In the News
Washington Post: Will California guarantee the right to know the names of political donors?
Matea Gold
“I suspect there are a lot of people who would see it as an effort to go well beyond the traditional efforts of disclosure that would threaten people’s right to privacy, and that probably would spark some opposition,” said Bradley Smith, a former FEC commissioner and founder of the Center for Competitive Politics, which supports looser campaign finance restrictions.
Smith said the act’s requirement that political ads name their “top three true funders” is overly broad, calling the measure “junk disclosure.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Unauthorized discussion of politicians strictly prohibited
Barton Hinkle
The most recent is Missouri. On Friday, the Missouri Ethics Commission fined Ron Calzone $1,000 for failing to register as a lobbyist and submit the required paperwork. The Ethics Commission justified this on the grounds that Calzone describes himself as a “citizen lobbyist.” He heads a group called Missouri First that tries to influence public policy in the Show Me State.
The bill of particulars against Calzone reports that he: “met with legislators”; “testified” before the Missouri legislature; and “appear(ed) as a witness before committees.” Yikes.
Never mind that Missouri First does not lobby for clients, as actual lobbyists do. Or that Calzone does not get paid to talk to legislators. Or give them gifts or wine and dine them. In fact, he says, Missouri First doesn’t even have a checking account to pay him with. Yet as far as the Ethics Commission is concerned, he can’t speak to legislators until he gets the state’s permission.
And who filed the original complaint, by the way? The Missouri Society of Government Consultants — the state’s association for professional lobbyists
CCP
CCP v. Harris: Amici Curiae Brief of Pacific Legal Foundation, Goldwater Institute, Mountain States Legal Foundation, Southeastern Legal Foundation, Atlantic Legal Foundation, Individual Rights Foundation, and Reason Foundation in Support of CCP
Anonymous speech and association are “not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent.” McIntyre, 514 U.S. at 357. By allowing state officials to demand the names and addresses of donors of public advocacy groups—without any particularized suspicion of wrongdoing—the decision below creates a circuit conflict on a First Amendment matter of vital importance. If that is allowed to stand, it will have profound consequences on the associational privacy rights of nonprofit organizations nationwide.
Is Corporate Political Activity Controversial? New Polling Emphatically Say No.
Luke Wachob
The issue looks much different when it’s personalized. If jobs in your community are threatened by pending legislation, or if your family members, friends, or neighbors are likely to be put out of work by a proposed regulation, you’ll wish their company had the ability to speak out. By asking individuals to imagine themselves as CEOs, the poll forces respondents to consider the costs of remaining silent.
In that mindset, Americans understand that companies not only have a right to advocate for their interests and the interests of their employees, they have an obligation to do so. Just 2% of respondents said they would “probably not take any” political action in the face of unfavorable legislation or regulations.
Wisconsin John Doe
Wall Street Journal: More Wisconsin Emails
Rick Cohen
In a Feb. 11, 2013 email, then-GAB staff counsel Shane Falk wrote to Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney David Robles that “Ala the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caperton, [Justice Patience] Roggensack may have to recuse herself from any appeals on this Badger Doe [the John Doe probe]. Club For Growth WI has been running expensive TV ads for Roggensack—issue ads but a clear support of her.”
He continued: “DA Chisolm [sic] may want to take this into consideration in his review of proceeding on this matter. I think it helps significantly.” District Attorney John Chisholm is Mr. Robles’s boss.
Now there’s a wow. By “helps significantly,” Mr. Falk means that the prosecutors’ theory would be more likely to survive legal review if they could accuse Justice Roggensack of a conflict of interest because the state Club for Growth had run independent ads supporting her retention on the bench. That email was written months before conservatives even knew they were under investigation.
Independent Groups
Chicago Tribune: Billionaire Koch brothers struggle to rein in GOP
Rich Lord
Democrats have characterized the Koch network as a cabal that manipulates the grass-roots tea party. Republican congressional leaders have struggled to corral members who dance to the Kochs’ uncompromising, small-government tune.
