Donor Privacy
Washington Free Beacon: Court Strikes Down California Effort to Reveal Donors to Nonprofit
Lachlan Markay
District court judge Manuel Real ruled that attorney general Kamala Harris’ office did not demonstrate a sufficient need for that information when it sought to bar the conservative Americans for Prosperity Foundation from raising money in the state unless it turned over that list.
If upheld, the case could have broad implications for efforts by Democratic politicians to more heavily scrutinize—and, critics say, censor or stifle—nonprofit groups that engage in political speech without advocating for or against specific candidates.
The AFP Foundation “has proven that disclosing its Schedule B to the Attorney General would create a burden on its First Amendment rights,” Real wrote in his decision.
Los Angeles Times: Nonprofit backed by Koch brothers won’t have to reveal its donors to Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris
John Myers
The attorney general said that long-standing state law requires charities to submit donor information, and that officials ensure that the information isn’t disclosed to the public. But in his ruling, Real cast doubt on the state Department of Justice’s ability to not publish the donor list by mistake.
“The attorney general’s current approach to confidentiality obviously and profoundly risks disclosure,” he wrote.
The judge also pointed out that the Americans For Prosperity Foundation had routinely made annual charity filings with the state since the early 2000s and was never asked for the donor list from its IRS Form 990 until March 2013…
Thursday’s ruling stands at odds with a lawsuit filed against Harris over disclosure of donors to a similar nonprofit, the Center for Competitive Politics. In that case, however, a federal judge agreed with Harris.
Wall Street Journal: Free Speech 1, Kamala Harris 0
Editorial Board
Kamala Harris has been a hero of the left’s campaign to use donor disclosure as a tool of political intimidation. Since 2013 the California Attorney General has been demanding that nonprofits provide unredacted donor names if they want to solicit donations in the state. On Thursday a federal court declared her disclosure requirement an unconstitutional burden on First Amendment rights.
Federal Judge Manuel Real granted a permanent injunction against Ms. Harris in a lawsuit brought by the Americans For Prosperity Foundation…
The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,” and Ms. Harris’s play for donor disclosure would have impermissibly burdened that freedom. During the trial, the judge heard evidence that donors and supporters of Americans for Prosperity have faced harassment and retaliation when their relationship to the group is made public.
The judge is an LBJ appointee who can recall when disclosure was used as a political weapon in the Jim Crow South. “[A]lthough the Attorney General correctly points out that such abuses are not as violent or pervasive as those encountered in NAACP v. Alabama or other cases from that era,” he wrote, “this Court is not prepared to wait until an AFP opponent carries out one of the numerous death threats made against its members.”
Bloomberg: Koch Group Wins Trial to Keep Donors Secret in California
Edvard Pettersson
Harris’s disclosure demand is “more burdensome than necessary,” Real said in Thursday’s ruling…
“We hope this important victory will enable Americans, even in the face of governmental overreach, to retain their freedom, privacy and security as they support charities of their choosing,” Derek Shaffer, a lawyer for Americans for Prosperity, said in a statement…
“We are disappointed in Judge Real’s ruling and intend to appeal,” Kristin Ford, a spokeswoman for Harris, said in a statement. “The filing of the Schedule B is a long-standing requirement that has helped attorneys general for more than a decade protect taxpayers against fraud.”
Effects of Campaign Spending
USA Today: Anti-Trump groups find money can’t buy you hate — at least not ad money
Paul Singer
So far this election cycle, groups opposing Donald Trump have spent just over $30 million on advertising to try to stop his renegade presidential campaign, a figure that far dwarfs the opposition any other candidate has faced.
Of course, all that vitriol doesn’t seem to be helping much, as Trump cleaned up in Tuesday’s New York primary and looks well-positioned to do the same next week in five “Amtrak Corridor” states. The graphic below built by our partners at Graphiq shows the dramatic comparison to the pro-Trump advertising (basically bupkis) and the anti-Trump spending (yuuuuuge).
