CCP
CCP Job Opening: Attorney, First Amendment Litigation
The Center for Competitive Politics is expanding its litigation team. We are looking for an experienced attorney to take a leading, independent role in First Amendment cases brought in federal and state courts.
[Please click on the link above for a detailed description of job responsibilities, requirements, and instructions on how to apply.]
Free Speech
Concurring Opinions: FAN 161 (First Amendment News) Nadine Strossen’s Next Book – “Hate: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship”
By Ronald K.L. Collins
In a forthcoming book, New York Law School Professor Nadine Strossen returns to a topic she explored 27 years ago in an insightful Duke Law Journal article titled “Regulating Racist Speech on Campus: A Modest Proposal?” This spring, Oxford University Press will publish her latest book: Hate: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship. (This book is part of the “Inalienable Rights” Series, of which University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone is editor.)…
This from Professor Stone’s Introduction: “In this work, Strossen stakes out a bold and important claim about how best to protect both equality and freedom. Anyone who wants to advocate for ‘hate speech’ laws and policies in the future now has the “Devil’s Advocate” right at hand. No one can address this issue in the foreseeable future without taking on this formidable and compelling analysis. It lays the foundation for all debates on this issue for years to come.”
Congress
Wall Street Journal: Senate Panel Likely to Ask Facebook to Publicly Detail Russian Activity on Platform During Election
By Byron Tau and Deepa Seetharaman
The bipartisan leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday they are likely to call representatives from Facebook Inc. to Capitol Hill to publicly detail Russian activity on the company’s platform during the 2016 election.
In separate interviews with reporters, Sens. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and Mark Warner (D., Va.) said they are in discussions with each other and other committee chairs in Congress about holding a public hearing with representatives from Facebook and other social-media companies on foreign election-related activity in cyberspace.
Mr. Burr, chairman of the panel conducting a probe into Russian activity during last year’s election, said he was leaning toward holding such a hearing, but that he was working out issues like scope, jurisdiction and whether to include other social-media companies, such as Twitter Inc., in the final lineup of witnesses.
“Now that we’ve opened up this avenue of social media, it’s of great interest for us to get a full accounting from everyone who operates in the space if in fact foreign money found its way in to finance any of the efforts on social media,” said Mr. Burr.
Lexology: Congress Considers Changes to Trade Association Prior Approval Rules
By Douglas Dziak
Under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA), the FEC requires that a trade association, before soliciting the executive or administrative staff and stockholders of a corporate member, must request and receive the member corporation’s permission to do so. Moreover, a corporation may only provide prior approval to one trade association per year. This legal obligation does not apply to non-corporate entities or individual members of a trade association.
In April 2017, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) introduced H.R.2101 of the Prior Approval Reform Act. This act would amend FECA and eliminate the statutory requirement for trade associations to obtain prior approval before soliciting a corporation’s restricted class, who are eligible for solicitation under FECA.
While H.R. 2101 would make a permanent change to FECA, H.R.3280 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2018, Section 630 would prohibit the FEC from using appropriated funds during the FY18 period from enforcing those FECA provisions. This would restrict the FEC’s enforcement during the FY18 period but appropriations legislation does not make the same underlying and permanent change to FECA that Rep. Amodei has proposed with H.R. 2101.
FEC
Washington Post: Trump nominates conservative Texas lawyer to Federal Election Commission
By Matea Gold
The White House announced late Tuesday that the president has nominated James E. “Trey” Trainor III, a partner in the Austin office of Akerman LLP, to fill the remainder of a six-year FEC term that will expire in April 2021. That puts him on track to replace Republican Commissioner Lee Goodman, who said this spring that he was planning on stepping down by the end of year…
If Trainor replaces Goodman on the FEC, the six-member panel would still be on track to have two vacancies unless Trump nominates replacements for Democratic appointee Ann Ravel, who left earlier this year, and Republican appointee Matthew Petersen, whom the president recently tapped to be a federal judge.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether Trump plans to make other nominations to the FEC.
