finance, lobbying laws
Heather Caygle and Burgess Everett
The Senate Democratic leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said it was a “coincidence” he was unleashing a package of proposals meant to satisfy Democratic populists on the same day that Bernie Sanders is visiting with President Barack Obama and Minority Leader Harry Reid. But it’s clear that an agenda that would ban ousted members of Congress from lobbying and increase campaign finance disclosures is aimed squarely at stoking support from Sander’s progressive supporters.
Huffington Post: Modern Elections Are Corruption, Sen. Al Franken Argues
Michael McAuliff
Elections have become just another form of corruption in the six years since the Supreme Court legalized unlimited corporate spending on campaigns, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and others charged Thursday.
Speaking on Capitol Hill at an event where Democrats rolled out a legislative agenda that they said would put pressure on Republicans in the 2016 elections, Franken offered stark assessment of the impacts of the Supreme Court’s campaign finance ruling in the 2010 Citizens United Case.
Franken noted that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion that opened the spending floodgates, argued that allowing anyone to spend as much as they want on a favored or hated politician doesn’t create an appearance of corruption.
“Well, I’m in the Senate. And it appears like there’s corruption to me,” said Franken.
The Courts
Washington Post: Court blocks California ban on using Assembly video in political ads
Eugene Volokh
Section 9026.5 makes it a crime to rebroadcast televised California Assembly proceedings “for any political or commercial purpose, including, but not limited to, any campaign for elective public office or any campaign supporting or opposing a ballot proposition submitted to the electors.” (The statute largely excludes “[t]he use of any television signal generated by the Assembly by an accredited news organization or any nonprofit organization for educational or public affairs programming.”) We argued that § 9026.5 violates the First Amendment, and the judge agreed; we expect a written order in a few days.
Free Speech
USA Today: Tech giants join speech police
Kirsten Powers
The term “hate speech” has unfortunately too often been invoked to delegitimize and silence people who are making arguments that some people would not like to hear.
The fact that all three of the examples of accusations of “hate speech” were lodged on college campuses is not a coincidence. This is where a new, more European, and thus less protective, conception of free speech is gaining traction. Students are being told that university bureaucrats have the authority (even when it’s unconstitutional, as it is on public campuses) to devise speech codes and designate so-called “free speech zones” where speech is limited. Worse, they are too often learning that hearing political or ideological views one finds offensive is an attack akin to physical assault.
FEC
More Soft Money Hard Law: Ominous Uncertainty at the FEC, The Sequel
Bob Bauer
The Republican Commissioners have now explained why they would not agree to investigate claims that a company pressured employees to make political contributions. Their joint Statement is a skillful piece of work and, on certain of the specific evidentiary issues in this case, it scores a point or two.
But:
These Commissioners understand that they are both disposing of the particular case and making a broader statement about the law, and what comes across in their analysis is the narrowest of readings of the protections against coercion. To them, this is a First Amendment issue—the right of a company to promote employee giving, so long as a) it faithfully includes anti-coercion language as required by law in all written solicitations, and b) applies heavy pressure without explicit threats. The Republican Commissioners have mapped out a path for employers to badger those who work for them into making contributions.
Influence
Politico: Clinton: Some foundation donations ‘slipped through the cracks’
Nolan D. McCaskill
Trump on Tuesday accused the former secretary of state of turning the State Department into a private hedge fund, arguing that “the Russians, the Saudis and the Chinese all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return.”
Asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether Bill Clinton would divest the Clinton Foundation should the former first lady win the White House, Hillary Clinton demurred.
“We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it, but let me just try to set the record straight. We had absolutely overwhelming disclosure,” she said. “Were there, you know, one or two instances that slipped through the cracks? Yes. But was the overwhelming amount of anything that anybody gave the foundation disclosed? Absolutely.”
The Hill: Steelers coach to host Clinton fundraiser
Jesse Byrnes
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin and his wife, Kiya, are hosting a fundraiser next week for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The June 14 fundraiser will be held at their home in Pittsburgh, Pa. The invitation has two contribution levels, including a “supporter” level at $10,000 per person and a “host” level of $33,400 per person that offers attendees a reception with the candidate…
Kiya Tomlin, a fashion designer, also donated $25,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 and made the maximum individual donation of $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign last summer.
