In the News
Library of Law and Liberty: Criminalizing Politics
Bradley A. Smith
Americans are rhetorically in love with the idea of “transparency,” but Strassel shows that whether the next President is Mr. Trump or Ms. Clinton, it is mandatory disclosure that makes the intimidation game work. That is how the government and its private sector allies know who to target. Originally intended to help citizens keep tabs on their government, “the entire concept of disclosure has in fact been flipped on its head,” writes Strassel. “The American people know almost nothing about the workings of government. Instead, disclosure is trained on the electorate, allowing the government to know everything about the political activity of Americans.”
And with that knowledge, the government is harassing Americans who dissent from its views, and providing information to private actors who will use boycotts, harassment, and even violence to prevent opposing views from being aired. To true liberals, it is hard to imagine these events happening in America. But they did. And they still are. The stories are in this book.
Bloomberg BNA: Super PAC Spending Becoming More Bipartisan
Llewellyn Hinkes-Jones
Groups simultaneously funding Republican and Democratic super political action committees are becoming increasingly common, a Bloomberg BNA analysis of Federal Election Commission reports has found.
Rather than giving to support a single candidate, issue or party, more donors are giving to support both sides of the aisle through outside spending…
But, David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics and architect behind the SpeechNow.org vs. FEC legal case that removed campaign finance limits for super PACs, had a contrary view. He didn’t think bipartisan donations to super PACs would become popular.
“It doesn’t make sense from a donor’s point of view; it’s not likely to generate much bang for the buck,” Keating told Bloomberg BNA.
CCP
Communications Fellow Alex Baiocco Joins Center’s External Relations Team
Alex is a strong advocate for individual liberty and the preservation of First Amendment rights as a means of protecting open political debate and competition.
In Alex’s words, “freedom of speech may be the most essential right guaranteed to citizens for the maintenance of a truly free and democratic society, and political speech undoubtedly deserves the highest degree of protection from government interference. The idea espoused by some that regulating political speech and support for political ideas somehow preserves a healthy democracy is not only counterintuitive and wrong, but also a direct threat to the First Amendment rights of every citizen. I am excited to join the Center’s team and contribute to the preservation of open and free political expression in the United States.”
Congress
Washington Free Beacon: Dems Assigned Conservative Groups to Attack on Senate Floor
Lachlan Markay
Nineteen Senate Democrats will attack specific organizations in what they are calling a “web of denial,” according to a schedule of floor speeches circulated by Emily Enderle, a top environmental policy adviser to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), who is spearheading the effort.
Internal emails about the effort obtained by the Free Beacon reveal a highly coordinated plan between members of Congress and environmental activist groups to fuel a public relations and legal offensive against fossil fuel companies and groups they support…
Enderle revealed that Whitehouse has been coordinating with leading environmental groups on the effort. “Thanks to LCV [the League of Conservation Voters], Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Clean Water Action, and Public Citizen for supporting” the resolution, she wrote in an email before its text was publicly released.
Free Speech
U.S. News and World Report: Freezing Free Speech
Peter Roff
Monday was a hot day in Washington. The temperature outside was close to 90. Inside the U.S. Senate it might have been even hotter except for the chilling effect emanating from the activities of a gaggle of Democrats waging an assault on the rights of civic organizations and corporations to speak their mind on matters of public policy.
Ordinarily this attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech would be easily seen for what it is. This well-coordinated assault, which has the support of an outside public relations machine and third party organizations that can echo its message, is all wrapped up in the as yet unsettled debate about climate change and what to do about it. They’re hoping it blurs the lines.
FEC
Washington Examiner: Is FEC staff as ‘nonpartisan’ as the FEC thinks?
Rudy Takala
The top Democrat on the Federal Election Commission continues to insist that FEC staff attorneys have no political bias, despite an ongoing feud that revealed a sharp political divide when the agency’s Office of General Counsel recommended punitive action against Fox News.
The six commissioners split in that case along party lines, which meant no action was taken against Fox for its move to expand one of the GOP debates. But in the aftermath, Democratic FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel noted that the OGC concurred with Democrats, and twice emphasized its objectivity.
The Media
Poynter: Horse-race journalism dominated primary coverage, argues new Harvard study
James Warren
When it came to Trump, Harvard’s study describes a press narrative that “included the claim that he was strong and decisive. Those positive elements rested alongside more negative ones—that he was bigoted, insulting, unprepared, and narcissistic.”
But as it became increasingly clear that he wasn’t a flash in the pan, and that his rivals were in trouble, “the horse race got less press attention, reducing the positive press stemming from his electoral success. News references to his policies and character, though still the smaller share of his coverage, were increasing in number and were largely negative in tone.”
The notion of journalism bias arises as the study focuses on Trump dominating the last nine GOP races and essentially assuring his nomination.
“Although Trump no longer had active opposition, he received more news coverage in the last month than did either Clinton or Sanders, a development that has no possible explanation other than journalistic bias.