The Media
BuzzFeed: There’s Blood In The Water In Silicon Valley
By Ben Smith
For Facebook, its move into politics spells trouble in a way none of its privacy stumbles, or control over the media, has. The company was pleased as recently as 2014 to be seen as a major political player. Back then, it was eager to work on a project sharing sentiment data; I wrote a piece announcing the partnership and predicting that Facebook would “replace television advertising as the place where American elections are fought and won.” That was exactly what happened, and it is viewed by many as a disaster…
Although the company initially dismissed the notion that it could have electoral power, the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan recently stated the consensus: “Would Donald Trump be president today if Facebook didn’t exist? Although there is a long list of reasons for his win, there’s increasing reason to believe the answer is no.” And that’s coming from Facebook’s natural allies on the left, not the conservatives who don’t like the company’s progressive social views…
People watching this from afar sometimes suggest that tech simply has too much money to stop. This is nonsense. Politics is run by politicians, and while they like money, they like attention more.
Lobbying
Washington Examiner: Lobbying money spikes under President Trump
By Tony Mecia
Lobbyists are on track to spend more money this year than any year since 2010. People who study money in politics say that expected increase stems from a single party controlling the Congress and executive branch, as well as from expected legislation that usually comes at the beginning of a new president’s term…
The administration has enacted some minor lobbying and ethics rules by executive order early in Trump’s presidency, but has not pushed for major legislation regulating lobbying. Advocates are hopeful that the administration and Congress will push campaign and lobbying reform plans after completing tax reform…
Although lobbying conjures up images of arm-twisting in smoke-filled rooms, or promises of campaign cash over boozy and leisurely lunches, most of the expense of lobbying is far more ordinary. Typically, lobbyists spend their time monitoring the status of regulations and legislation and reporting back to their companies or associations. They also communicate with legislators and staff members and can provide subject-matter expertise and points of view that might not otherwise be represented in Washington.
Political Parties
Wall Street Journal: Harvard Business School’s Latest Case Study Looks at American Politics and Finds a Rigged System
By Jeffrey Sparshott
The U.S. political system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly the way the two main parties designed it.
That’s the conclusion of a new Harvard Business School study. Authors Katherine Gehl, president and CEO of Gehl Foods, and Michael Porter, a professor at the school, apply business theory to the U.S. political system and find an industry that works for Democratic and Republican organizations, big donors, pollsters, consultants, partisan think tanks, the media and lobbyists, but ignores most American citizens…
In short, the two-party system has become a textbook example of a duopoly where neither party is competing for the same customers…
Instead, they cater to primary voters and what the authors term the political-industrial complex…
The new analysis blames a system that allows an industry-in this case the political industry-to create its own rules with little oversight. The result has been stifled competition due to partisan primaries, control over access to general election ballots, gerrymandering, sore-loser laws, which in some states prevent primary losers from competing in the general election as an independent, and other political rules.
The States
Public News Service: Wisconsin Ethics Commission Likened to Wild West
By Tim Morrissey
Government watchdog groups are calling into question the effectiveness of the newly formed Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
The new entity was created a year ago to replace the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.
In its first year of existence, the Ethics Commission investigated a single alleged violation of state campaign finance and lobbying laws.
In the year prior, the Government Accountability Board handled 39 investigations.
Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, says the new commission isn’t doing a good job, in part because many of the state’s once-strong ethics laws were repealed.
“Those were all repealed by the end of 2015,” he explains. “We now have one of the least regulated, most wide open ‘Wild West’ campaign finance and ethics systems in the country, rating somewhere below Alabama and Mississippi, and maybe just east of Texas.”
The Republican legislative leadership, which spearheaded the repeal of most of the state’s strong political ethics laws, says the former Government Accountability Board was used as an instrument for partisan witch hunts.
U.S. News & World Report: South Dakota Campaign Finance Reform Group Sees Low Turnout
By Associated Press
South Dakota lawmakers say low turnout at task force meetings on campaign finance reform may be a sign of dwindling support for changes in the law…
The sparse attendance comes after legislators began repealing a campaign reform measure in January, prompting protests at the state Capitol. The reform campaign’s website says Initiated Measure 22 was created with the intention to prevent political bribery, improve transparency and increase ethics enforcement.
Sen. Jordan Youngberg, R-Madison, chairs the task force created to revisit the repealed issues. He says low turnout could signal declining support for the changes…
The task force will hold a final meeting next month before compiling its final recommendations to the Legislature.
Some leaders have begun circulating proposals similar to the 2016 ballot measure, aiming to amend the state’s campaign finance laws. If passed, the proposal would amend the state’s constitution and exempt it from legislative repeal.
