In the News
Washington Post: Study: Major companies are increasingly disclosing their political spending
By Tom HamburgerThe Center for Competitive Politics criticized the newly released index as a “flawed and partisan measure of corporate accountability.”“Corporations have an obligation to do what is in the best interest of their shareholders, not comply with the demands of a non-profit that opposes speech by the business community,” said CCP Chairman Brad Smith, former Federal Election Commission Chairman.Smith also said it was “important to recognize the implications of activist investing and dragging the SEC into politics. CPA has no obligation to worry about the actual interests of shareholders, and nothing suggests that they have the best interest of the business community at heart.”
Fiscal Times: Which Big Companies Are Keeping Their Politics a Secret?
By Yuval RosenbergGroups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the Center for Competitive Politics have pushed back against the emphasis on disclosure and suggested that campaigns to pressure companies into further disclosure are really aimed at limiting political participation and speech by businesses.“The Index is nothing more than a tool for activists to demand increased disclosure and perpetuate the facade that the business community is embracing increased disclosure as a ‘corporate best practice,’” the Center for Competitive Politics said in a statement.
CCP
New CPA-Zicklin Index Flawed
“Treating the CPA-Zicklin Index as a measure of ‘best corporate practices’ is like asking foxes to offer best practices for henhouses,” said CCP President David Keating.CCP Chairman Brad Smith, former Federal Election Commission Chairman, said “Corporations have an obligation to do what is in the best interest of their shareholders, not comply with the demands of a non-profit that opposes speech by the business community.”“With all of the misinformation peddled by groups like the Center for Political Accountability, it’s important to recognize the implications of activist investing and dragging the SEC into politics,” added Smith. “CPA has no obligation to worry about the actual interests of shareholders, and nothing suggests that they have the best interest of the business community at heart.”“The Index is little more than activism cloaked in the garb of legitimate academia,” said CCP Media Manager Joe Trotter. “There is no evidence suggesting that further corporate disclosure provides a benefit to investors. Rather, the disclosed information is used by activist investors to harass corporations until they either fall in line with activists or cease participating in our nation’s political discourse altogether.”
Amending the First Amendment
New York Observer: Dinesh D’Souza Enters the Bizarro World of Campaign Finance Censorship
By Sidney PowellIt never occurred to me that a law professor would deem the concept of freedom of speech to be “empty.” That would only be true if we stood by in silence while legislators or former ACLU leadership like Professor Stone emptied it.In a country with a founding principle that Congress “shall make no law” abridging the freedom of speech, why are there any laws at all limiting campaign finance or spending? As David Bratt just proved in Virginia, “dollars don’t vote.” Almost a dozen states impose few or no limits on donations to local races, and somehow democracy has survived there. Really, shouldn’t everyone be able to support any candidate directly and to the full extent he wants to do so—in the full light of day?If the First Amendment means what its words say, there should be no limits on campaign contributions or expenditures by anyone. What we should instead mandate is transparency. Every candidate should be required to disclose by name the source of contributions in excess of a certain minimal dollar amount—so that everyone can identify any possible source of influence or conflict of interest. But there is no legal justification for more regulations. There are too many of those already—they’re a minefield—and they are nothing more than a tool for more prosecutorial abuses for political ends. It takes an army of lawyers to attempt to keep up.
Independent Groups
National Review: Dark Money The Left’s unprincipled campaign against philanthropic privacy.
By Bill Zeiser“Joe Katz” told me that his first large anonymous donation was a six-figure gift to his synagogue. “I didn’t want everyone to think that I was a big shot entitled to special treatment,” he said. Later, he established a family foundation. “The whole point of this was to get my kids involved and encourage charitable impulses in the next generation,” said Katz. “To my horror, people could Google and see my kids, the amount of money in the foundation, and when I saw that on the Internet it totally scared me for my kids’ safety.” Katz also cited the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, who posited that the more anonymity there is between donor and beneficiary, the more righteous the act.Scott Banister, a tech investor and a libertarian who supports the Marijuana Policy Project, believes the Left intends to suppress speech by tying conservative giving to controversial figures. He pointed to an article in a Montana newspaper about DonorsTrust’s donation to the Mountain States Legal Fund, a donation made at least partly with his money. The paper repeated reporting from Mother Jones to the effect that DonorsTrust is widely linked to the oft-maligned Koch brothers. “The reality is that I have no idea whether the Koch brothers are giving to Mountain States Legal Fund. But I certainly am. They’ve basically converted my donation into a Koch-brothers donation. And that’s not cool,” he said.Simpson agreed that the Left has become intolerant of dissenting viewpoints. “Any discussion around ‘dark money’ is somehow secondary and irrelevant to fundamental freedom of speech,” he said. He expressed distress at the spate of speaking invitations recently withdrawn on college campuses, the banished speakers ranging from former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, to former Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau, to women’s-rights advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali. “This is a woman of incredible personal and intellectual courage,” said Simpson. “And I would think my liberal friends would be shocked beyond words.”
