In the News
Greeley Tribune: We should oppose Ken Buck’s rotten proposal to dismantle the FEC
By Brad Smith
Buck’s proposal would give the president the power to choose the pivotal fifth vote. In theory, no more than two commissioners could be from the same party, so no party would have a majority. But that would be illusory. For example, a Democratic president could appoint Socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders; Donald Trump could appoint a registered Independent, such as his daughter Ivanka. The president would also name one commissioner to a 10-year term as chairman, meaning the disadvantaged party will spend a full decade on the losing end, even if it managed to win the presidency in between. The result, before long, will be a partisan agency not trusted by roughly half of Americans.
Dangers of Disclosure
WNYC: GOP Congressman Frelinghuysen Targets Activist in Letter to Her Employer
By Nancy Solomon
The most powerful congressman in New Jersey, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, wrote a fundraising letter in March to a board member of a local bank, warning him that a member of an activist group opposing the Republican worked at his bank.
The employee was questioned and criticized for her involvement in NJ 11th for Change, a group that formed after the election of Donald Trump and has been pressuring Frelinghuysen to meet with constituents in his district and oppose the Trump agenda.
Free Speech
Wall Street Journal: Where’s the ACLU When You Need It?
By Wendy Kaminer and Alan Dershowitz
How did the ACLU end up on the wrong side-or no side-of urgent debates about free speech and due process? In part the organization’s transformation is a result of generational shifts: The old liberal guard of ACLU leaders is aging. The new guard reflects the left’s turn away from traditional liberal values toward a “progressive” politics with expansive definitions of discrimination and restrictive approaches to speech.
Reason: Richard Spencers ‘Torch-Wielding Mob’ Is Pathetic. But It’s Also Free Speech.
By Robby Soave
At the same time, people have the right to advocate against this change, which is what Spencer’s gang was doing on Saturday: engaging in constitutionally protected political speech. The content of the speech is deeply sinister, and indeed, racist. The University of Virginia students who interpreted the protest as an attempt “to intimidate minority members of our community” are not wrong to view it that way. But even so, Spencer’s actions fall within the bounds of the First Amendment, and we ought to support the preservation of broad free speech protections, even for people whose speech we rightly despise.
That’s the standard, ACLU-approved, civil libertarian position on free speech, but it seems to be losing currency with the left these days. Why should we extend political rights to people whose political goals are opposed to ours? is, as far as I can tell, an increasingly popular notion among the antifascist, anti-Trump resistance movement. So here’s an additional reason to support free speech, even for people like Spencer: taking away his free speech proves you’re in agreement with him about something.
San Antonio Express-News: ‘Free speech zones’ actually suppress speech
By Editorial Board
It sounds paradoxical, but the Texas Senate gave a boost to free speech this week by banning “free speech zones” at public colleges and universities.
The Senate’s reasoning was as solid as the legacy of the First Amendment. Free speech shouldn’t be restricted to a special zone on a campus. It should exist virtually everywhere at that school, and by extension the rest of Texas.
Some colleges have set up “free speech zones” to either protect provocative speakers or keep their eye on them. Either way, the designation has no place in academia, where spirited discussion should be encouraged. A special zone implies that free speech cannot always be exercised anywhere else on campus.
IRS
Washington Examiner: IRS officials are really good at protecting their own privacy
By David Freddoso
Now the two IRS employees (one current, one former) at the center of the scandal are trying to keep still more information about potential government wrongdoing out of the public sphere. Lois Lerner, who formerly headed the IRS division in question, and Holly Paz, still an IRS employee, are trying to get the Cincinnati federal court hearing the case to keep their deposition testimony under seal. The reason? The threats and harassment they have received after their involvement in the case became known demonstrates that their safety will be in great danger if the testimony becomes public.
Independent Groups
Guardian: Follow the data: does a legal document link Brexit campaigns to US billionaire?
By Carole Cadwalladr
Because, legally, these two companies – AggregateIQ in Canada and Cambridge Analytica, an American company based in London, have nothing to connect them publicly. But this intellectual property licence shown to the Observer tells a different story. This created a binding “exclusive” “worldwide” agreement “in perpetuity” for all of AggregateIQ’s intellectual property to be used by SCL Elections (a British firm that created Cambridge Analytica with Mercer).
