Donor Privacy
Washington Post: Donald Trump warns owners of Chicago Cubs ‘better be careful’ after funding campaign against him
Matea Gold
Donald Trump went after the family that owns the Chicago Cubs on Monday after campaign finance filings revealed that its matriarch, Marlene Ricketts, provided $3 million in seed money for a super PAC running attack ads against him.
Trump tweeted that the Ricketts family “be careful, they have a lot to hide!” He claimed that they were “secretly” spending money against him. In fact, Marlene Ricketts’s donation to the Our Principles PAC was reported in public documents filed to the Federal Election Commission.
Agitator: Protecting Donor Privacy
Roger Craver
And thus the importance of protecting donor anonymity and privacy. This time it’s the Koch brothers under attack and deserving of protection. But at other times it’s the risk of exposure and condemnation to donors to civil rights, gay rights and women’s rights causes. I remember well those ‘good old days’.
Frankly, I’m concerned at the silence of ‘my side’ — the liberal, progressive sides — that seem to forget the past or perhaps don’t want to stand up in defense of fundamental rights. Because this time it’s the Koch brothers. Shame!
Independent Groups
Slate: The Jeb Bush Blame Game
Jim Newell
It didn’t happen, for a set of factors that are mostly beyond any individual’s control. Bush was an unpersuasive candidate to an electorate that was never open to his persuasions. That’s all it is, and none of Murphy’s ads could change that.
If the conventional wisdom becomes that Bush’s failure was one ineffective consultant’s fault, that sets up rich people to make the same expensive mistake again with a different consultant, which would be funny. But if donors never subject a potential candidate to a “hazing trial to test skill and stability” before throwing burlap sacks of cash in his direction, they don’t have much to complain about.
Time: Super PAC Begins Populist Push to Support Bernie Sanders
Sam Frizell
Grossman said his super PAC’s effort is intended to pressure more Democratic superdelegates to follow the voters pick in choosing which candidate to support in the primary. Superdelegates, unlike most delegates, can choose which candidate to back, regardless of the popular vote, and have so far overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton.
The group, which has spent several million dollars supporting progressive candidates in recent years, also worked in conjunction with the groups Ready to Fight and Women for Bernie to launch an online petition that garnered nearly 200,000 signatures.
The new initiative is meant to boost Sanders, Grossman said.
“If I said it was only to make the process more democratic, that would be disingenuous. I’m not going to say that,” Grossman said. “I definitely did this — not just I, but the with the people we’re working with — to help Bernie Sanders.”
NPR: Where Did All That Jeb Bush SuperPAC Money Go?
Peter Overby
It was an arrangement with “the candidate sort of doing a lot of the groundwork, and visiting and talking with people, but the superPAC doing a lot of the media,” said Michael Franz, a political scientist at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks TV advertising in the presidential campaign.
He added, “That model doesn’t seem to be one that will likely be replicated.”
That’s because it backfired. “The sort of nimbleness is lost when you’re doing the division of labor,” Franz said in an interview. “Even though there’s a lot of money coming into the superPAC and it’s unconstrained, that doesn’t necessarily mean the messaging is going to be effective.”
Politico: Rubio super PAC compares him to Harry Potter
Anna Palmer
“In Harry Potter lore, Voldemort, the Dark Lord, had a secret to his strength. His secret was his horcruxes,” they wrote. “As each horcrux was destroyed, Voldemort became increasingly vulnerable, not increasingly strong. When all of the horcruxes were gone, Voldemort lost his one-on-one battle with Harry Potter.”
While the super PAC was trying to show that in a one-on-one contest with Trump, Rubio would prevail, the Florida Republican might not appreciate being compared to the boy wizard. Rubio’s youth has been negatively remarked upon by older voters.
Corporate Speech
New York Times: Univision Aims to Make Hispanic Voting Bloc Even More Formidable
Nick Corasaniti
The initiative will entail an aggressive schedule of advertisements on all of Univision’s video and digital platforms, including 126 local television and radio stations and the sports channel Univision Deportes. Station managers will exhort their audiences in old-fashioned editorials, a comprehensive online voter guide will be updated throughout the election season, and the media company will use the kinds of grass-roots organizing events usually staged by candidates — town-hall-style forums and telephone banks — to try to turn its viewers into even more of a powerhouse voting bloc than it already is.
“The rule is no one can make it to the White House without the Hispanic vote,” said Jorge Ramos, the network’s news anchor. “That’s why Latino registration is incredibly important. Just a few votes in Nevada, Florida and Colorado could make or break any candidate.”
Political Parties
Washington Post: Democratic Party fundraising effort helps Clinton find new donors, too
Matea Gold and Tom Hamburger
Behind the scenes at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting in Minneapolis last August, campaign officials for Hillary Clinton were making a hard sell to the state parties.
In private huddles, they urged state officials to sign on to an ambitious fundraising endeavor that would allow Clinton’s presidential bid, the DNC and the state parties to scoop up and share big checks from wealthy donors. It would mark the earliest creation of a joint fundraising committee between a presidential candidate and the party, and it would be the biggest ever, thanks to a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision that knocked down a cap on how much donors could give to federal campaigns in a single year.
A record 32 state parties signed on to the fund, allowing the committee to solicit donations 130 times greater than what a supporter can give to Clinton’s campaign for the primary.
