CCP
Donor Privacy Frees Groups to Criticize Government
Luke Wachob
MapLight casts this finding in as negative a tone as possible, trumpeting that “‘dark money’ groups were more likely to pay for attack ads than other political organizations.” Another way to write this would be: Groups that are forced to report the names and home addresses of their supporters to the government become less likely to criticize politicians.
This is, of course, precisely the argument mounted by those in favor of donor privacy. Publicizing the personal information of supporters to groups that run ads in elections exposes those citizens to potential harassment from both activists and government officials. Fearing retaliation against their donors, groups naturally are more reluctant to criticize powerful politicians. That’s bad for democracy and bad for free speech.
Campaign Finance Abroad
St. Catherine Standard: We need more money in politics, not less
Mark Milke
Suppose you’d like to run for the leadership of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative party, but are unknown.
With the NDP’s proposed $330,000 limit and Alberta’s population of 4.2 million, your budget amounts to eight cents per Albertan. With that literal penny ante effort, good luck trying to beat someone famous, a sitting MLA or former federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney, who has support from the federal Conservative election machine.
Absent spending many millions to run a campaign and pay staff — and that might include providing a stipend to an ordinary Albertan who can’t afford to give up her day job for six months to run for politics — guess who has the advantage? Existing politicians and the wealthy.
Democracy is too precious to not spend more money during elections. Anyone who says differently doesn’t understand the challenge of overcoming the advantages of fame, wealth and incumbency. Or maybe they’re just an incumbent in the political protection racket.
Independent Groups
New York Times: Bernie Sanders’s New Political Group Is Met by Staff Revolt
Allen Rappeport and Yamiche Alcindor
“I left and others left because we were alarmed that Jeff would mismanage this organization as he mismanaged the campaign,” she said, expressing concern that Mr. Weaver would “betray its core purpose by accepting money from billionaires and not remaining grass-roots funded and plowing that billionaire cash into TV instead of investing it in building a genuine movement.”…
The staff members who quit also said that they feared that the 501(c)(4) designation meant the group would not be able to work directly with Mr. Sanders or the people he has encouraged to run for office because such organizations are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates.
Free Speech
Denver Post: Colorado’s campaign-finance bullies threaten free speech
Paul Sherman
Many political groups in Colorado rely on free or reduced-cost legal services to comply with Colorado’s campaign finance laws. But under the Court of Appeals’ ruling, providing those services will be much harder — and in some cases impossible.
The problem is most acute for groups that are subject to Colorado’s strict campaign-contribution limits. Committees for state House and Senate candidates, for example, may accept no more than $400 per donor per election cycle. Small-donor committees are limited to $50. Under these limits, less than an hour of pro bono help from an experienced campaign finance attorney could easily violate the law.
This problem is made even worse by the fact that Colorado, unlike most states, allows any person to file a private lawsuit to enforce the campaign finance laws. The result is that people routinely file lawsuits against their political opponents to harass them, divert their resources, or intimidate them into silence.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Ban on advocacy ads at airport ruled unconstitutional
Julia Terruso
Philadelphia’s ban on non-commercial advertisements at the city’s airport, sparked by a rejected billboard calling for prison reform, is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled in a decision published Tuesday.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit in 2011, claiming the city’s rejection of an NAACP billboard violated the group’s First Amendment rights…
At the time the city refused to sell the ad space, it had no written policy on airport advertisements. After the NAACP sued, the city briefly allowed the ad to go up and then in 2012, wrote a policy banning non-commercial advertisements.
The NAACP then amended its lawsuit to challenge the city’s policy in court.
On Tuesday, a three-panel judge on the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled 2-1, in a split decision, to uphold the U.S. District court’s finding that the ban violates the First Amendment.
Influence
AP News: Many donors to Clinton Foundation met with her at State
Stephen Braun and Eileen Sullivan
More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.
At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.
Candidates and Campaigns
Bloomberg BNA: Total Presidential Fundraising 15 Percent Below 2012
Kenneth P. Doyle
Low approval ratings for both Trump and Clinton may be part of the reason why candidate and party fundraising figures are not rising in this election cycle, as they have in the past, according to Michael Malbin, CFI’s executive director and a professor of political science at the State University of New York’s University at Albany.