Candidates and Campaigns
RealClearPolitics: Trump, and the Punditry’s Scary Groupthink
Sean Trende
This anti-Trump consensus could support the conclusion that Trump’s inevitable loss is so obvious that there’s no room for dissent. We shouldn’t reject this possibility outright.
But I think there are actually legitimate reasons to push back on the conventional wisdom. For example, it’s almost universally accepted that Trump’s comments about the Hispanic judge are a huge liability.
This may be the case. But there is a counter argument to be made here. What aren’t people talking about right now? They aren’t talking about the facts of the Trump University lawsuit (polling during the Republican primary campaign showed that this was Trump supporters’ biggest concern). They also aren’t talking about Hillary Clinton’s widely praised speech attacking Trump on foreign policy.
Reuters: Bernie Sanders-style, grassroots effort a likely model, say Trump donors
Michelle Conlin
“The pitch to this group in the room was a traditional pitch, but the backroom discussion was, because of this being a populist movement, there’s going to be significant outreach to, you know, those who give $1, $2, $20,” said Trump Texas fundraising co-chairman Gaylord Hughey. “There’s a huge opportunity there.”
Sanders, who has effectively lost the 2016 presidential nomination to Clinton, broke fundraising records during his long-shot bid for the presidency, collecting more than $210 million through more than 7.4 million individual contributions, averaging $27 apiece.
Trump could well find his supporters eager to pitch in $1, $5 or $20. For a story in May, Reuters found that nearly all three dozen Trump supporters it interviewed were not only unmoved by Trump’s about-face to accept money from outside donors, they said they would also happily contribute.
Wall Street Journal: Trump Can’t Wing It Forever
Kimberley A. Strassel
In short, he’s winging it. He continues to operate on the assumption that he will bask in free airtime forever, that the masses will flock to him come November, that he can tweet his way to the Oval Office. And perhaps, given his primary achievement, he gets the benefit of the doubt.
Save one thing: It isn’t working. Mr. Trump’s past rule-breaking succeeded because of a crowded primary field, in which Mr. Trump was the most entertaining figure, and in which the press didn’t have a stake. It succeeded because a decade of specific frustrations had made conservatives unusually open to his style and message.
That’s all over now. Mr. Trump is in a race against a seasoned politician who commands a machine and is already savaging him daily. The mainstream media are in the tank for her, and their airtime will be devoted to skewering him. Mr. Trump’s supporters remain the minority in a fractured party that he has yet to unify.
Washington Post: Donald Trump’s got (political) money problems
Philip Bump
Part of the problem is Trump’s late start, the Journal writes. But part is that fundraising will mean rebuilding some bridges burned during Trump’s fundraising-is-bad days.
Another hallmark of Trump’s campaign is that he says he will or won’t do a thing and then quickly does the opposite. Like Romney, much of the money spent on his behalf may come from outside groups — a new super PAC just announced that it had $32 million to spend — and from the party. Trump may not have fundraising infrastructure, but the GOP does.
One reason this is so important is that Trump’s purported electoral strategy isn’t cheap. If he wants to win typically Democratic states, he’ll need to spend time and money there. In the primary, he could spend a few days in a state right before the election. In the general, every state votes at once, and he can’t rely on national media saturation where and when he needs it.
The States
Boston Globe: House sidelines campaign finance bill
Frank Phillips
Legislation designed by campaign reformers to crack down on the heated fund-raising by Governor Charlie Baker and the Massachusetts GOP has been sidelined in the House, where Speaker Robert DeLeo wants to shunt it off to a task force that will study political finance, among other issues.
A DeLeo spokesman said the Senate bill will not be formally accepted in the House — apparently dashing any hopes the legislation could become law before this fall’s elections…
The legislation would tighten a 1998 law that bans state political figures from using federally raised donations. The bill also would address another area of what Common Cause calls “significant undisclosed money in politics” by requiring disclosure of money raised for party state committee races.
