In the News
Independent Journal: If The Left Had Its Way On Citizens United, ‘Funny Or Die’ Would Not Be Allowed To Ridicule Trump
Luke Wachob
Imagine a presidential candidate you feel is more deserving of ridicule and mockery than the presidency. Imagine wanting to make a film criticizing and lampooning that candidate. Imagine wanting to attract the most viewers and generate as much attention as possible by releasing the film in the middle of election season.
That’s what Funny or Die recently did with current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in the satirical film, “Funny or Die Presents Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal: The Movie.” It’s also what Citizens United did with Hillary Clinton, albeit with fewer laughs, in 2008’s “Hillary: The Movie,” the subject of the famous – or infamous, depending on your perspective – 2010 Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United v. FEC.
More Soft Money Hard Law: More Disclosure Wars–And Little Certainty about the Outcome
Bob Bauer
What may stand in the way are summary comments the Court has made, most notably in Citizens United, where the Justices suggested that it did not matter to the application of the electioneering communication requirement whether a communication contained the “functional equivalent of express advocacy” One reading is that the Court had no patience with disclosure objections, end of story. Even a “pure” issue ad—even such an ad run with no apparent electioneering interest or motive –is subject to disclosure if it includes a reference to a public official who was a candidate.
Perhaps this is what the Court intended to say, but this interpretation puts considerable weight on general statements and very little or none at all on the line of authority established by Buckley that campaign finance law could not override the distinction in the constitutional law between campaign and issues speech.
For this reason, the Independence Institute insists that any standard of doctrinal coherence requires that the reporting requirements turn on an “unambiguous” relationship of the speech to a political campaign.
Influence
The Hill: Fox News ‘finished with Rubio’
Harper Neidig
Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio’s rough week got worse on Wednesday with a New York Magazine report that the head of Fox News has decided to stop giving the Florida senator prominent, favorable coverage.
“We’re finished with Rubio,” Roger Ailes told one of the network’s hosts recently, according to three unnamed sources. “We can’t do the Rubio thing anymore.”
The report says Ailes was angry about a New York Times article reporting on a dinner he and the Florida senator had in 2013. Rubio was asking the Fox chief for his support of the Gang of Eight immigration bill.
On top of that, Rubio’s poor performance on Super Tuesday convinced Ailes that he is losing traction in the race.
Independent Groups
CBS News: GOP strategists, donors sign on to anti-Trump super PAC
Reena Flores
The super PAC’s campaign is focusing on mid-March nominating contests in Michigan and Illinois, aiming to stop Trump before he notches enough delegates under his belt to win the Republican nomination.
Other strategists and big name donors — like technology executive Meg Whitman, billionaire Todd Ricketts, and hedge fund manager Paul Singer — have also participated in the Our Principles PAC effort, according to a report by the New York Times and confirmed by CBS News.
Whitman, who was Chris Christie’s campaign finance co-chair, joined with Ricketts, Singer, and about 50 others on a call Tuesday afternoon to solicit funds for the super PAC.
Activism
Huffington Post: Why Saving Democracy Compels Me to Risk Arrest
Stuart Applebaum
The bottom line is that wealthy special interests have far too much power in deciding who can run and what policies they’ll consider when they are elected.
As the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union I am intimately aware of how big box retailers and other corporate interests use campaign contributions and super PACs to block living wage increases, family leave, and paid-sick time for hard-working Americans. Many of the members of our union are young people, people of color and women, and it is their voices and votes that our pay-to-play campaign finance system shuts out.
Solutions to restore balance to the system are in our grasp and have begun to be implemented in cities and states, like Seattle and Maine. The moment is ripe to bring solutions like citizen-funded elections and automatic voter registration to the federal level.
Executive Action
The Hill: Corporate influence on politics is what all the candidates are talking about
Lisa Gilbert
With the chatter from politicians ramping up, the only remaining question is what our current and future representatives will do to address the problem. It shouldn’t be hard for them to get specific, as the solutions are achievable and widely called for…
At the federal level, the president should move on the long-awaited executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose political spending, push agencies like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission to require disclosure, and nominate a new Supreme Court justice who sees the flaws in the Citizens United decision. The obstruction he is facing on any eventual nomination is yet another sign that we need to take action to fix our broken democracy.
