In the News
The Neverending Campaign
EditorialYou hear it all the time: Are presidential campaigns getting longer, or do they just seem longer? A new report from the Center for Competitive Politics laid a measuring tape on campaigns from 1952 onward, and yes, they are longer.Changes in media intensity and other issues have contributed, but the authors point to the main reason being federal campaign-finance limits that force candidates to spend more time raising money. The date when presidential campaigns began to run forever is impossible to miss: It happened in the 1970s, following passage of the 1972 Federal Election Campaign Act and amendments two years later.That law created the campaign-finance system as we now know it, requiring candidates to formally declare their campaigns, putting contribution limits on donors and requiring candidates to file quarterly fundraising reports, including the amount of money raised and donor names.The impact is startling. Since the advent of contribution limits, the report notes, the average campaign has lasted 484 days, compared to 286 days in the 1950s and 1960s. Senator Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 run for the White House was launched in November 1967, months before the March primary in New Hampshire. A handful of large contributions from wealthy donors made it possible. Less than a decade later, Jimmy Carter ran the longest campaign ever—691 days.
CCP
New Study: Longer Presidential Campaigns Correlated With Contribution Limits
Alexandria, VA – The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP), America’s largest non-profit working to promote and defend First Amendment rights to free political speech, assembly, and petition, today released a study showing that since the Federal candidate contribution limits were implemented in 1974, the average duration of Presidential campaigns by the eventual party nominee has increased dramatically – by nearly 200 days.Lower limits means that potential candidates can no longer wait to declare their candidacies. For example, the late November 1967 entrance of Eugene McCarthy into the Democratic primary – launched with funding from only a few wealthy donors – was instrumental in forcing President Johnson from the race. Such an event would be unheard of in today’s highly regulated environment.“Campaigns that seem to go on forever are in part a consequence of campaign finance laws passed by incumbents to help protect incumbents. Because of regulations on political speech implemented in the 1970s, campaigns for President today are much longer than the Presidential campaigns of the 50s and 60s,” said CCP President David Keating. “LBJ’s 1964 campaign was less than 100 days long!
What Vox Gets Wrong About Super PACs
By Luke WachobOver at Vox, Ezra Klein suggests that journalists digging into the Clinton Foundation may have their priorities out of order. While acknowledging that “these investigations are worthy,” he claims “the daily corruption that powers modern presidential campaigns is much, much worse” than any potential conflicts of interest arising from the Clinton Foundation.There is much to take issue with, but I’ll restrict myself to these three thoughts:Do Super PACs allow “corporations and even foreign governments a way to donate huge amounts of money to the Clintons without seeming like they were donating huge amounts of money to the Clintons”?
FEC
Politico: The FEC’s Problems Aren’t with the GOP
By Lee GoodmanLast year, when I served as chair of the agency, the Commission acted in a bipartisan fashion in 93 percent of all votes taken, including in 86 percent of all substantive matters (i.e., votes cast on enforcement matters, audits, advisory opinions and the like). Put another way, the Commission divided 3-3 in only 7 percent of all votes taken last year, and Commissioner Ravel deserves her fair share of credit for that. These statistics reveal an agency that is remarkably functional for a bipartisan commission in Washington, D.C. Indeed many families would be doing well to agree that much of the time.Because this objective statistical measure demonstrates the agency is functional and operates consistent with Congress’ design, what the Commissioner must really mean by “dysfunctional” is that her philosophical or legal view did not succeed in nearly 100 percent of cases. In Washington, people have a way of vilifying anything they disagree with in the most unflattering labels.To be sure, significant issues have been the subject of 3-3 votes. But out of a thousand-plus votes cast since joining the FEC, Commissioner Ravel has chosen to label the agency “dysfunctional” and vilify her Republican colleagues by focusing principally on four matters in which her legal position did not prevail. These cases involved allegations that four conservative organizations failed to disclose their donors as political committees (the so-called “dark money” debate).
Independent Groups
Washington Post: Why the broken campaign system is here to stay, for a long time
By Paul WaldmanWhen we learned that Hillary Clinton will be raising money for Priorities USA, a super PAC that hopes to spend $200 to $300 million to help get her elected president, a lot of people charged her with hypocrisy. After all, just a few weeks ago Clinton told an audience in Iowa, “We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all — even if it takes a constitutional amendment.”But the lure of that money may be too powerful, particularly given what’s happening on the other side. Jeb Bush plans to outsource much of his campaign to his Right to Rise super PAC, for which he is now frantically raising money. Unlike the future Bush for President campaign, you can give Right to Rise a check for $10 million or $100 million, if you’re so inclined.Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is now gathering Republican candidates and big GOP donors at a retreat in Deer Valley, UT, so the former can genuflect before the latter and the latter can share all their insightful policy ideas. If you want to buy yourself a candidate, there’s never been a better time.
