CCP
Cato Holds Discussion on New Floyd Abrams Book on First Amendment
By Joe Albanese
On Monday, the Cato Institute hosted a forum to discuss Floyd Abrams’s new book, The Soul of the First Amendment. Abrams is well known as a scholar and litigator of free speech issues. He is Senior Counsel at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and has been involved in numerous Supreme Court cases, including the famous New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) “Pentagon Papers” case and, more recently, Citizens United vs. FEC (2010). Joining Abrams on the panel were Ronald Collins, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law and author of “First Amendment News” at the Concurring Opinions blog and Ilya Shapiro, Editor-in-Chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review…
Shapiro pointed to the backlash against Citizens United as a key example of hostility to the First Amendment. As he explained, Citizens United was a straightforward case of government trying to dictate who could speak, how much they could speak, and when they could speak. Despite the rhetoric of opponents, that decision has not stifled opposing viewpoints, prevented less well-funded politicians from winning elections, or kept activists from identifying (and vilifying) certain politically-active individuals. Still, those opposed to the decision have insisted on legal and legislative measures to restore regulatory power to the government, even if it means amending the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Independent Groups
Huffington Post: FEC Complaint Accuses Trump’s Inaugural Committee Of ‘Recklessly’ Evading Law
By Christina Wilkie
Two nonpartisan campaign finance groups filed a complaint Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission alleging that President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee violated federal law by failing to collect basic donor information.
The complaint, from the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, argues that the inaugural committee and its top officers broke the law “by filing reports which they knew or should have known did not include required information and contained false information.”
It further alleges that the reason for this mistaken and missing information was the committee’s “reckless failure to request, obtain or review donor information for accuracy.”
The complaint was prompted by a recent HuffPost investigation into the donor records submitted to the FEC by the inaugural committee…
It quickly grew into a crowdsourced data project that drew thousands of volunteers, who scoured public records for any information that could verify the identities of donors and entered that data into a publicly accessible spreadsheet.
CRP: Nonprofits backing Trump have deep, swampy ties
By Anna Massoglia
Trump’s unprecedented move to register as a candidate for the 2020 presidential election on his first day in office blurs the line between groups spending in support of the president’s agenda and those supporting his re-election. Unlike their forerunner, Organizing for Action, which did not exist as a 501(c)(4) until after President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012, political nonprofits have been active since the onset of President Trump’s first term as he’s taken on the roles of both candidate and president.
Groups like the 45 Committee that were established during the 2016 election have spent multiple millions of dollars on ad campaigns during Trump’s first 100 days in office. Trump’s supporters also include new names like Great America Alliance and Making America Great, whose operations and funding sources are still largely opaque though they’ve spent plenty backing Trump; they will not have to file reports with the IRS until next year, and even then won’t have to publicly name their donors – just some of the benefits of the 501(c) tax status.
Bloomberg BNA: Corporate America Starts Funding Super PACs
By Kenneth P. Doyle
The new corporate contributions went to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican super PAC linked to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other House Republican leaders, according to the FEC report filed last month in advance of a special congressional election in Georgia.
The Republican super PAC’s contributors included such well-known public companies as AT&T, Amgen, Anthem, Exelon, MetLife, MillerCoors and Microsoft. These companies hadn’t made direct contributions in decades-if ever-to super PACs supporting federal campaigns or to national committees of the major political parties…
Until now, super PACs linked to congressional leaders of both major parties have been funded mainly by rich individuals-including billionaires like Sheldon Adelson on the Republican side and Thomas Steyer on the Democratic side. Super PACs linked to Democratic congressional leaders also have received significant money from major unions and both sides have received occasional corporate money.
But contributions from well-known public corporations to super PACs linked to both parties have been rare.
Disclosure
The Hill: This year’s proxy season will shine a light on corporate political spending
By Douglas Chia and Gary Larkin
Seven years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, more than two-thirds of the S&P 500 has some level of disclosure of their corporate political spending. Prior to the controversial, landmark decision, that figure clocked in at just 20 percent.
In all of 2016, shareholders filed 105 proposals on this topic with 61 going to a vote and receiving average support of about 26 percent. In just January and February of this year alone, at least 90 corporate political activity proposals had been reportedly filed. This is without a doubt a robust start to 2017.
As the number of political spending and lobbying disclosure shareholder proposals keeps pace with the previous two years, expect more S&P 500 companies to adopt such policies. Moreover, with a call for more transparency following the 2016 presidential election, political activist groups are joining with shareholder activists to call for increased disclosure, including aggressively pressuring the largest investors to support their cause.
Influence
Reason: Access to Obama White House Brought Companies Better Stock Performance, Study Shows
By Ira Stoll
The economists write that there are two different ways to view these outcomes. At worst, “gaining access to politicians may enable firms to gain undue influence over elected officials and extract political favors… Under such a view, political access facilitates quid-pro-quo exchanges between firms and elected officials in which policy favors are exchanged for private gains to the politicians.”…
A more benign explanation is that, as the authors put it, “political access may enable firms to provide policy-relevant information, which in turn helps elected officials to make more informed decisions on policies that affect the firms.”
