The Courts
AP News: Court upholds Santa Fe regulations on campaign disclosure
By Morgan Lee
A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected efforts by a libertarian-leaning group in New Mexico to shield future financial contributions from public disclosure in defiance of requirement enacted by the city of Santa Fe.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver rejected a request by the Albuquerque-based Rio Grande Foundation to invalidate city campaign finance provisions as unconstitutional.
The dispute stems from a failed city ballot initiative in 2017 to tax sugary beverages and shore up preschool funding, marked by millions of dollars in campaign spending.
The Rio Grande Foundation issued an online video that was critical of the soda tax proposal, prompting an investigation into possible violations of the city’s campaign finance code.
The foundation complied with a city order and disclosed two relatively minor donations of $7,700. Later it sought to invalidate the city regulations, citing a “chilling effect” on political contributions and, thus, free speech.
The court noted in its ruling that “the mere concern that speech will not occur does not amount to an affirmative claim that the speech really will not occur.”
Election Law Blog: The Significance of the Ninth Circuit’s Decision on Alaska’s Campaign Finance Laws
By Richard Pildes
I want to flag a couple significant aspects to the important 2-1 Ninth Circuit decision in Thompson v. Hebdon that Derek blogged about here. The Alaska laws at issue had been adopted in 2006 through a ballot measure that passed with 73% support.
First, Alaska limited to $500 the amount individuals could contribute to state candidates. The court struck this down as unconstitutionally low, based on the earlier Supreme Court decision in Randall v. Sorrell. What’s of most interest here is that the Ninth Circuit relied heavily on the view that overly strict contribution limits interfere with the ability of challengers to compete effectively against incumbents. The Supreme Court had nodded to this idea in Randall, but the Ninth Circuit elaborates on this point at much greater length.
Second, Alaska capped at $3000 the total amount of money a candidate could receive from out-of-state donors. The Supreme Court has not directly addressed the constitutionality of constraints on out-of-state contributions to candidates for state office…
Congress
The Hill: Democrats barrel toward August voting rights deadline
By Jordain Carney
Congressional Democrats are barreling toward a self-imposed August deadline to pass voting rights legislation while struggling to figure out how to break a months-long stalemate.
Democrats have long argued that legislation must be passed by August in order to counteract new state-level election laws, but they appear poised to fall short with the House out until September and lawmakers facing roadblocks to getting a bill through the Senate.
As they try to find a way to unite their caucus, Senate Democrats are prepping a new voting rights measure.
“We are very close to getting a bill done where everyone in the Democratic caucus will sign on,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, said at a rally on Tuesday hosted by advocates pushing for voting rights to be passed before the Senate leaves on a weeks-long break.
Klobuchar and Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are among a group of Democrats who are negotiating a scaled-back voting rights bill after Republicans blocked a sweeping package, known as the For the People Act, earlier this year.
“We’ve been making good progress. They’re telling me that everyone seems to be in agreement,” Manchin said. “We’ve all agreed, I think, to come down to the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.” …
But the bill is substantially narrower than the For the People Act, a top priority for progressives.
Fundraising
Roll Call: $6M flows through loopholes in pledge against corporate PACs
By Kate Ackley
Rep. Josh Harder, a Democrat from California’s 10th District in the Central Valley, has made his opposition to corporate PACs a signature issue. He sponsored a bill to ban such political action committees, and his fundraising appeals to donors invoke those views.
But Harder’s campaign account still includes other PAC and committee money — nearly $200,000 of the $2 million he has raised so far this year — from unions and ideological groups, as well as from his fellow lawmakers who do take corporate PAC donations, such as House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland. Harder has also received money from colleagues’ leadership PACs and from the funds of business organizations and trade associations, including the Crop Insurance Professionals Association, according to Federal Election Commission records.
He’s not the only one. A CQ Roll Call review of fundraising disclosures during the first six months of this year found that most of the 62 members of Congress who say they have sworn off donations from the PACs of individual companies have received contributions from colleagues’ campaign accounts or leadership PACs, many of which are full of corporate PAC donations.
WyoFile: PAC backing Cheney challenger Gray funded solely by his father
By Nick Reynolds
State Rep. Chuck Gray’s father is the sole funder of a secretive political action committee that is boosting Gray’s bid to oust U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney in next year’s Republican primary…
Coordinated expenditures are subject to different regulations, including contribution limits, than independent PAC activities without direct ties to a campaign…
Because Protect Wyoming Values PAC was established through a registered agent, it is impossible to prove whether the elder Gray founded the PAC, or if it was incorporated by another organization and financed by Gray…
“This is a really unusual situation where you have a candidate’s family member directly and entirely funding the super PAC that is supporting the candidate,” Pete Quist, research director at the Montana-based National Institute on Money in Politics said. “But this doesn’t pass the smell [test.”]
OpenSecrets: Secret donors are already pouring ‘dark money’ into 2022 elections
By Anna Massoglia
Millions of dollars in “dark money” is already pouring into the 2022 election cycle, OpenSecrets’ analysis of new campaign finance filings show.