SCOTUS/Judiciary
Court News Ohio: Part of Judicial Conduct Rule Unconstitutional, Violates Free Speech
By Kathleen MaloneyThe Ohio Supreme Court today found that part of a rule governing the conduct of candidates running for judge is unconstitutional.In an opinion written by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger, the court held that the portion of Jud.Cond.R. 4.3(A) that prohibits a judicial candidate from conveying true information about the candidate or the candidate’s opponent that is nevertheless deceiving or misleading to a reasonable reader violates the candidate’s constitutional right to free speech. The court severed this part of the rule from the Code of Judicial Conduct.In addition, the court affirmed the public reprimand of Colleen M. O’Toole by a court-appointed commission reviewing the matter for wearing a name badge stating that she was a judge. At that time, she was not a judge but was running for a spot on the Eleventh District Court of Appeals. But the court dismissed a charge concerning language that appeared on her campaign website in light of ruling that the related judicial conduct rule is unconstitutional.
Watchdog: Source: Wisconsin Supreme Court doesn’t want political heat of John Doe case
By M.D. KittleLast week, the high court released its calendar and synopses of cases to be argued in October.Conspicuously missing from the docket are two requests asking the court to settle disputes in the stalled John Doe investigation, launched more than two years ago by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, and his henchmen.One legal expert suggests the Supreme Court is hoping a federal appeals court settles the issue once and for all so the state court doesn’t have to deal with the political headaches and heat surrounding the politically charged John Doe.
Wall Street Journal: Appeals Court Reverses Judge on Wisconsin ‘John Doe’ Probe
By Jacob GershmanJudge Frank Easterbrook of the 7th Circuit wrote in the opinion that the federal judge’s concerns about protecting the speech rights of conservative politicians didn’t justify the court’s involvement. A fundamental principle of federalism is that “state courts are free to conduct their own litigation,” the judge wrote.
Disclosure
More Soft Money Hard Law: “Nudge” Theory and the Gerken Disclosure Proposal
By Bob BauerThe Gerken disclosure proposal relies on nudges in two directions. The audience for the advertising is alerted to the advertisers’ policy or practice of not disclosing its financial sources. The nudge is toward a skeptical evaluation of the ad: the viewers or listeners are encouraged to discount the message if the sponsor won’t reveal who is paying for it. The organization, faced with the loss of credibility, is nudged toward a reconsideration of its policy or practice, but it is not required to do anything.A chief aim of the proposal is to end the game of “whack-a-mole” that ensues as organizational forms evolve and regulation tries to catch up. The no-disclosure disclosure applies to the ad, not the organization, relieving regulators of having to refashion rules as political committees become unregistered “527s” and then are reborn as 501(c) organizations or taxable non-profits, and thereafter whatever else comes next. Another virtue it claims is that it nudges only toward results that the legislature could engineer by direct regulation, within existing constitutional authority, and yet it is only a nudge, the gentlest possible application of that authority.
Washington Times: The return of Citizens United
EditorialHow did a robust and skeptical state like Colorado, with a century-long history of electing conservatives and Republicans, turn so blue with the 2008 election? That’s the subject of “Rocky Mountain Heist,” a documentary by the advocacy groupCitizens United. A blue federal judge on Monday decided that Citizens United is not entitled to tell the story of how wealthy millionaires hijacked the state’s politics.This sounds familiar to anyone who has been listening. Citizens United was blocked by the blue Federal Election Commission in 2008 from airing a documentary about Hillary Clinton. Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that the commission violated the group’s First Amendment right to free speech.The new, hourlong documentary about Colorado doesn’t endorse candidates. It makes reference to a number of elected officials, including Gov. John Hickenlooper and Sen. Mark Udall, both Democrats, who are struggling to survive tight re-election battles in November. They may need help, but not from the courts.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Wall Street Journal: The Big Money Democrats
Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats have made a campaign fetish of denouncing the Koch brothers and other rich conservative donors for allegedly buying elections. This turns out to be one of the great misdirection plays of all time because big money might save the Democratic Senate majority in November.The untold story of this campaign is that Democrats are trouncing Republicans on fund-raising, fueled by those “big donors” and “special interests” they claim to despise. That Democrats remain competitive in so many close Senate election races despite low incumbent approval ratings is in large part a function of this spending advantage.
NY Times: Secret G.O.P. Records Reveal Corporate Donors Paying for Access to Governors
By Jonathan WeismanThey do it to exploit vulnerabilities and to make their own information secure. But sometimes a simple coding mistake can lay bare documents and data that were supposed to be concealed from the prying eyes of the public.Such an error by the Republican Governors Association recently resulted in the disclosure of exactly the kind of information that political committees given tax-exempt status normally keep secret, namely their corporate donors and the size of their checks. That set off something of an online search war between the association and a Washington watchdog group that spilled other documents, Democratic and Republican, into the open.The documents, many of which the Republican officials have since removed from their website, showed that an A-to-Z of America’s most prominent companies, from Aetna to Walmart, had poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of Republican governors since 2008. One document listed 17 corporate “members” of the governors association’s secretive 501(c)(4), the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, which is allowed to shield its supporters from the public.