Independent Groups
Daily Beast: Hillary PAC Spends $1 Million to ‘Correct’ Commenters on Reddit and Facebook
Ben Collins
Citing “lessons learned from online engagement with ‘Bernie Bros,’” a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC is pledging to spend $1 million to “push back against” users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.
Correct the Record’s “Barrier Breakers” project boasts in a press release that it has already “addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter.” The PAC released this on Thursday…
Some Bernie Sanders-supporting users on Reddit already started to notice the changes on Thursday afternoon.
“This explains why my inbox turned to cancer on Tuesday,” wrote user OKarizee. “Been a member of reddit for almost 4 years and never experienced anything like it. In fact, in all my years on the internet I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
Wall Street Journal: Fundraising Reports Reveal Quirkier Aspects of Presidential Race
Rebecca Ballhaus
Then there is the mystery of the donor who just won’t let go. Investor Toby Neugebauer gave $10 million to a super PAC backing Sen. Ted Cruz last April. A year later, $9 million is still in the bank. Mr. Neugebauer said last month he was ready to open the spigot as the GOP primary looked poised to become a two-man race. No dice: The super PAC spent just $10,000 last month, and Cruz backers said Mr. Neugebauer had discussed the possibility of withdrawing his cash.
FEC
More Soft Money Hard Law: “Legitimacy”: the FEC and the Press Exemption
Bob Bauer
Commissioner Weintraub tersely noted that the producer sent free samples of his product to millions of households in 2012 “swing states.” This was enough for her to conclude that the producer may have been a “press entity” but it was not acting like one: it was not engaged in a “legitimate” press function.
The General Counsel reached a different conclusion and recommended that the FEC let things go—that it exercise its broad discretion in the producer’s favor. It seemed to agency counsel that this particular press entity was acting legitimately enough. The General Counsel credited the claim that the free distribution was a commercial promotion and not only, if predominantly, in “swing states.” The producer appeared to have demonstrated sufficient commercial or business purpose by arranging for sales through websites and via Amazon, and by contracting for streaming services through both Amazon and Netflix.
Commissioner Goodman, joining his Republicans in voting with the General Counsel, added a charge that the Democratic objections were a threat to press freedom.
Corporate Speech
Fox Sports: On Curt Schilling
Clay Travis
When did it become commonplace to assume that corporations are responsible for the political views of their employees?
If I could change one thing about how social media stories like this are covered it would be this proposition that has become embedded in our culture — the idea that corporations should somehow be connected to the opinions of their individual employees.
This is manifestly ridiculous.
Does anyone with a functional brain believe that Disney has the same opinion as Curt Schilling about transgender bathroom issues? Of course not…
He made a political statement on his personal Facebook page. Again, I don’t agree with his opinion, but how can anyone with a working brain make the argument that ESPN is responsible for Schilling’s statement or, even crazier, endorses it as company policy? If anything comes from this story, I would hope that many reasonable people would begin to question this idea that corporations are somehow responsible for the individual political opinions of their employees.
Influence
Politico: Trump campaign brings in lobbyists for key posts
Kenneth P. Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf
Among the influence industry veterans who have been helping the campaign in recent weeks, according to sources close to the Trump campaign, are Laurance Gay, who worked with Manafort on an effort to obtain a federal grant that one congressman called a “very smelly, sleazy business,” and Doug Davenport, whose firm’s lobbying for an oppressive Southeast Asian regime became a liability for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign…
It’s not clear whether the people who recently started advising the campaign are working as staff, consultants or volunteers. But what unites almost all of them is a professional connection to Manafort, 67, a veteran GOP operative who was hired by Trump late last month to professionalize his campaign.
Washington Post: Firms that paid for Clinton speeches have US gov’t interests
Stephen Braun
It’s not just Wall Street banks. Most companies and groups that paid Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to speak between 2013 and 2015 have lobbied federal agencies in recent years, and more than one-third are government contractors, an Associated Press review has found. Their interests are sprawling and would follow Clinton to the White House should she win election this fall.