This year, though, the Koch network seems far from coalescing around any candidate, with members leaning toward established politicians who are clustered in the single digits in the polls…
Randy Kendrick, who attended that seminar, said she’s frustrated about Trump’s standing in the polls. Even more than that, the lawyer and wife of Ken Kendrick, who founded software firm Datatel Inc. and co-owns the Arizona Diamondbacks, is struggling to figure out “how we refocus a very frustrated segment of our population on ideas that will help solve our problems — not the personalities, but the ideas.”
Huffington Post: The Koch Brothers’ Election Funding Magic Trick
Fred Wertheimer
In the face of this corrupt system, however, citizens are not helpless.
Major campaign finance scandals resulted in effective, major reforms in the 1970s, 1990s and 2000s…
But campaign finance reform is always impossible to enact — until it is enacted, as it will be again.
Important work lies ahead for concerned citizens and groups to set the stage to strike when the opportunities arise. That work is currently underway in many ways, such as the 21st Century Democracy Agenda created by reform groups.
Military Times: Vet group hosting Trump lost nonprofit status
Jeff Horwitz
The Internal Revenue Service revoked the nonprofit status of the veterans benefit organization that hosted and sold tickets to a foreign policy speech by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump aboard a retired U.S. battleship, The Associated Press has learned. The group’s endorsement of Trump at the event also could raise legal problems under campaign finance laws.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to questions from the AP about whether it was aware that the IRS had revoked the nonprofit status of the Veterans for a Strong America, which sold tickets to Trump’s event for up to $1,000 as a fundraiser. The IRS issued its decision Aug. 10, citing the group’s failure to file any tax returns for three consecutive years, according to IRS records reviewed by the AP.
Candidates and Campaigns
Politico: GOP fundraisers prep for donor blitz after debate
Shane Goldmacher
Not everyone is so bold. One Republican fundraiser, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about a candidate who did not perform well in the first debate, said a list of “on the fence” donors to call after the forum ended up untapped.
For all of them – except the self-funding pack leader Donald Trump – the September 30 fundraising deadline looms large. There is simply not enough campaign cash to go around in an unwieldy 16-person field. And the campaigns know the mid-October Federal Election Commission filing reveal will be the last until the calendar flips to 2016 and the Iowa caucuses are just weeks away.
That means it’s now or never to showcase fundraising muscle.
Reuters: With ‘$Cashtags,’ Twitter plays greater campaign finance role
Alana Wise and Ginger Gibson
Candidates would benefit from the easier, more interactive donation process, but those with less name recognition and a broader, more active base stand to gain the most from donations on Twitter, said Daniel Kreiss, Assistant Professor of Political Communications at the University of North Carolina.
“The candidates who have engaging and lively and very quick responses,” Kreiss said, “are going to be the ones who are going to be able to benefit from this.”
The States
Texas Tribune: A guide to understanding 2016 campaign finance rules
Paul Hobby
The problem is that there is nothing in federal law or Texas law that exempts 501(c)(4)s from Texas disclosure laws. That means that if a 501(C)(4) meets the definition of a Texas PAC, it must comply with Texas transparency disclosure laws by identifying its political contributors. Whether churches that participate in politics directly (as opposed to through a PAC) would forfeit their federal tax exempt status under federal rules is a whole different question.
Sacraento Bee: California initiative would require more campaign finance disclosure
Christopher Cadelago
The Voters’ Right to Know Act would close “dark money” loopholes for nonprofit donors by requiring disclosure of anyone who contributes $10,000 or more when the money ends up in a political effort, Stern said in a presentation to The Sacramento Bee Capitol Bureau.
It also would update and modernize the state’s electronic filing system, make disclosure of contributors more apparent on television ads and strengthen some penalties for violators. It would ban lobbyists and those who employ them from giving gifts of any value to public officials and cut from $460 to $200 the maximum value of gifts an individual can give to an official each year. And it would enshrine in the state constitution the right to disclosure, something the proponents believe would help build momentum for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decision in the Citizens United case.
