In the News
Washington Post: The Super PAC Minuet
George Will
Super PACs are the result of these decisions — and of the reformers’ success in limiting giving to parties and candidates. Reformers, who think “independent” should be a synonym for “disinterested,” are appalled by super PACs working to facilitate the election of particular candidates. The Supreme Court, however, has held that limits on the amount an individual can contribute to a candidate or campaign organization are minor restrictions on a person’s political expression because the person can spend elsewhere “to discuss candidates and issues” through independent expenditures.
Thus former FEC chairman Bradley Smith, in “Super PACs and the Role of ‘Coordination’ in Campaign Finance Law” (Willamette Law Review, summer 2013), notes that “without the escape valve of independent expenditures, contribution limits would constitute a much greater infringement on speech.” The court’s focus on quid pro quo corruption clearly demonstrates, Smith says, that the court is not allowing limitations on speech. Rather, it is sanctioning “regulation of a particular type of conduct — the overt exchange of campaign contributions for legislative favors that may not extend to the level of bribery.”
Independent Groups
The Hill: Crossroads GPS to defend nonprofit status in court
Tim Devaney
A federal appeals court Friday granted the group the right to defend itself against claims that it violated campaign finance laws.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) agrees with Crossroads GPS that it is a nonprofit, not a political committee, but watchdogs are challenging the ruling.
Public Citizen filed a complaint against GPS’s political spending activity in October 2010. After the FEC dismissed the case, Public Citizen challenged the decision in federal court.
New York Times: Campaign Money With No Fingerprints (Video)
Aaron Byrd and Quynhanh Do
A look inside the murky process of campaign contributions and the impact of anonymous donations on the political system.
Citizens United
Boston Globe: Citizens United shouldn’t get all the blame
Wendy Kaminer
Citizens United did provide campaign finance reformers with a rallying cry — for better or worse, depending on your point of view. While reducing this complex ruling to a political symbol helps aspiring reformers raise funds and aspiring Democratic presidents organize support, it harms public understanding of electoral speech and spending, and the complicated legal regime that governs them.
Gazillionaires disproportionately affect elections precisely because money is speech, as NPR pledge drives make clear. The surge in their campaign spending reflects their extraordinary concentrations of wealth, which preceded Citizen United. And gazillionaires aren’t the only people who speak through their expenditures. So do ordinary citizens, the “everyday people” Hillary Clinton aims to please.
In fact, ordinary citizens depend on corporate electoral speech that rich super PAC contributors can afford to ignore. Ordinary citizens can’t play with super PACs; nor can they make maximum allowable direct contributions to federal candidates ($2,700 per election). But they can pay membership dues and make modest donations to liberal and conservative advocacy groups that speak on their behalf, virtually all of which are incorporated.
IRS
The Hill: GOP wants more info on IRS ‘special project team’
Bernie Becker
Mary Howard, the IRS official in charge of freedom of information requests, discussed the “special project team” at an Oversight hearing this week on the government’s response to those requests.
Howard’s comments sparked the ire of Republicans, who were already unhappy that they were forced to subpoena her to testify. They also come more than two years after Lerner first kicked off the IRS controversy by apologizing for the agency’s treatment of conservative groups, something for which the IRS has been on its heels ever since.
Houston Herald: Have we “Lernered” our lesson?
Rep. Jason Smith
In 2014, members of the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the Department of Justice calling for the criminal prosecution of former Internal Revenue Service Director of the Exempt Organizations Division Lois Lerner. Instead, the IRS worker who used her position to abuse conservative organizations was awarded bonuses of $129,000 and given a pension, all while in contempt of Congress. Taxpayers, of course, footed the bill.
Enough is enough and I am demanding answers. Last week, I wrote the Department of Justice along with my fellow Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee to again push for criminal prosecution of this bad actor. It’s no surprise folks are scared of the IRS – they can make life miserable even without injecting personal politics into the equation.
