CCP
By Tyler Martinez
The Center submitted substantive comments on the first iteration of the Proposed Rule, and I appreciate the opportunity to further aid your office in promulgating constitutionally-sound rules that protect First Amendment activity.
While the promulgation of a rule creating substantive new disclosure burdens may still be beyond the Secretary’s authority, these comments will focus on the additions to the Revised Proposed Rule…
Overall, the Center commends the Secretary and the Secretary’s staff for internalizing the public’s comments. But the Revised Proposed Rule can be further refined and improved. The definition of “advertisement” is still too broad, and should exempt Internet communications and grassroots lobbying by nonprofit organizations. Likewise, fixing the “coordinated expenditure” test-a difficult line to draw for any regulator-will go far in protecting First Amendment activity while ensuring that independent expenditures are, in fact, independent. Additionally, setting the reporting thresholds higher will further inculcate the Proposed Rule from unnecessary litigation and protect small organizations that lack the sophistication and resources to higher expensive campaign finance attorneys.
Free Speech
Wall Street Journal: Behind the Bedlam in Berkeley
By Editorial Board
Antifa activists have also developed their own moral justification for suppressing free speech and assembly. As anarchists, they don’t want state censorship. But they do believe it’s the role of a healthy civil society to make sure some ideas don’t gain currency.
So they heartily approve of the heckler’s veto, seeking to shut down speeches and rallies that they see as abhorrent. Antifa activists also search for and publicize damaging information on their targets or opponents, or launch campaigns pressuring their bosses or companies to fire those opponents…
Democracies solve conflict through debate, not fisticuffs. But Antifa’s protesters believe that some ideas are better fought with force…This weekend two right-wing groups sought to hold peaceful rallies. Their leaders-Patriot Prayer’s Joey Gibson, a Japanese-American, and Amber Cummings, a transgender Trump supporter-explicitly denounced racism. Amid fears of violence, both cancelled their events. Antifa showed up anyway, outnumbering and terrorizing any right-wingers or Trump supporters who dared show their faces.
Independent Groups
CRP: Dark money, super PAC spending surges ahead of 2018 midterms
By Robert Maguire
Outside groups, such as super PACs and their more secretive brethren politically active nonprofits, spent more money during the first eight months of the 2018 election cycle than over the same period in any previous cycle.
Outside groups have spent nearly $48 million as of August 24 – or more than double the $20.7 million the groups spent at this point during the 2016 presidential elections and the $18 million doled out at this point in 2014, the last midterm cycle…
Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited contributions from wealthy donors, contributed $22.3 million – nearly doubling the $11.8 million they had spent at this point in 2014.
Similarly, the $7.4 million spent by politically active nonprofits is nearly four times the roughly $2 million spent by those groups at this point in 2014…
Taking into account direct 501(c) spending and the spending of super PACs funded by nondisclosing groups, dark money for the 2018 midterms has reached $8.5 million so far…
Parties have spent $15.8 million so far this cycle, which is more than seven times the money spent at this point in 2014.
The States
U.S. News & World Report: New Mexico Hears Final Comments on Campaign Finance Rules
By Associated Press
Campaign finance regulators in New Mexico are collecting a final round of public comments on rules that would reveal more about who gives money to groups that can spend unlimited amounts to sway elections.
The Office of the Secretary of State said it was collecting written comments on Tuesday until 5 p.m. about a proposal requiring more detailed financial disclosures from so-called dark money groups.
The last in a series of public hearings takes place Wednesday. The rules may take effect as soon as Oct. 3. Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver says that early letters and public statements in favor of the rules have vastly outnumbered those in opposition.
Republican Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed a bill in April containing many similar provisions.
Spokesman-Review: Lawmakers: Idaho ‘uniquely poised’ to stiffen campaign, lobbying disclosure requirements
By Betsy Z. Russell
Among the ideas the panel is considering recommending to next year’s Legislature:
– Requiring campaign finance reporting for all local elections, whether for candidates or for ballot measures, whenever $500 or more has been raised or spent. Many local elections in Idaho currently don’t fall under reporting requirements.
– Increasing the frequency of campaign finance reporting to monthly during election years and twice a year in non-election years.
– Placing new reporting requirements on political action committees, or PACs, including forbidding them from accepting more than $1,000 per election cycle from any entity, in or out of state, that doesn’t also file its own Idaho disclosure reports; and requiring PACs to disclose not only their treasurer but also who the decision-makers are behind the group.
– Requiring lobbyists to report their expenditures year-round, rather than just during the legislative session.
– Reconsidering fines for reporting violations, and possibly raising them, to ensure they deter violators.
San Francisco Chronicle: California lawmakers’ choice between voters, donors
By Editorial Board
Given paralyzing divisions over campaign cash restrictions and influencers’ knack for evading rules, disclosure may be the most pragmatic available check on money in politics. Even the most conservative opponents of campaign finance regulation – including the current U.S. Supreme Court majority – have endorsed full disclosure of the sources of funds…
California lawmakers will have another chance to choose constituents over donors as AB249, by Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, faces a series of votes starting Tuesday. The legislation would require more meaningful disclosure of spending on ballot measures, making ad funding more transparent and preventing big contributors from hiding behind the bland names of conduit committees.
“There’s a bit of a test here,” Mullin said. “Can true reform come from this Legislature?”
While the bill makes some unfortunate concessions to the art of the possible, particularly with regard to spending on candidates, it would represent significant progress.