Candidates and Campaigns
Center for Responsive Politics: Presidential hopefuls stretch the truth talking about campaign finance
Alex Glorioso
“In this campaign, super PACs have raised more money than individual candidates have.”
False. Clinton’s campaign has raised $130.4 million. Outside groups that specifically support her presidential bid have raised $57.7 million, Center for Responsive Politics data show. Of the Republican candidates who remain in the race, Sanders’ statement also doesn’t apply to neurosurgeon Ben Carson, businessman Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) or Ohio Gov. John Kasich. It also appears not to be true of Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), though just barely, and that’s not counting a 501(c)(4) group that doesn’t disclose its donors and won’t reveal even how much it raised until next year.
Daily Beast: Donald Trump Is Paying Himself to Run for President
Olivia Nuzzi
To sift through the disbursements of presidential campaigns, disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, is to be inundated by pages upon pages of mundane revelations regarding the behavior of the semi-human.
Ted Cruz’s campaign spent $110 at 1-800 Flowers on March 19. John Kasich’s frequents an office cleaning service in Ohio. Hillary Clinton’s camp is a recurrent customer at Alley Cat Pizzeria in Manchester. Ben Carson’s staff eats at Wendy’s.
In some ways, Donald Trump’s campaign is just like any other. His staff racks up bills from Staples and Burger Heaven, McDonald’s, Famous Original Ray’s Pizza, and Taco Bell. But the tinsel-haired reality TV star has an obvious advantage over his rivals: The name that seems to come up most often on the list of businesses the Trump campaign pays is…Trump.
Between June 16, when he announced his candidacy from the lobby of Trump Tower, through the end of 2015, the Trump campaign spent $2.2 million patronizing Trump businesses.
Huffington Post: Donald Trump Adviser Unloads Bruising Critique Of Campaign Organization On Facebook
Samatha-Jo Roth
Hulsizer’s Facebook post said Trump’s field staff have taken the blame for the failure to win some states, but it’s “the direction of the National Campaign staff that needs to be evaluated.” He questioned who on the staff is leading drives to register voters and secure Trump delegates, so the “election by the people isn’t stolen by party politics at the National convention.”
He also voiced a strong mistrust of the Republican National Committee. He details an exchange with Trump’s national political director, Michael Glassner, who seemed to dismiss the concerns.
“When I got my response from Michael Glassner about the delegates I flipped out,” Hulsizer wrote. “He said, ‘Mr. Trump doesn’t understand how delegates work, so we are leaving that issue alone right now.’”
The States
Jackson Clarion-Ledger: Senate passes partial reform bill
Geoff Pender
The Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would require Mississippi politicians to itemize campaign spending done with a credit card instead of just listing a lump-sum payment to the card company as many have been doing for years on their public reports.
But the chances of further campaign-finance reform appear slim for this legislative session.
New York Times: How New Hampshire Used the Wrong Math and Gave One of Rubio’s Delegates to Trump
Josh Katz and Quoctrung Bui
But New Hampshire is somewhat bureaucratically creative where math is concerned. State law specifies the use of an unorthodox “double-rounding” process, in which you round each candidate’s vote percentage before multiplying by the number of available delegates, then round this product again to get the number of delegates won. Rounding Mr. Rubio’s vote up to 11 percent, multiplying this by 23 and then rounding this number yields three delegates.
Three. Not two. And Mr. Trump was supposed to receive 10 delegates, instead of the 11 he got. So what happened?
We put this question to Ross Berry, the executive director of the New Hampshire Republican state committee, who noted that the certification giving Mr. Rubio two delegates had come down from the secretary of state, and typically they “don’t question the methods so long as the math adds up.”
But in this case the math doesn’t add up. “If you’re looking for rhyme or reason,” Mr. Berry cautioned, “New Hampshire election law may not be the place to find it.”
