In the News
CNS News: Lawless, Unethical Attorneys General Attack Tocqueville’s Democracy
Mark Fitzgibbons
Today, California AG Kamala Harris is engaging in a 21st century version of NAACP v. Alabama, demanding that all nonprofit organizations registering with her office to ask citizens for contributions disclose to her the names and addresses of donors listed on a federally protected confidential tax return schedule filed with the IRS. The Center for Competitive Politics has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its challenge to Ms. Harris.
Several friend-of-the-court briefs against Ms. Harris were filed by major think tanks and other organizations from the nonprofit right including Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Institute for Justice, Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, Pacific Legal Foundation and others.
Tax Analysts: Judging Candidate-Related 501(c)(4)s Is a Tricky Business
Paul C. Barton
After perusing all eight websites, David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, told Tax Analysts their mission statements seem in keeping with the kind of issue advocacy that can clearly qualify as a “social welfare” function for a 501(c)(4). They list agendas, Keating said, that “look like the agenda of any mainstream conservative group.” If the politicians they picture weren’t running for president, “I don’t think anyone would blink an eye,” he said.
CCP
CCP v. Harris: Amicus Curiae Brief of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in Support of CCP
The promise by Attorney General Harris to open such an investigation is a transparent attempt to chill the advocacy of the nonprofit and the association and speech rights of its donors. Organizations and their members and donors are right to fear the new demands by the California Attorney General that nonprofits disclose their members. That information provides little, if any, enforcement information about whether the organization is abusing the charitable solicitation laws. It does, however, provide the Attorney General with a tool to shut down political opponents.
Independent Groups
New York Times: Democrats Lay Groundwork to Expand Use of ‘Super PACs’
Nicholas Confessore
The plans, laid out by the party’s top election lawyers in an emergency request filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday, would pave the way for the creation of a host of new super PACs tailored to individual House and Senate candidates.
But the filing also indicates that Democrats would, if allowed, seek to use tactics pioneered by Republican presidential candidates this cycle, helping prospective candidates establish and raise money for super PACs before they officially declare their intent to run…
Democrats have generally called for tighter restrictions on super PACs, seeking new rules legislatively and even going to court to force the commission to act. But the new request takes a very different tack: In effect, the lawyers are arguing, the commission’s inaction threatens to put Democrats at a competitive disadvantage.
Bloomberg: Liberal Group Files FEC Complaint Over Pro-Bush Super-PAC Contributions
Michael C. Bender
The complaint also accused Right to Rise USA, the pro-Bush super-PAC that received the LLCs’ funds, of accepting the contributions “even though it was certainly aware of the individual(s) or entities that were the true source of the funds.” Right to Rise is run by Mike Murphy, who was a top adviser to Bush’s two successful campaigns for Florida governor.
Paul Lindsay, the spokesman for Right to Rise, said the super-PAC has fully complied with the law, and said American Democracy Legal Fund was a “sham group” with the “sole purpose of filing frivolous complaints against conservative candidates and organizations.”
“This complaint is worth less than an order of Trump Steaks,” Lindsay said.
Free Speech
Reason: Corporate Political Spending Is Helping Bernie Sanders Succeed. Why Does He Want To Ban It?
Ira Stoll
Perhaps the progressive politicians will eventually come around to the idea that if they can manage to get elected under the existing rules, those rules aren’t so bad, after all. Otherwise, they’ll be stuck trying to rewrite the First Amendment in a way that will prohibit politicking by oil companies, investment banks, and pharmaceutical companies but that will allow similar activity by international ice cream companies, labor-union-controlled banks, and the fashion industry. In other words, freedom of speech would depend on who you are or what you say. That isn’t really freedom at all. It is, however, good reason to be suspicious of presidential candidates running on promises to rescind a part of the Bill of Rights.
Lobbying
New York Times: The Lobbyist With a Six-Figure Government Job
Eric Lipton
While earning more than $100,000 a year as executive director of a tiny federal agency called the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which has only one full-time federal employee, Mr. Farrow has simultaneously helped collect as much as $750,000 a year in lobbying fees. His clients have included the governments of Puerto Rico and the Republic of Palau, a tiny island nation in the western Pacific.
Mr. Farrow was at once a federal government bureaucrat and lobbyist. The revolving door did not even have to spin.