Daily News of Newburyport: Activists seek to limit outside campaign money
By Christian M. Wade
Two citizen-driven initiatives that are inching toward the 2018 ballot seek to curb outside money by capping how much can be given to state candidates and ballot initiatives.
One proposal would limit the amount of money raised by out-of-state individuals for or against ballot initiatives and candidates to $500 per election cycle.
The other would require campaigns and committees to disclose contributions by foreign nationals and businesses in which non-U.S. citizens have a sizable ownership stake.
Both proposals are being reviewed by Attorney General Maura Healey, the first of several hurdles to get a spot on the November 2018 ballot. If Healey certifies the questions, supporters will need to collect 64,750 voter signatures by this Nov. 18…
Several other states – including Connecticut and Washington- are debating legislation to curtail spending by outsiders.
Maine Public: Group Wants To Bolster Clean Elections Using Money Spent On ‘Wasteful’ Program
By Steve Mistler
Lawmakers should scuttle a costly economic development initiative and use the savings to pay for Maine’s public campaign finance program, according to the Maine Citizens for Clean Elections.
The group’s acting director says doing so will fulfill a voter-backed directive to do away with ineffective tax giveaways and bolster the Clean Elections program…
“We see a linkage between tax incentive programs that cannot be justified – that kind of inefficiency and waste, and the problem of money in politics. So we’d like to see solutions to both of those problems, and that’s what we see tied together in the citizen initiative,” he says.
In 2015, voters approved a ballot initiative that beefed up Maine’s Clean Elections law. It allows candidates for governor and the Legislature to qualify for public funds to run their campaigns if they gather enough small-dollar donations…
The success of the program is hotly debated in Augusta. But two years ago voters approved $6 million in new funding, and also directed the state to identify failing economic development initiatives. That has not happened, although lawmakers have increased funding to the Clean Elections program.
Detroit News: Lawyer: Super PAC givers face ‘firestorm’ of fines
By Jonathan Oosting
Bob LaBrant last month asked Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office to clarify state rules governing super political action committee contributions…
LaBrant’s request and warning to legislators is based on a 2014 enforcement action by the Bureau of Elections, which held that state law requires any person – including a corporation – who donates at least $500 in a calendar year to register as its own separate super PAC committee…
Secretary of State Johnson’s office is set to release a draft response to LaBrant’s request for a declaratory ruling or interpretive statement by Sept. 7, Woodhams said. After that, the state will open the matter up to public comment before issuing a final response, likely by late September.
LaBrant is urging legislators to end “this fiasco” before that final decision by amending state campaign finance law to clearly exclude super PAC donors from the definition of a committee.
The Senate legislation, awaiting possible action on the floor, would do that and more. LaBrant has testified in support of the legislation but conceded it goes beyond the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.
Washington Post: County-by-county public financing for races is legal, Md. attorney general’s office says
By Rachel Siegel
An attorney from the Maryland attorney general’s office says it would be legal for the state to allow public financing for candidates on a county-by-county basis, clearing the way for the drafting of such a bill in the 2018 legislative session.
Del. Marc A. Korman (D-Montgomery) contacted the attorney general’s office in May for guidance on whether a localized approach to public financing – as opposed to a statewide option – would hit constitutional roadblocks. A county-by-county approach was so novel that it left certain questions, such as how to handle legislative districts that don’t match up with county lines, unanswered.
Korman called the office’s opinion “good news” and said he will move forward with drafting a bill…
Opponents of public financing say the government should not be in the position of funding individual campaigns. Some also have expressed concern that a localized option would be unfair to candidates in poorer counties, which may be less willing to use tax revenue to generate funding pools for political campaigns.
Missoula Current: Dark money in Montana: Another GOP candidate admits taking illegal contributions
By Ed Kemmick
Another Montana politician accused of illegally accepting campaign contributions from corporations has admitted his guilt and agreed to pay a fine…
Like other candidates charged by then-Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl, Wagman was accused of accepting services, and failing to report them, from National Right to Work, a Virginia corporation, and other groups affiliated with that organization.
Those services included provision of a mailing list; campaign training; letter writing, production and mailing; website development; and document production…Motl eventually filed lawsuits against nine legislative candidates, eight of whom have now either signed similar agreements or were found guilty after trial or by default judgment.
The most recent development before Friday’s settlement occurred on Wednesday, when the Montana Supreme Court turned down an appeal from former state Sen. Art Wittich, one of the nine charged by Motl.
Only one of the nine cases remains unresolved.
Santa Fe New Mexican: Time’s running out to speak out on campaign rules
By Pamela Jeffreys
I am a grandmother and have never been much of a political activist, but our children and grandchildren here in New Mexico need us to step up now.
There is a way you can help to save your children’s and grandchildren’s future right now, right here in our state of New Mexico by fighting against the corrupting forces of “dark money” that has brought our democracy to its knees. How? Please write to our New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver in support of the new New Mexico Campaign Finance Rule by the deadline at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 29…
The purpose of this rule is to force the unmasking of who are behind the enormous campaign contributions that destroy fairness and truth during our election periods. In July, I attended a public hearing at the Capitol about the new rule. Several people spoke. Many for the rule and some against. Most strikingly, there were several speakers who represented Koch brothers-funded so-called “nonpartisan 501(c)(3)s” who were vehemently against the rule, one of whom threatened us with a lawsuit if we New Mexicans dare to try to know who are pulling all the strings in their dark underworld of Big Money.