The companies may have had different owners but they were legally bound together. And, the Observer has learned, they were working together on a daily basis at the time of the referendum – both companies were being paid by Mercer-funded organisations to work on Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign in America.
CBS News: Clinton launches political action group “Onward Together”
By John Bat
In an email announcing the nonprofit’s installation, the former Democratic presidential encapsulated her broader mission, saying that a healthy democracy depends upon strong citizen engagement.
“To support this wave of grassroots organizing, we’re launching Onward Together, an organization dedicated to advancing the progressive vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election,” read the statement, which also appears on the group’s website. “Onward Together will work to build a brighter future for generations to come by supporting groups that encourage people to organize and run for office.”
New York Times: Hillary Clinton Starts Onward Together, a New Political Group
By Niraj Chokshi
Mrs. Clinton went on to praise the work of several grass-roots groups that have emerged as part of a broad liberal movement opposed to Mr. Trump and his policies. Onward Together will support those groups, she said, though she did not describe what form the assistance would take.
Onward Together is registered as a 501(c)(4) group, the Internal Revenue Service designation for so-called social welfare nonprofits, which are often cited for a rise in dark money in politics because of their ability to protect donor anonymity.
Trump Administration
Guardian: Donald Trump acts like an illegitimate president for a reason
By Russ Feingold
The case for obstruction of justice by the Trump administration is being built right now, and we must demand that Republicans and Democrats join together so that the grave danger to our democracy is called out for what it is and remedied – and not swept under the rug.
We also must not lose sight of the larger fight at hand. Tuesday’s events stem directly from our own illegitimate electoral system, which produced Trump the president. They are the result of voter suppression, dark money in politics, and the esoteric electoral college – all of which serve to silence the American people.
The States
Public News Service: CT’s Public Financing Election Law in Jeopardy?
By Andrea Sears
Good government groups are saying ‘no’ to GOP plans to scrap Connecticut’s campaign-funding system.
The Citizens Election Program, or CEP, was passed in 2005 in the wake of a corruption scandal that put former governor John Rowland in prison. Saying they need to close the state’s looming $350 million budget gap, Republican legislators have eliminated the CEP from their proposed budget…
Republicans claim revisions to the program have created so many loopholes that it’s no longer effective.
Billings Gazette: New commissioner takes over at political practices office
By Associated Press
Former legislator Jeff Mangan took over Monday as Montana’s enforcer of campaign, ethics and lobbying laws, succeeding Jonathan Motl’s turbulent tenure in which Motl and his staff prosecuted campaign corruption in the 2010 Republican primaries and re-wrote state campaign finance rules.
Mangan, who served in the Montana Legislature as a Democrat from Great Falls from 1999 to 2006, was sworn in Monday to a six-year term as commissioner of political practices.
Portland Mercury: Will Portlanders Slap Limits On Campaign Contributions? Progressive Groups Plan to Find Out
By Dirk VanderHart
Reformers had an easy time last year convincing Multnomah County voters to put limits on campaign contributions for county races. Now they’re hoping to make the same plea at the city level-even as the legality of their reforms remains an open question.
Months after more than 88 percent of voters approved Measure 26-184, which strictly limits financing in elections for county officials, local progressive activists have drafted a measure to slap the same basic strictures on city races, the Mercury has learned…
The regulations also limit how much people or organizations can spend to tout a candidate via “independent expenditures,” and require that the top five donors that fund campaign advertisements are explicitly listed.
As we reported recently, there’s no telling whether some of those provisions are legal. A 1997 Oregon Supreme Court ruling prohibited limits on campaign contributions, and the US Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision did the same for independent expenditures.
Austin Monitor: Pool proposes campaign finance rule changes
By Jo Clifton
City Council Member Leslie Pool will be bringing forward an amendment to the city’s campaign finance law in June. Pool’s proposal is an attempt to remedy the city’s First Amendment problem with part of the old law, which federal Judge Lee Yeakel ruled was unconstitutional last July.
Former Council Member Don Zimmerman sued the city last year, claiming that the local regulation that allowed campaign fundraising only during the 180 days before an election was unconstitutional.
Pool’s proposal would allow candidates, including incumbent Council members who are up for reelection, to begin raising contributions 365 days prior to an election.
