In the News
The Intercept: The Citizens United Playbook
Jon Schwarz and Lee Fang
When Obama Predicted during his State of the Union address that Citizens United would open the door to foreign money in elections, the television cameras cut to Justice Samuel Alito, part of the majority in that decision. Sitting in the second row, Alito could clearly be seen shaking his head and mouthing the words “not true.”
Bradley Smith, a former chairman of the FEC and key intellectual architect of the deregulation of campaign finance, wrote that “the president’s statement is false.” PolitiFact found Obama’s claim to be “mostly false.”…
In response to detailed questions about APIC’s political activities, a representative for Tang and Huaidan Chen responded, “APIC is a legal American company. Our donations are all legal and approved by lawyers. We won’t break the law for our donations.”
CCP
‘Leaks’ Courtesy of the FEC: No Hacking Necessary
Alex Baiocco
While the leaked DNC emails did reveal some questionable fundraising practices, even those in favor of ever more stringent disclosure requirements would be hard-pressed to say that these revelations justify the act of hacking a private server and leaking personal information to the public. Indeed, major donors to the DNC have expressed serious concerns about threats to their personal privacy, and if hacks such as this became the norm, surely fewer and fewer donors would choose to participate in the political process.
In other words, the looming threat of having one’s personal information released to the public would have an overall chilling effect on political speech. This concept is quite easy to grasp and rather difficult to deny. But for some reason, when it comes to the mandatory disclosure enforced by the FEC, “reform” advocates are not the least bit concerned about this chilling effect.
Free Speech
Daily Signal: Senate Liberals, Targeting Climate Change ‘Deniers,’ Demand to Know Donors to 22 Think Tanks
Kevin Mooney
“It should alarm everyone, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, that federal officials would abuse their office to intimidate groups of people from exercising their rights to speech and assembly,” Varner said in an email to The Daily Signal.
“If the debate on climate change in the public arena represents the future of open discussion, then the notion of free speech as embodied by the First Amendment is in serious peril,” Fred Birnbaum, vice president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, told The Daily Signal.
The Democrats challenge the organizations for questioning them, saying “there is a simple thing you can do to prove us wrong: disclose all of your donors.”
FEC
Pillar of Law Institute: Who Really Believes in Campaign Finance Disclosure?
Stephen Klein
In the book More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure, Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl E. Schneider lay out a clever and damning narrative of disclosure in many contexts. Although campaign finance disclosure is not their focus, their critique is apt. Disclosure is usually not viewed as regulation, but as a practical alternative to regulation. However, its effectiveness is questionable, at best: “[s]tudies numerously testify that people don’t notice disclosures, don’t read them if they see them, can’t understand them if they try to read them, and can’t use them if they read them.” One will immediately agree in the context of software terms of service or home insurance policies, and this seems to underlie the FEC’s argument in the Pursuing America’s Greatness case. Yes, the FEC will penalize PACs and other organizations for not including disclaimers in their communications or for failing to file reports about their finances, but even if they include these, sometimes that’s just not enough.
Independent Groups
The Street: Outside Groups Supporting Clinton Raising Far More Money Than Pro-Trump Organizations
Deena Zaidi
Although outside groups, such as Super-PACs and dark money groups, cannot coordinate with a political candidate’s campaign, they can spend huge sums supporting the candidate or tearing down an opponent. Critics say that they are now having an undue influence on elections, while supporters of the Citizens United ruling insist that unlimited contributions are a free speech issue — namely, that groups should be able to spend as much as they like in support of an individual or issue.
Clinton has vowed to overturn the Citizen’s United ruling and end what she considers the unaccountability of huge donations. Meanwhile, according to the watchdog and research group, OpenSecrets.org, outside groups have spent more than $110 milllion on Clinton’s campaign. The Clinton campaign itself has raised more than $264 million.
Trump has raised about $90 million through donations, but outside Republican groups have been largely missing from the race.
CPI: New search tool traces sources of ‘dark money’
“Dark money” just got a bit of light shined on it, thanks to a new search tool unveiled today by the Center for Public Integrity.
The Center downloaded 850,000 forms from about 250,000 nonprofits that were recently released in electronic format by the IRS; we extracted the grant data and made $170 billion reported over five years searchable.
Wisconsin John Doe
Madison Capital Times: MacIver Institute files class action suit against John Chisholm, former GAB members
Katelyn Ferral
The suit asks for monetary damages and for a confidential copy of the records seized to be returned to MacIver.
“Because of their secrecy, defendants denied us the opportunity to ask a court to review their seizures before the harm was done,” said Brett Healy, president of the MacIver Institute in a statement. “Now, years after defendants unlawfully seized and catalogued millions of our sensitive documents, we ask the court to vindicate our rights under federal law.”