FEC
USA Today: Dick Morris drops Hillary Clinton’s name from his super PAC
Fredreka Schouten
On Friday, conservative strategist Dick Morris relented to federal regulators’ demands that he drop Clinton’s name from his “Dick Morris’ Just Say No to Hillary PAC” to comply with rules that bar super PACs and other committees unaffiliated with candidates from using the candidates’ names in their titles.
Morris and his lawyer Cleta Mitchell killed off the old PAC and started a new one, “Dick Morris’ Just Say No to HER! PAC.”
Fiscal Times: Are Dems at the FEC Trying to Stop the ‘Stop Hillary’ PAC?
Rob Garver
In an interview Thursday, Backer made it clear that he doesn’t think the issue is stupidity at all, as much as it is malice. He said there are obvious parallels between the Internal Revenue Service’s alleged targeting of conservative groups in advance of the 2012 election and the FEC’s demand that the Stop Hillary PAC change its name.
“I don’t think it’s unusual that the regulatory agencies that have long been staffed by Democratic operatives, are more likely to harass conservative groups than liberal groups,” he said. “This is all about the continued weaponization of government to advance a political agenda.”
The Hill: Republican FEC commissioner admittedly blocking complaints against Republicans
Paul S. Ryan
Commissioner Goodman didn’t stop there. He also took a not-so-veiled swipe at organizations such as the CLC, repeatedly criticizing a “class of complainants” that uses the “agency’s processes more aggressively than others” and making clear that he “come[s] at this more for the rights of respondents”—i.e., the individuals/groups CLC files complaints against.
In the case of campaign finance law enforcement actions, FEC Commissioners are supposed to play a judge-like role. Groups like the CLC file complaints. The individuals/groups we file complaints against file legal briefs with the Commission defending themselves. And the Commissioners decide whether to proceed with an investigation and enforcement action.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
CNN: Jeb Bush and the campaign money fountain
Errol Louis
There’s a catch to these potentially bottomless money fountains. By law, they can’t coordinate with campaigns after a candidate has officially declared he or she is running. There’s also a convoluted restriction on what an official candidate can do for his or her super PAC: Candidates can meet with donors, but not ask for more than $5,000. Such pitches can be made to the donors, but not in the candidate’s presence.
St. Augustine Record: Jeb raises tons of money, loses credibility
Carl Hiaasen
The fundraising benefits of perpetuating this farce will at some fast-approaching time be outweighed by the risks. Voters who aren’t yet sold on Jeb might start to feel that he’s insulting their intelligence.
Another danger is that he appears at ease in the role of wry deceiver.
People prefer straight-talking candidates, or at least candidates who do a good impression of straight-talking.
After stumbling so badly on the subject of Iraq, Jeb can’t afford to look either indecisive or evasive.
The States
The Oregonian: Record: Oregon must allow campaign contribution limits
Jeffrey Lang and Benjamin T. Brickner
In the Gilded Age, when robber barons wielded large campaign contributions like catnip, ordinary citizens understood that politicians were ignoring their needs and pandering to the wealthy. Eventually, the people had enough and demanded change. Thus began the nation’s first campaign finance reform movement.
The movement continues with Senate Joint Resolution 5, which amends the Oregon Constitution to allow campaign contribution limits. If approved by the legislature, SJR5 will go to the voters in 2016, giving the people a choice of whether to join the 44 states that already allow such limits.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Abbott has it wrong on dark money
The Editorial Board
Abbott said would not tolerate a requirement for disclosure of “dark money.” The term refers to anonymous donations, often huge sums, to politically active non-profits.
Such a requirement would be unconstitutional, the governor said.
Abbott’s knowledge of the law commands respect. He’s a former district judge in Harris County and a former member of the Texas Supreme Court.
For 12 years before becoming governor in January, he was the state’s attorney general.
But he’d have a hard time arguing anywhere outside of a news conference that dark money disclosure requirements are unconstitutional.