Supreme Court
Reuters: Appoint a few more Scalias, kiss democracy goodbye
Richard L. Hasen
Placing a few more Scalias on the Supreme Court would likely put America’s current participatory democracy at risk.
Take money in politics. In 2010, the Roberts court, including Scalia, ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations, like individuals, have a First Amendment right to spend money independently in campaigns. Yet Scalia went further — he argued that people have a First Amendment right to contribute unlimited sums directly to candidates, which raised the stakes for undue influence. Scalia, like Justice Clarence Thomas, who often voted with him, would subject laws that limit campaign contributions to strict scrutiny. That means they would almost certainly fail in a constitutional challenge.
Candidates and Campaigns
New York Times: Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Head Toward Super Tuesday With G.O.P.’s Deepest Pockets
Nicholas Confessore and Sarah Cohen
A seven-month, $220 million surge of spending on behalf of mainstream Republican candidates has yielded a primary battle dominated by Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, two candidates reviled by most of the party’s leading donors.
Now, as they approach a pivotal and expensive stage of the campaign, the two insurgent candidates — who have won the first three contests — appear to be in the best position financially to compete in the 11 states that will vote on Super Tuesday, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday…
The outcome is a rebuke to the party’s traditional donor class, which poured record-breaking amounts of money into the race last spring and summer…
Columbus Dispatch: Cruz money appeal to Ohioans dubbed ‘shady’
Darrel Rowland
The official-looking envelope says the letter is from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
It also says in prominent black letters: Check Enclosed.
But it’s all a fund-raising missive to raise money from Ohioans for Cruz’s presidential campaign — one that is drawing condemnation from both Ohio Republicans and a watchdog group.
New York Times: Bernie Sanders Accuses Hillary Clinton of Copying His Message
Yamiche Alcindor
Bernie Sanders, eager to bounce back from his loss Saturday in the Nevada caucuses, pointedly attacked Hillary Clinton on Monday, arguing that she was copying his message and that she might be improperly influenced by Wall Street donations to her candidacy.
Though the Vermont senator has repeatedly said he wants to avoid a negative campaign, Mr. Sanders delivered one of his most striking critiques of Mrs. Clinton yet, accusing her of mirroring his style and highlighting their differences on the campaign finance system and trade policies…
“In fact, I think I saw a TV ad and thought it was me. But it turned out it was Secretary Clinton’s picture in the end,” Mr. Sanders said at a news conference at an ironworkers union office in Boston.
CNN: Jon Huntsman: I could get behind Donald Trump
Matthew Jaffe
Huntsman said there are aspects of Trump’s platform he finds attractive.
“He’s strong on things like campaign finance reform and I think it’s going to take an extraordinarily unique leader to stand up and say that the way that we’re doing this on the campaign finance side is broken and we need to fix it,” Huntsman said, adding Trump is “right about bringing aboard a new generation of the best and the brightest and wiping out the old Washington establishment and the old Washington culture.”
“I’d love to see someone stand up who’s a total outsider and see if that can be done because I think it would actually be a pretty healthy thing,” he said.
The States
New York Observer: De Blasio Says Unlimited Fundraising Is OK—As Long as It’s for a Progressive Cause
Will Bredderman
“There’s a long history of coalitions forming to achieve policy goals,” Mr. de Blasio said today, comparing the two groups’ work to that of organizations that pushed to legalize gay marriage and to increase the minimum wage. “The idea that organizations would come together to fight for things like full-day pre-K for all, or affordable housing programs that could reach hundreds of thousands of people, I think is understandable and makes sense.”…
The mayor bitterly rejected a reporter’s comparison of his nonprofits’ fundraising to the conservative political operation that oil magnates Charles and David Koch have set up to benefit Republican candidates and causes.
“A lot of what’s going on is very self-interested. Koch brothers are not doing what they’re doing to help kids get pre-K. They’re doing a lot of what they’re doing to help their business,” he said. “So I think there are differences.”
Cal Alumni Association: ‘This Is Not a Stunt:’ Behind the Campaign to Force Politicians to Wear Sponsor Labels
Martin Snapp
NASCAR drivers, golfers and tennis players won’t be the only ones wearing patches touting their sponsors if a San Diego millionaire has his way. Republican entrepreneur John Cox is bankrolling a proposed initiative for the November ballot that would require members of the California Assembly and State Senate to wear stickers or badges emblazoned with the names of their top 10 donors.
“They’d only have to wear it on the floor of the Legislature or in committee meetings,” he says. And just to show he’s a reasonable guy, he allows as how “they wouldn’t have to wear it on their pajamas when they go to bed at night.”…
Bozeman Daily Chronicle: Motl’s expert witness named in lobbying complaint by Bozeman Republicans
Troy Carter
Gallatin County Republican precinct chairs Don and Peggy Hart filed separate complaints with the commissioner of political practices’ office last week against Missoula’s C.B. Pearson and two political organizations he worked for, Every Voice Action (Washington, D.C.) and Common Cause Montana…
“Despite C.B. Pearson’s supposed expertise in the area, he violated (state law) by lobbying without a license during the Senate Bill 289 process,” the complaint from Peggy Hart alleges. “In fact, he did not submit a (lobbyist license application) until March 26, 2015, despite being intimately involved with Senate Bill 289 in its earliest stages. In fact, he testified in support of the bill and on behalf of Every Voice Action at the House hearing on March 17, 2015, before he applied for a license.”