Dangers of Disclosure
CRP: Setting it straight: Hedge funds to Clinton plus super PACs, $25.6 million; to Trump, $2,000
Alec Goodwin
A July 29 Wall Street Journal article crediting our data is headlined, “Hedge-Fund Money: $48.5 Million for Hillary Clinton, $19,000 for Donald Trump.” The startling disparity in numbers led other media outlets to cite the piece — as did Trump himself. The article was shared on Facebook over 27,000 times and generated more than 500 comments.
Only problem is, those numbers aren’t correct. Trump had taken in just $2,054 in hedge fund contributions as of June 30. Clinton, along with her supporting super PACs, has received $25.6 million from the hedge fund industry, just a bit more than half the WSJ’s figure.
Influence
Los Angeles Times: Is Sean Parker changing politics — or is politics changing him?
Evan Halper
The 36-year-old Silicon Valley oligarch once vowed to rattle the established order of Washington. But several years into a multiplatform, multimillion-dollar effort that seeks to transform politics through technology, campaign cash and a few big ideas, the renowned rule-breaker is finding that the rules of politics are not easily broken.
Parker is a curiosity in Washington: a billionaire eager to engage in politics, but without a signature cause. His agenda is murky, and can even be contradictory. He might emerge as the anchor donor in a big campaign to rid money from politics during one election, and then take a lead in funding efforts to protect some of the most entrenched incumbents in another. His ideology defies definition.
Candidates and Campaigns
Washington Post: Trump’s absurd charge that Clinton raised $60 million in July from just 20 people
Glenn Kessler
We have puzzled and puzzled over these remarks until our puzzler was sore.
As usual, the Trump campaign did not respond to requests to explain them. But as best we can tell, Trump is claiming that the announcement that the Hillary Clinton campaign raised more than $60 million in July was the result of donations from just 20 people.
In fact, Trump mentions “20 people” six times, clearly trying to drive home the message that Clinton is in the pocket of her big contributors. ‘They own her,” he said. “They own her.”
But there’s a very big problem with Trump’s claim.
NPR: Basketball Tickets, Caribbean Travel: Is Disclosing Gifts Good Enough For Kaine?
Peter Overby
“The key was disclosure,” he said on MSNBC, “and nobody’s ever raised a concern that anybody who contributed, whether a campaign contributor or a gift giver, ever got anything for it.”
Kaine was referring to more than $160,000 in gifts and trips – from basketball tickets to a trip to the Caribbean — which he accepted as governor-elect and governor. All of it was properly reported under state disclosure laws, but in this election, when liberals and conservatives alike are declaring “the system is rigged,” disclosure may no longer be the key.
For Democrats, here’s the problem: They have treated this as a question of complying with Virginia’s famously weak disclosure laws, which Kaine did. But a ferocious contest for the White House is no place for polite debate. The issue will likely be dealt with in political attacks — and ads.
Politico: Tim Kaine’s other role: Cash machine
Gabriel Debenedetti
Now, after holding his first campaign finance event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Tuesday, the vice presidential hopeful is expected to play a major behind-the-scenes role on the money circuit, in addition to his public campaigning.
He already has 10 more events scheduled around the country over the next 10 days, according to invites obtained by POLITICO.
The States
Oregon Public Broadcasting: Open Government Groups Push For Changes In Portland Elections
Rob Mannin
Some of Portland’s top city officials have been in regular talks recently to change city elections, according to lobbying reports out Tuesday.
Commissioner Amanda Fritz was elected to office through a publicly financed election system – a system that voters narrowly rejected in 2010. Now, Fritz’ advisors — and staff from two other council offices — are looking at a new set of changes.
They’re hearing from three “open government” groups on a regular basis, according to a report on lobbying activity from the city auditor.
It shows Common Cause, Every Voice and the Seattle-based Sightline Institute have contacted city officials at least 40 times in the last few months.
Miami Herald: Petition drive could change how Miami-Dade political campaigns are financed
David Smiley
Declaring Miami-Dade’s system of funding political campaigns “broken,” a coalition of union workers, activists and politicians moved to drastically change how countywide elections are fought and won Tuesday by submitting more than 125,000 signed petitions to the county clerk of courts and potentially forcing a November referendum…
Under the proposal sponsored by political committee An Accountable Miami-Dade, campaign contributions to candidates for county commission, mayor and school board would be capped at $250 a person or corporation, down from $1,000. Major county vendors and their lobbyists and principals would be barred from contributing to candidates. And a system that affords candidates matching public contributions for donations of up to $100 by county residents would potentially enable candidates to multiply those donations six-fold.
Attleboro Sun Chronicle: Political flyers now need to name people who paid for them
Jim Hand
The Legislature has passed a campaign finance reform bill that requires that the top five donors to a political organization be named in flyers. The measure was endorsed by the reform group Common Cause…
Paul Craney, executive director of Mass Fiscal, said the new law is misguided.
“It’s a solution in search of a problem,” he said.
“If the legislature were serious about confronting huge gaps in campaign finance law, they would close the union loophole. Massachusetts is the worst state in the country for how campaign finance law treats unions to corporations or even individuals.”
