Congress
Daily Signal: How Lawmakers Stopped Part of Obama’s Assault on First Amendment
Hans Von Spakovsky
Forcing Americans to report to the government whom they donate money to, and what organizations they are members of, chills speech, diminishes free expression, and reduces advocacy and speech about many important issues—political, cultural, and otherwise.
But then, that is the goal of many who have been pushing this agenda at the IRS and the SEC—they want to silence the voices they don’t like and don’t agree with.
Clearly, the omnibus and tax extenders bills were in many ways pork- and special tax break-laden monstrosities that are all too typical of how Congress has operated for far too long. But there were some pearls in the usual government swill intended to protect our First Amendment liberties.
Independent Groups
NPR: SuperPACs Are Not So Super In 2016
Peter Overby
When this presidential campaign got underway last spring, the buzz was that a candidate would be propelled by passing off the heavy costs of TV advertising to a friendly superPAC. But now the opposite is true.
Donald Trump, leading the Republican field, has no superPAC. Some other superPACs are pouring cash into TV, but their candidates are stuck low in the polls.
Trump just recently started buying TV time, after months of depending on news coverage to promote his campaign.
Meanwhile, Jeb Bush’s superPAC, Right To Rise USA, has spent $47.5 million on TV, according to NBC News and the media firm SMG/Delta. Bush has been stuck in the lower tiers of polls for months.
Washington Post: Why Donna Edwards is struggling for money in her quest for a Senate seat
Rachel Weiner
By the end of September, Van Hollen, whose congressional district is based in Montgomery County, had $4.1 million in the bank. Edwards, who represents Prince George’s County and part of Anne Arundel County, had $368,500. The next round of financial disclosures is due Jan. 31…
Edwards does have strong backing from the powerful Democratic women’s group Emily’s List, which is airing commercials on her behalf in Baltimore and has pledged to spend at least $1 million on that effort. But outside groups pay higher rates for such ads than candidates, meaning that Van Hollen is getting more air time for his expenditures. And it is extremely rare for a politician to win federal office after a campaign financed almost entirely by outside groups.
The Hill: High score for ‘Super-PAC Man’
Megan R. Wilson
During the first days of 2016, Larose was busy filling out FEC paperwork for hundreds of new political action committees, according to federal records, with names including the World Princesses Association and the World’s Hedge Fund Managers Association.
There have been 991 super-PACs created in the 2016 election cycle, according to the database. It says 596 have been created by Larose…
Larose has been forming the PACs en masse since the 2010 midterm elections, which has led some to dub him the “Super-PAC Man.”
Historically, the ventures have yet to raise or spend any money, though the sheer volume makes them hard to track, because they must be looked up individually.
FEC
Bloomberg BNA: FEC Drops Crossroads GPS Enforcement Cases
Kenneth P. Doyle
The Federal Election Commission dismissed two newly revealed enforcement cases that alleged the conservative nonprofit Crossroads GPS, linked to Republican political adviser Karl Rove, broke campaign finance laws by failing to report spending on campaign ads and collecting undisclosed money earmarked for campaign advertising.
The FEC actions were revealed Jan. 5 by the liberal watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which filed complaints in the cases in 2012. Details, including how the six FEC commissioners voted on the cases, have not yet been revealed, though it appeared the commissioners deadlocked along party lines on one or both cases, leading to their dismissal without any penalty.
Free Speech
Cato Institute: Free Speech for You and Me, But Not for Professionals
Timothy Sandefur
Even aside from telemedicine, the First Amendment promises crucial protections for people whose business it is to speak—yet the Supreme Court has failed to make good on that promise. By leaving the question unaddressed, the justices have allowed lower courts to fashion a maze of contradictory standards that give government officials too much power to interfere with the judgments of the very people who are best trained to speak on the subject at hand—and to censor what they have to say. Given the American economy’s trend toward an information and communication-based economy, it’s time the Court made clear that censorship of any speech—including that by professionals—is intolerable.
Candidates and Campaigns
New York Times: Donald Trump Is Also an Outlier in Political Science
Lynn Vavreck
Donald Trump has confounded politicians, pundits and political scientists as he runs a most unconventional — and so far successful — campaign to win the Republican presidential nomination. Here’s the way we think these things are supposed to play out: Party leaders shape and guide the nomination process. We call it the invisible primary, and it was described in an influential 2008 book, “The Party Decides.” I asked David Karol, a University of Maryland associate professor of political science and one of the book’s four authors, whether Mr. Trump’s rise reveals a fundamental shift in party control. He thinks not. Here’s our conversation, slightly edited.
The States
Detroit Free Press: Snyder signs bill limiting public talk of ballot issues
Kathleen Gray
Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill Wednesday afternoon that has local officials worried that they won’t be able to inform the public about upcoming ballot issues.
Snyder said in a signing letter that he interprets the bill’s language differently than local officials, but also asked the Legislature to enact a new bill that will address those concerns, “And clarify that the new language does not impact the expression of personal views by a public official, the use of resources or facilities in the ordinary course of business and that it is intended only to prohibit the use of targeted, advertisement style mass communications that are reasonably interpreted as an attempt to influence the electorate using tax dollars,” he wrote explaining why he signed the controversial bill.
KSFY Sioux Falls: Ballot measure seeks to revise state campaign finance laws
Associated Press
The initiative to be known as Initiated Measure 22 aims to revise state campaign finance and lobbying laws, create a publicly funded campaign finance program, create an ethics commission and appropriate funds.
It is the fifth of eight submitted measures to be approved by Secretary of State. The remaining three will soon be examined.
New Hampshire Union Leader: A new frontier in campaign finance regulation
John M. Greabe
A bill recently introduced in the New Hampshire Senate by Sen. Dan Feltes might well raise these questions. If enacted, the law would establish a fee of 2.5 percent of gross expenditures between $5,000 and $500,000 (the first $5,000 spent would be exempted) per election cycle, and 5 percent of gross expenditures in excess of $500,000, by political candidates, political committees, and political advocacy organizations — i.e., PACs and Super PACs.
Associated Press: Montana to Use Corruption Ruling to Defend Contribution Caps
Matt Volz
State officials plan to use the two judicial rulings as evidence in their defense of Montana’s limits on how much political donors may contribute to a candidate’s campaign. A federal lawsuit seeking to strike down those limits is pending after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that states must prove “quid pro quo corruption” — or the appearance of it — to justify capping contributions…
Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl said Wednesday that he believes two judges’ findings of corruption meets the new standard, but it will be up to a judge to decide.
“It is unprecedented and dramatic to have this degree of interference in elections that we saw in those 2010 primary elections,” Motl said. “If that isn’t quid pro quo corruption, I can’t imagine what is.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Ethics reform highlighted at start of 2016 legislative session
Alex Stuckey
Richardson promised to send all ethics bills to a committee on Thursday, so discussion on a solid ethics reform package could begin as early as next week.
Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, said he’s going to let the House take the lead on ethics reform, but that the Senate will have discussions as well. Richard took the helm of the Missouri Senate in September after his predecessor, Tom Dempsey, from St. Charles, resigned to work at a St. Louis lobbying firm.
It’s unclear if any changes will include campaign contribution limits, which many Republicans oppose. Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, this week included contribution limits among his list of necessary ethics changes.