Corruption
More Soft Money Hard Law: Watergate
Bob Bauer
Major reforms to prevent future “Watergates” seem in this tale, and with the benefits of being to look back years later, to have marginal relevance and fading effects. Campaign finance controls enacted in 1974 have eroded. The Independent Counsel statute, passed to assure vigorous investigation without political interference of senior officials, came to grief, largely proven to be expensive, unproductive and itself vulnerable to partisan abuse.
The first of these reforms, while entirely defensible or debatable on its own terms, seems detached from the larger Watergate issue—the flagrant and illegal misuse of public power—and the second was concerned with attacking official cover-ups, often said to be “worse than the crime.” How to build effective institutional or legal defenses against a repeat of what is truly distinctive about “Watergate” has turned out to be surprisingly hard. What remains is the fascination with Nixon himself and the question of how to avoid electing another President too much like him.
IRS
Forbes: IRS Gets Sued Over Bonuses To Lois Lerner
Robert W. Wood
For more than two years, the IRS targeting scandal has been one dissembling excuse after another. Rogue employees in Cincinnati! Oops, the emails are gone! Lois won’t testify! We can’t be expected to perform with the IRS budget being slashed! IRS can’t hand over anything without violating taxpayer confidentiality. Lois’s dog did it! This was a spontaneous demonstration to a video!
You name it, we’ve heard it. So I was delighted to read that the mysterious IRS bonuses are the subject of a FOIA suit. On June 20, 2013, weeks after the targeting story broke from Lois Lerner herself (before she took the Fifth), the IRS paid out $70 million in bonuses. Ms. Lerner received $42,000, part of her $129,300 in bonuses. Former Commissioner Miller (!) received $100,000.
Fundraising
Wall Street Journal: Twitter Courts U.S. Presidential Campaigns With New Donations Service
Natalie Andrews and Rebecca Ballhaus
The company, through a partnership with payments processor Square Inc., is launching a service Tuesday designed to make it easier for campaigns to directly accept secure donations from Twitter users, without making the donors leave Twitter. To make a donation to a candidate, users enter their name, debit-card number and other information on a Twitter Web page. After the transaction is completed, that data is saved for future donations.
The new service aims to help campaigns more easily collect small donations. Once a campaign signs up, Square generates a “cashtag” link, which stays the same if a campaign shares it or if a fan of a campaign shares it. The tool is free for candidates to use, and Square charges a 1.9% processing fee for each donation.
Candidates and Campaigns
The Guardian: Partisanship isn’t the enemy of reform – it’s a necessary condition of it
Scott Lemieux
He’s wrong. Both strategically and substantively, Lessig’s run reflects a lot of the common fallacies of people who think they’re too smart for politics.
The most obvious objection to be raised to Lessig’s campaign is that its underlying theory of politics is nutty. Declaring an election a “referendum” will not compel a single Republican to vote for legislation that is against both the ideological and political interests of the party. Vowing to turn the actual business of governing over to an unnamed vice president is irresponsible and dilettantish. And it’s silly to think that a series of wonky procedural reforms – no matter how worthy – unconnected to substantive issues could mobilize a mass constituency.
The Blaze: Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Finance Reform Would Put A Lid On Your Supporters, Not Hers
John Linder
As you may have guessed, it begins with a big new government spending program – federal financing of political campaigns. Or, as someone once said, “Food stamps for politicians.”
This is not a new idea. Liberals have long wanted public funding of campaigns. It gives incumbents a huge advantage since they already have high name identification and a challenger will not be allowed to spend enough to catch up.
Federal funding also gives the bureaucracy power over the size and form of the spending. Federal money seldom arrives without conditions so a very liberal, Democratic federal bureaucracy will define your campaign.
Just for Fun
The Onion: FEC Implements One-Year Break Between All Presidential Terms As Reprieve For Weary Nation
“The complaint we receive most frequently from voters is that they feel completely drained going through presidency after presidency without any kind of break,” said FEC chair Ann M. Ravel, explaining that the ideal for many citizens would be a year’s reprieve from all presidential press conferences, any photograph taken inside or outside the White House, or ever hearing the word “president” spoken aloud. “These off years will allow Americans to rest and regain their bearings before having to endure another four-year cycle of the same old photo ops, talking points, and stalemates with Congress.”