Lobbying
CRP: Ten years after Abramoff: Kevin Ring on lobbying today
Ashley Balcerzak
Abramoff’s former colleague, Kevin A. Ring, thinks it would be hard now to pull off the kind of freewheeling favor-trading that went on in Washington at that time.
“Things are better now, I would have loved this system,” Ring said Friday, speaking at an event hosted by the National Institute of Lobbying and Ethics. “The corruption is so much less than it used to be and there’s so much more transparency.”
Political Donors
Atlantic: Bernie Sanders Is Still Raising Too Much Money
Andrew McGill
The Sanders campaign has replied to each FEC request and has attempted to make amends. That said, some of these donors have persisted from report to report, indicating the campaign is still sorting things out. Take Shia LaBeouf, the Transformers actor. By the middle of March, he had given Sanders $6,015, way over the legal limit. On May 1, the campaign returned $3,315, bringing LaBeouf back within the letter of the law.
Alas, they were too late; the actor had already donated more money. The most recent report shows him $2,000 over the line.
McCain-Feingold
More Soft Money Hard Law: The Cycle of Reform “Fixes”
Bob Bauer
Potter says that “the good news is that we can fix these problems”—with reform, lots of it, from campaign finance to redistricting, and onto prohibitions on fundraising by Members of Congress during the work week. He is confident that the we can predict success, because we have had it in the past:
“[W}e have successfully addressed money in politics problem in this country—in the Progressive era, and again after the Watergate scandal, and then with the McCain-Feingold reforms in 2002.”
If so much success, why, then, the perpetual complaints about money in politics? The answer is that special interests “will always try and find a way around” the reforms. So continuous vigilance is required and “ongoing corrections as needed.”
So we can’t really “fix” the problem: we have to accept that what is fixed will break and that new repairs, more extensive than the last, may be the order of the day. As will be the profound frustration that has marked previous fixes that made a difference here and there and might well have been worthwhile in one respect or the other, but could never work quite the way they were designed and—especially– marketed.
Influence
Los Angeles Times: Behind a Bill Clinton speaking engagement: A $1,400 hotel phone bill and $700 dinner for two
Evan Halper
Clinton changed the rules of political speech-making for cash. He would push not just corporate hosts but also nonprofits and universities to pay fees well beyond what they were accustomed to. His aides would turn what had been a freewheeling format into tightly scripted events where every question from the audience was screened. He and Hillary Clinton would become so skilled at churning profits out of their lectures that they would net more than $150 million from speaking alone after he left the White House.
Contracts and internal emails connected to half a dozen speeches Clinton gave in the Bay Area soon after departing the White House offer a glimpse into the unusual demands and outsize expense reports associated with bringing him to town.
Candidates and Campaigns
USA Today: Bernie Sanders defied expectations with long-shot presidential campaign
Nicole Gaudiano
Sanders also spent much of the campaign feuding with the Democratic National Committee and its chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. He and the DNC clashed over the Democratic debate schedule, access to a DNC voter database, and a joint fundraising agreement between the DNC and Clinton. Sanders also attacked Wasserman Schultz for appointing “aggressive attack surrogates” for Clinton as co-chairs of key national convention committees.
Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator and a Sanders surrogate, said there’s always been a sense among Sanders’ supporters that the “establishment” — whether it’s the DNC, Clinton or her supporters — sees him as “a cute annoyance that they never expected to come this far.”
“Once he did show his strength, it’s, ‘OK, we’ve got to deal with this’ and the way he’s been dealt with has been unfair,” Turner said in May.
Politico: Trump strategist: He will ‘never need to catch up’ to Clinton spending
Nick Gass
Paid media won’t help Hillary Clinton, who between her campaign and supporting super PACs has outspent Trump to the tune of 15-to-1, Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser with the campaign’s polling team, said Monday on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria.” The Trump campaign has spent no money on general election TV and radio ads to this point.
Trump will “never need to catch up to Hillary Clinton, because she’ll never catch up to him in terms of just the sheer dynamism and magnetism, that historic, really unique, singular type of candidate that he is,” Conway explained.
The States
Seattle Times: Backers of campaign-finance measure I-1464 submit signatures
Rachel La Corte, Associated Press
I-1464 seeks to do several things, including creating a voucher system that would give voters three $50 “democracy credits” that they can use in state races every two years. To pay for the statewide system, I-1464 would repeal the nonresident sales-tax exemption for residents of sales-tax-free states like Oregon who shop in Washington.
To be eligible to redeem the vouchers, participating candidates would have to pledge to limit the size of donations they accept and agree to spending limits and private contribution limits.
Portland Tribune: Two measures added to November ballot
Meerah Powell
Another ballot measure added by the committee will be the option to limit campaign contributions for county races to $500 per person per cycle…
County Commissioner Loretta Smith felt the opposite way and argued that imposing a limit on campaign contributions could cause a disparity for women and people of color.
“You’re going to make us work even harder,” Smith said.
Smith said Multnomah County voters elect women and people of color more than other counties in Oregon, and that large campaign contributions are needed to continue that trend.
