In the News
Albany Times-Union: Public financing no cure-all
By Academic Advisors Jeffrey D. Milyo and David M. Primo,
We have conducted some of the only research that subjects these claims to statistical scrutiny. In a 2006 study, we examined whether state campaign finance rules affect perceptions of government, specifically “political efficacy” — the sense that ordinary people can influence political outcomes.
We compared whether people in states with restrictive campaign finance laws have higher levels of efficacy than people in states with few or no limits on campaign financing. Our study detected that public financing may have a small negative effect on perceptions of government (though we wouldn’t make too much of this finding, since the effect is substantively small).
Research by Milyo finds no evidence that citizen perceptions are improved.
Maybe for New York state the concern should be actual corruption. Research by Milyo and Adriana Cordis finds no evidence that corruption, measured by public corruption convictions, is reduced by public financing.
Washington Examiner: Obama should stop using IRS to suppress political speech
Editorial
As bad as both of those disreputable laws were — dozens of people, including journalists, went to jail because of them — what Obama and the IRS are doing today is far more dangerous. That is because, whereas the previous outrages against the First Amendment and political speech at least had the imprimatur of Congressional majorities that approved them, the proposed IRS rules now being considered will erect a web of regulations that neither Congress nor the Supreme Court would likely approve. Laws can be repealed, but, short of congressional defunding, it is all but impossible to force federal bureaucrats to pull back from regulations that justify their jobs.
Former FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith penned a searing article Dec. 9 on the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages that ought to be required reading for every member of Congress. Among much else, Smith — who is now chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics — pointed to three myths underlying the proposed IRS rules.
FRC Radio: Brad Smith, Tim Huelskamp, Jerry Boykin
On Wednesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Center for Competitive Politics Founder and Chairman Brad Smith joins Tony to discuss his recent article in the Wall Street Journal on the latest IRS power grab.
Daily Caller: The Grinch that stole Elizabeth Warren’s Christmas
By Paul Jossey
In typical Warren fashion, the senator recently urged the SEC to ignore its mission and the dangers of partisan capture because disclosure is the “right thing.” The professor-petitioners have sought to buttress Ms. Warren’s moralizing with arguments about protecting minority-shareholder rights and possible misuse of funds by self-interested corporate executives. The professors fail, however, to validate their concerns with substantive empirical evidence.
The shareholders clamoring for “transparency” in corporate spending are not political neutrals. They often have agendas anathema to their fellow shareholders and corporate bottom lines. As Center for Competitive Politics scholars Brad Smith and Allen Dickerson discovered, special-interest funds use their standing as shareholders to pursue ideological agendas, not necessarily corporate profits.
Independent Groups
BuzzFeed: One Progressive Group’s Shameless Plan To Take Over The World
By Evan McMorris-Santoro and Ruby Cramer
When Green saw PCCC’s patron saint, Warren, assailed as “disastrous” by a moderate think tank in the pages of The Wall Street Journal last Monday night, he knew what had fallen into his lap. Within hours, he seized the opportunity — the kind he calls “a moment of accidental leverage.”
PCCC sent an email Tuesday to its nearly 1 million members demanding that Third Way, the veteran New Democrat organization with ties to Wall Street, disclose its corporate donors. The next step? The group turned its crosshairs on Rep. Allyson Schwartz, the Democratic Party’s pick to become the next governor of Pennsylvania and, it so happens, an honorary co-chair of Third Way.
EAC
CPI: Kill the Election Assistance Commission?
By Dave Levinthal
Their session, however, morphed into a debate on whether this little-known and decidedly bedraggled commission — created by Congress in 2002 to help prevent voting meltdowns like those experienced during the 2000 presidential election — should exist at all.
“The Election Assistance Commission has fulfilled its purpose and should be eliminated,” declared Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, the ranking member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which conducted the hearing.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
NY Times: New Obama Adviser Brings Corporate Ties
By ERIC LIPTON
Mr. Podesta, named a senior adviser to President Obama, is not currently a lobbyist and therefore does not have to worry about the Obama administration’s self-imposed ban on hiring lobbyists to administration jobs. But he will nonetheless arrive at the White House after having run an organization that has taken millions of dollars in corporate donations in recent years and has its own team of lobbyists who have pushed an agenda that sometimes echoes the interests of these corporate supporters.
These financial ties offer a hint of the blurry lines in Washington between the research organizations like Mr. Podesta’s — which is a virtual external policy arm of the Obama administration — and lobbying shops. The ties could also cause some complications for Mr. Podesta as he heads into the West Wing.
Lobbying and Ethics
CPI: ‘Lobbyist’ not curse word to all influencers
By Dave Levinthal
“If K Street wants lobbyists to be called government relations professionals, then that’s exactly the kind of newspeak that made people distrust lobbyists in the first place,” Oliver Ruff, a New York-based lobbyist, wrote this week in a LinkedIn forum for lobbying firms.
And count Howard Marlowe, former president of the American League of Lobbyists, among the dissenters.
“There are already associations for public relations consultants, grassroots consultants, political intelligence consultants and much more,” said Marlowe, the longtime leader of the Marlowe & Company boutique lobbying firm. “We no longer have a professional association … for championing changes to lobbying disclosure and campaign finance laws, nor do we have one for defending lobbyists.”
State and Local
Michigan –– Michigan Live: Campaign contribution limits would double under bill headed to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder
By Jonathan Oosting
Senate Bill 661, if signed into law by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, would also block Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s proposal to extend campaign finance reporting requirements to “issue ads,” which often criticize political candidates but stop short of directing voters to “vote for” or “vote against” anyone.
House Republicans added language requiring groups that run candidate-centric issue ads or robocalls during an election season to include “authorized by” statements, but those groups would not have to disclose donors. An existing prohibition on caucus primary spending was reinstated after tea party leaders criticized the bill as a form of “incumbent protection” for establishment candidates.