The AP’s review of federal records, regulatory filings and correspondence showed that almost all the 82 corporations, trade associations and other groups that paid for or sponsored Clinton’s speeches have actively sought to sway the government — lobbying, bidding for contracts, commenting on federal policy and in some cases contacting State Department officials or Clinton herself during her tenure as secretary of state.
Gyrocopter
CNN: Florida man gets 120 days in jail for landing gyrocopter at Capitol
Eli Watkins
A postal carrier who flew a gyrocopter onto the grounds of the U.S. Capitol last year to protest big money in politics was sentenced to 120 days in jail Thursday, the Department of Justice said.
Douglas Hughes pleaded guilty in November to a felony charge of operating as an airman without an airman’s certificate, accepting a plea deal that included the forfeiture of his gyrocopter. He originally faced nine-and-a-half years in prison.
“Douglas Hughes intentionally violated one of the most secure and restricted airspaces in the world, placing himself and countless others at risk,” U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips said in a statement.
Hughes told CNN Thursday he had no regrets and said he would keep pursuing campaign finance reform.
Candidates and Campaigns
American Prospect: Clinton Campaign Money Legal but Problematic
Eliza Newlin Carney
The Sanders camp’s professed shock that the Hillary Victory Fund is collecting contributions “as high as $353,400 or more” says less about Clinton’s fundraising than it does about the near-total deregulation of the nation’s campaign-finance system. Sanders lawyer Brad C. Deutsch’s letter to the DNC cites no actual rules violations, and manages to contradict itself.
Deutsch in his first breath complains that the DNC has improperly spent millions to gin up small contributions to the Clinton campaign, and in his next objects that Clinton’s campaign is paying millions to cover the joint fundraising committee’s salaries and overhead. Given both the complexities of joint fundraising agreements and their legal purpose—to collect large sums and divvy them up between a variety of campaign accounts—Deutsch would have to present a lot more evidence than he offers in his letter to make a convincing case against Clinton or the DNC.
The States
Denver Post: Groups may take aim at Denver campaign finance, ethics rules
Jon Murray
Colorado Common Cause and several other local groups say they soon may unveil a proposed ballot initiative aimed at reining in big-donor campaign contributions and creating a public financing system for Denver city elections…
Details for a ballot measure are still in flux, but Perl said the group could start the review process with city officials as soon as early May. After firming it up, the groups would file it with the Denver Elections Division and begin collecting petition signatures to get it on the ballot.
When Perl and Colorado Common Cause associate director Katie Dahl spoke Wednesday morning to the Denver Board of Ethics, they outlined some potential proposals — including dropping contribution limits from $3,000 to $1,000 for mayoral candidates, from $2,000 to $750 for other citywide candidates and from $1,000 to $400 for district-level City Council candidates.
CBS St. Louis: Missouri Lawmakers Send Ethics Bill to Governor
Associated Press
Senators later that night voted to gut the gift ban from a gift-ban bill. Members voted 23-8 in favor of an amendment to instead enact a $40 spending limit per occasion per lobbyist for each lawmaker.
“There’s essentially no ban whatsoever,” said Republican Sen. Rob Schaaf, of St. Joseph.
Senate handler Sen. Bob Onder, a Lake St. Louis Republican, said there’s “considerable political will” against efforts to ban lobbyist gifts.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Anti-Greitens super PAC as mysterious as it is aggressive
Kevin McDermott
n essence, the entity has avoided Missouri campaign disclosure requirements by filing with the federal system instead — and has effectively circumvented federal disclosure requirements by getting all its money through a nonprofit organization listed at the same address as the founder of the super PAC.
It’s unclear whether the group has broken any law. But it has definitely highlighted gaping loopholes in both the state and federal campaign finance systems.
The super PAC, a Virginia-based entity with the uber-vague name “Patriots for America,” has been at the heart of a longstanding grudge match between Greitens and businessman John Brunner. Brunner and Greitens both are seeking Missouri’s Republican nomination for governor this year, along with former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder.