Federal Election Commission reports covering the first half of 2021 indicate that many top dark money spenders have poured money into super PACs that can spend unlimited sums in the 2022 cycle. This follows the record-breaking 2020 election cycle that attracted more than $1 billion from untraceable sources.
Party-aligned groups were some of the biggest beneficiaries of dark money in the first half of 2021, continuing a trend from 2020 elections.
Candidates and Campaigns
Newsweek: Nina Turner Blames ‘Evil Money’ For Loss to Shontel Brown in Ohio Democratic Primary
By Darragh Roche
Progressive Democrat Nina Turner blamed “evil money” for her defeat in a special congressional primary election on Tuesday and pledged to make sure other progressive candidates didn’t have the same experience.
Turner lost the Democratic primary in Ohio’s 11th congressional district to Shontel Brown, who is a Cuyahoga County Council member and is widely seen as the candidate of the party’s establishment…
In a tweet earlier on Tuesday, Turner criticized super PACs for their involvement in the race.
“We’ve got billionaire-funded Super PACs fighting tooth and nail to stand in our way,” Turner wrote. “They’re spending millions to buy this election. We need real campaign finance reform in this country—but until then, let’s show them that organized people work harder than Dark Money.”
Free Speech
Techdirt: President Of France Sues Citizen Over Billboard Comparing Macron To Hitler
By Tim Cushing
Some countries still have laws that forbid insulting political leaders. But you kind of assume enforcement of these laws will be left to the Erdogans and Dutertes of the world.
Apparently not. In France, where free speech protections are mostly known for their exceptions, President Emmanuel Macron has apparently been so insulted that it’s resulted in the government taking legal action against a citizen armed with nothing more than an overused comparison and a handful of billboards.
Online Speech Platforms
Common Sense with Bari Weiss: Get Ready for the ‘No-Buy’ List
By David Sacks
When I helped create PayPal in 1999, it was in furtherance of a revolutionary idea. No longer would ordinary people be dependent on large financial institutions to start a business…
But now PayPal is turning its back on its original mission. It is now leading the charge to restrict participation by those it deems unworthy.
First, in January, PayPal blocked a Christian crowdfunding site that raised money to bring demonstrators to Washington on January 6. Then, in February, PayPal announced that it was working with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to ban users from the platform. This week the company announced it is partnering with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to investigate and shut down accounts that the ADL considers too extreme.
Why is this a problem? Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to make sure bad actors don’t fund hate through these platforms?
Washington Post: Facebook silences the people who know its operations best
By Yael Eisenstat
I worked at Facebook for about six months in 2018, hired as global head of elections integrity ops for political ads as the company attempted to dig out from its last big public relations crisis — the scandal around Cambridge Analytica’s improper use of the site’s data and Russia’s use of the platform to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. But they stripped my title and changed my job description on my second day there. I was later sidelined for questioning why we were not fact-checking political ads and for trying to help ensure that we were not allowing voter suppression to occur through these ads. After I asked to move to a different part of the company where I would be empowered to do the job I was hired to do, I was fired.
The States
Wisconsin State Journal: Democrats introduce bills that would overhaul Wisconsin campaign finance system
By Riley Vetterkind
Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday called for stricter campaign contribution limits and more mandatory transparency among donors, even as their party’s fundraising has been boosted by looser limits Republicans adopted in recent years.
Several Democrats, as well as advocacy groups such as the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, introduced seven [campaign finance] bills…
One of the bills would limit contributions to political action committees, which are formed by corporations, labor unions and organizations to support or defeat candidates; legislative campaign committees; and political parties to no more than $10,000, with the exception of a candidate contributing personal funds to his or her own candidate committee…
The bill would also cut in half the amount of money political action committees are allowed to contribute to candidates, currently set at $86,000 to the governor and $44,000 to the attorney general.
Other bills included in the legislation would impose a broader definition of a political action committee, defining it as including a person who spends more than $1,000 over a year on political activity…
Another bill would require any donor contributing more than $100 to disclose their name and place of employment. Current law only requires the reporting of the donor’s occupation at the $200 and up level. Republicans removed the employer reporting requirement in 2015.
Los Angeles Times: Recall leaders sue to stop Newsom from calling them Republicans, Trump supporters
By Maura Dolan
The leaders of the campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom have sued to try to prevent Newsom from describing them as “Republicans and Trump supporters.”
The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, said state election law bars ballot arguments in the voter information pamphlet that are false and misleading. The recall campaign said many of its supporters are not Republican and nearly half the candidates who want to replace Newsom are not Republicans.
“This case is purely about making sure the taxpayer-paid voter information guide contains the truth,” said Eric P. Early, the lead lawyer for the recall campaign and a declared Republican candidate for state attorney general in the 2022 election…
UC Davis law professor Christopher S. Elmendorf said he would be “shocked” if the suit succeeded.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled that the 1st Amendment generally disallows any state effort to regulate ‘truth’ or ‘falsity’ in campaign speech,” he said. “The forum provided to Newsom in the voter guide is a forum to which the 1st Amendment applies.”