CQ-Roll Call: Parties divide and conquer independent spending
By Nathan L. GonzalesWASHINGTON Having more than $50 million to spend on House races in the final months of the campaign may sound like fun, but both campaign committees have figured out it’s not a one-person job.Each election cycle, the National Republican Congressional Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee designate a trusted operative who will eventually be walled off from the official committee to direct the independent expenditure effort.But tracking between three- and six-dozen races while trying to guide and implement the party’s push for the majority from a virtual island is not easy.
Politico: Jeb Bush’s $100M May
By Alex IsenstadtThe group, called Right to Rise, is said to be on track for raising an historic $100 million by the end of May, and its budget is expected to dwarf that of Bush’s official campaign many times over. In interviews, more than half a dozen sources familiar with the Right to Rise plans described a juggernaut that was rapidly taking shape — from its likely headquarters in Los Angeles, 2,700 miles from the Miami office where Bush was basing his campaign, to a new fundraising push aimed at expanding its ballooning coffers.Bush is even setting the timing of his official campaign announcement — which is increasingly likely to come in mid-June, following a trip to Europe — around a cross-country fundraising tour. In the final weeks leading up to the launch, his strategists have been devising a plan to allow both arms of the campaign — the official one and the super PAC — to work seamlessly, even as they will be legally barred from coordinating once he officially becomes a candidate.There is little question that Right to Rise, with its deep cash reserve, will give Bush a leg up in the Republican nomination contest, especially if it becomes a protracted and costly affair.
Gyrocopter
Bloomberg: The Campaign Finance Gyrocopter Man Describes His New, Surreal Existence
By David WeigelAfter his short stint in jail, Doug Hughes returned home to collect a letter from a personal hero. Hughes, the 61-year old postal worker who piloted a gyrocopter onto the lawn of the Capitol, had tried to tell people that it was a harmless stunt to raise awareness of campaign finance reform. Nobody, it seemed, paid attention until the stunt sparked the kind of Washington, D.C. safety panic that livens up slow news days. One of the first signs that the message had actually gotten through came when Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, one of America’s most visible campaign finance reformers, sent Hughes an “attaboy” through the mail.“I’m not going to say it was for what I did,” says Hughes, “but it was for why I did it.”Two weeks before the Washington, D.C. court hearing on his stunt—he was charged with a felony—Hughes is embracing his status as a spokesman for campaign reform. He’s declared solidarity with the Stamp Stampede, the reform campaign that marks money with warnings “not to be used for bribing politicians.” He’s been the focus of columns and front page stories about campaign finance as a “rising issue” in the 2016 elections. Buzzing over the Capitol lawn and drawing out a bomb squad actually seemed to cut through the pundit fog about how nobody cared about money in politics anymore.
Kochs Obsession
The Hill: Senate Dems push for more disclosure on political ads
By Mario TrujilloThe Sunshine in Sponsorship Identification Act in the Senate has a less hostile name than the House’s Keep Our Campaigns Honest (KOCH) Act, an apparent knock at GOP mega-donors Charles and David Koch.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Wall Street Journal: Why Is Clinton Making the Case for More Transparency?
By Peter NicholasWhen measured by the qualities one would naturally associate with political reformers, Mrs. Clinton doesn’t fare so well. Only 25%, for example, rated her as “honest and straightforward,” compared to 50% who gave her a low rating. What’s more, just 38% saw her as an “inspirational and exciting” choice for president; 45% did not see her this way.Why, then, is Mrs. Clinton making a case for more transparent, accountable politics and campaign-finance reform? It’s what candidates do. And if they fail to deliver on the promise, they don’t seem to pay much of a price.Recall that Mr. Obama campaigned in 2008 pledging to bring C-Span camera crews into the back rooms where officials would discuss an overhaul of the health-care system. Sounded like good TV: deals being cut in full view of the American people. It never happened.
Chicago Tribune: Hillary Clinton’s use of ‘super PAC’ may undercut her finance reform message
By Evan HalperHillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign team had hoped to frame her trip hopscotching through the mansions of some of California’s deepest-pocketed donors this week as an exercise in modesty, highlighting the relatively low price of a ticket to the events as a reflection of her commitment to cultivating the grass roots.But that narrative quickly unraveled when word got out that the candidate was also using the California trip as an occasion to begin courting an entirely different group.Clinton, who has emphasized campaign finance reform in the early stage of her latest White House bid, has apparently already decided the modest approach alone won’t be enough. She is going after much bigger checks, much sooner, and in a much more aggressive way than her campaign had revealed.