The authors warn that more research is needed to figure out which of these two dynamics best explains the correlation between stock-market results and political access. Perhaps it is some combination of the two.
One common response to the “undue influence” problem is to propose restricting political contributions, instead using taxpayer money to finance campaigns. That collides with the First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and petition.
A better response might be a government that spends less and regulates less.
The States
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri senators push for ‘dark money’ disclosure in final days of legislative session
By Celeste Bott
Tension is boiling over in the Missouri Senate after a group of lawmakers stalled action on all bills this week and demanded a debate over whether nonprofit organizations, including one formed to promote Gov. Eric Greitens’ political agenda, should be forced to disclose their donors…
After mutually agreeing to move the budget process along, leaders conducted Tuesday morning a hearing on a bill laying out requirements for “dark money” disclosure…
The bill is a work in progress, with senators saying they intend to offer amendments that would trigger disclosure at $5,000 in contributions per election cycle and exempt entities such as the National Rifle Association, which has a sizable lifetime membership fee, from having to disclose its members.
The latter amendment could address concerns expressed during Tuesday’s hearing from lawmakers, who fear the new requirements could violate the privacy of Missourians who are members of groups such as the NRA or the NAACP, making them the targets of people who don’t share the same views…
Nonprofit groups shared similar fears, saying the bill sought to regulate freedom of expression.
Kansas City Star: ‘Dark money’ in Missouri: Four senators force debate on disclosure bill
By Jason Hancock
On Tuesday, a Senate committee held a public hearing on legislation that would force so-called “dark money” groups to disclose their donors. The full Senate is expected to debate a bill this week capping lobbyist gifts to elected officials, and several senators have vowed to amend it to try to rein in dark money….
With less than two weeks left before the state Constitution mandates that lawmakers adjourn for the year, most observers had already declared ethics reform dead.
But after a nonprofit founded by the governor’s campaign team began running radio ads, digital ads and robocalls attacking Republican Sen. Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph by giving out his personal cell phone number, a group of senators demanded a debate on dark money before they would allow any other legislation to pass…
During Tuesday’s committee hearing, several senators expressed concern about publicizing the identities of donors to political nonprofits.
“This bill is trying to execute a careful dance between transparency and privacy,” said Sen. Bill Eigel, a St. Charles County Republican.
Denver Post: Everyone knows Bob Beauprez’s charity was a political committee, except the law
By Megan Schrader
Colorado Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer ruled last week that former congressman and two-time gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez’s charity violated campaign finance law by failing to register as a political committee. Spencer fined the group $17,735 and ordered Beauprez to disclose donors.
The ruling, if upheld on a possible appeal – and that’s a big if – could shut down groups that have been narrowly circumventing Colorado law that requires political committees to both limit the amount of donations and disclose the names of donors…
His ruling, however, stretches the letter of the law…
In fact both the plaintiff in this case, Matt Arnold, and Spencer agree that Colorado Pioneer Action never engaged in express advocacy.
The U.S. and Colorado supreme courts have ruled that only that most narrow sliver of speech using only those magic words or their synonyms can be regulated. That’s a good ruling for free speech.
Spencer and Arnold get around the magic-words blockade by ruling and arguing that while Colorado Pioneer Action didn’t “make expenditures,” it did “accept contributions” for the major purpose of supporting or opposing candidates.
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Legislature takes Minnesota the wrong direction on campaign finance
By Carolyn Laine
Senate and House Republicans on the State Government Finance Conference Committee voted to eliminate the campaign-finance laws that have made Minnesota a place where people from many walks of life can be elected to serve us all in St. Paul…
It is constitutionally permissible for a state to impose candidate spending limits if they are voluntarily agreed to by the candidates. Almost every candidate does agree to these spending limits because Minnesota offers a public subsidy program. Funding for this program is based on the number of taxpayers in a district who check off the box on their Minnesota taxes to have the state commit $5 to the fund. Having both candidates agree to the limits creates a reasonable and fair playing field in our campaigns…
The public subsidy (which has been in effect for 40 years) provided just 19 percent of the 2016 legislative candidate spending, yet this makes the difference in allowing an ordinary Minnesotan the opportunity to run.
Washington Post: Secret audit left D.C. voters ‘in the dark.’ Now it stirs talk of election reform.
By Aaron C. Davis
An audit that showed widespread problems with the campaign of a D.C. Council member – but that was withheld from public view until after he won reelection – has galvanized support among District lawmakers for election reform.
A majority of D.C. Council members say the city must prevent a repeat of the way council member Brandon T. Todd (D-Ward 4) was able to successfully run for reelection last year, while city auditors had privately concluded that he could not document more than $100,000 in contributions from his previous race…
Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), whose committee has jurisdiction over the Office of Campaign Finance, said he will ask his colleagues to consider banning a candidate from running for office if he or she has not closed a previous campaign account. That could force candidates to more promptly comply with the requests of OCF auditors, since a campaign cannot be closed during an ongoing audit, he said.
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) urged the council to go further and place the Office of Campaign Finance under independent oversight. Currently, the OCF falls under the Board of Elections, which is governed by mayoral appointees.