But, Malbin said, there appears to be even wider disillusionment with politics among campaign contributors as a whole. He noted that total fundraising for congressional candidates and most party committees also is down this year from previous levels, something that has rarely, if ever, happened before.
Politico: Clinton asks Romney’s allies for cash to stop Trump
Gabriel Debenedetti
Hillary Clinton’s team is on the market for more millionaires. This time, Mitt Romney’s millionaires.
After successfully encouraging disaffected, high-profile Republicans to publicly disavow their party’s nominee, Clinton’s campaign in the last two weeks has launched a coordinated effort to convince conservatives to give money to the only woman standing in Donald Trump’s way, and to get their friends to do the same.
The effort began Aug. 12, when Clinton finance director Dennis Cheng wrote a 1,200-word email to the candidate’s top fundraisers, describing how they could win over GOP and independent contributors. That email included a sample letter fundraisers could send Republican prospects and presents potential aisle-crossers the option to donate or raise either $10,000, $27,000, $50,000, or $100,000 for the Clinton operation.
Huffington Post: Donald Trump Jacked Up His Campaign’s Trump Tower Rent Once Somebody Else Was Paying It
S.V. Date
After bragging for a year about how cheaply he was running his campaign, Donald Trump is spending more freely now that other people are contributing ― particularly when the beneficiary is himself.
Trump nearly quintupled the monthly rent his presidential campaign pays for its headquarters at Trump Tower to $169,758 in July, when he was raising funds from donors, compared with March, when he was self-funding his campaign, according to a Huffington Post review of Federal Election Commission filings. The rent jumped even though he was paying fewer staff in July than he did in March.
Washington Post: Inside the exclusive events helping to fund Clinton and the Democratic Party
Matea Gold and John Wagner
…the former secretary of state devoted much of this month to seeking big money to finance the Democratic Party, a race for cash that has taken her from Greenwich, Conn., to Nantucket, Mass., to Beverly Hills, Calif. The fundraising drive has served as a reminder of her deep and decades-long connections to some of the country’s wealthiest figures, a jarring contrast with her efforts to cast herself as an ally of those left out of prosperity.
Oklahoman: Clinton’s concern about money in politics doesn’t extend to her campaign
Editorial Board
WHO’S the fat cat now, all you campaign finance reformers? It’s not the Republican nominee for president. It’s the Hillary Clinton machine.
Who are the 1-percenters trying to “buy” another presidential election? It’s not the small A-list of celebrities supporting Donald Trump. It’s the mega millionaires supporting Clinton.
The States
Miami Herald: On 2nd try, Miami-Dade commissioners approve petition count
Douglas Hanks
Miami-Dade commissioners agreed Monday to start counting nearly 130,000 signatures tied to a proposed ballot item on new campaign-finance rules, but warned they still might kill the proposal over stern concerns raised by county lawyers…
Monday’s session also opened a new line of attack against the proposal, with county lawyers warning the submitted ballot language contains significant legal flaws, including the presumption that the current finance system conveys “an appearance of ethical impropriety” in county government.
“This question is misleading,” said Oren Rosenthal, an assistant county attorney who specializes in election law. “The ballot is no place for political rhetoric and subjective evaluations. The ballot question potentially runs afoul of this restriction.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Campaign limits ballot question challenged
Kurt Erickson
A proposal to give Missouri voters a chance to cap campaign contributions is unconstitutional and should be tossed off the November ballot, an attorney told a Cole County judge Tuesday.
Chuck Hatfield, a lawyer representing a trio of clients including the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives, said a proposed ballot initiative financed by Clayton businessman Fred Sauer unfairly limits some classes of businesses and associations from giving money to campaigns.
“It singles out some corporations and prohibits them from contributing,” Hatfield told Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce. “On its face, this law is unconstitutional.”
Madison NBC 15: Ethics Commission will be able to make political donations
Associated Press
The commission voted 4-2 on Tuesday to continue with the current practice allowing them to give to political candidates and campaign committees.
Two members, Democrat Robert Kinney and Republican Pat Strachota, argued that giving to partisan candidates will hurt the public’s perception of their work.
But Democrats Peg Lautenschlager and David Halbrooks argued that their decisions would not be affected by money they give to candidates.
