In the News
Oklahoma Watch: Groups on the Right, Left Oppose Proposed Grassroots Lobbying Rules
By Paul Monies
ACLU Oklahoma and Planned Parenthood Great Plains have joined the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association to oppose the rule, which is back before the Ethics Commission at a special meeting at 10 a.m. Friday.
“When you have the ACLU standing with the same position as the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, it doesn’t mean we’re right, but it should give folks pause to look at two organizations that are perceived to be on different ends of the political spectrum,” said Ryan Kiesel, executive director or ACLU Oklahoma…
The indirect or grassroots lobbying proposal would require groups spending more than $500 on campaigns for or against specific pieces of legislation to disclose their organization’s name and file reports with the Ethics Commission if expenditures exceed $5,000…
If the commission approves the proposal on Friday, it would go to the Legislature for a vote as part of the agency’s package of new rules. The commission has until Feb. 5 to submit its rules.
About a dozen people offered comments on the proposal at the commission’s Jan. 11 public meeting. OCPA presented a petition to the commission with more than 2,300 names who were opposed to the proposed rule. Other groups, like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Institute for Free Speech, provided comment letters outlining their opposition…
Kiesel said the indirect lobbying proposal was well-intentioned but could chill speech and political activity. Large corporate organizations funding indirect lobbying campaigns have the resources to comply with the proposal, but smaller organizations and nonprofits could be dissuaded from any indirect lobbying, he said.
ICYMI
By Eric Wang
This analysis examines Title IV, Subtitles B (“DISCLOSE Act”), C (“Honest Ads”), and D (“Stand by Every Ad”) of H.R. 1 (116th Congress). The Institute for Free Speech (IFS) previously analyzed earlier versions of these provisions when they were introduced as standalone bills. Due to the evolving and obscure legislative language, this analysis represents IFS’s latest understanding of the legislation and supersedes any prior analyses IFS has released on these measures. As it continues to analyze these and other sections of H.R. 1 that regulate First Amendment rights, IFS expects to release additional analyses of the bill…
As a preliminary matter, Title IV, Subtitles B, C, and D of H.R. 1 contain a hodgepodge of partially related and overlapping campaign finance definitional, reporting, and disclaimer provisions that are scattered in a variety of different bill sections. Instead of consolidating and presenting these provisions in an organized, cohesive, and streamlined manner, the bill’s sponsors threw together previously separate bills in a way that severely frustrates public understanding of legislative language that was already exceedingly vague and complex. This thoughtless, obfuscatory, and expedient approach to legislating, which is convenient only for the politicians pushing the bill, belie its title purporting to be “For the People.”…
H.R. 1’s substance further underscores how the bill would help politicians and campaign finance attorneys more than it would benefit the public. The bill would greatly increase the already onerous legal and administrative compliance costs, liability risk, and costs to donor and associational privacy for civic groups that speak about policy issues and politicians. Organizations will be further deterred from speaking or will have to divert additional resources away from their advocacy activities to pay for compliance staff and lawyers. Some groups will not be able to afford these costs or will violate the law unwittingly. Less speech by private citizens and organizations means politicians will be able to act with less accountability to public opinion and criticism.
The Courts
Courthouse News Service: Greenpeace Defeats Most of Logger’s RICO Suit
By Nicholas Iovino
Environmental groups on Tuesday defeated the bulk of a lawsuit claiming they conspired to smear a logging company with false statements, but Greenpeace must still face defamation claims for two statements it published.
“The judge’s decision to throw out the abusive racketeering charges is a positive development and a win for advocacy,” Greenpeace USA General Counsel Tom Wetterer said in a statement Tuesday.
Resolute Forest Products sued Greenpeace and its “co-conspirator” Stand.earth, formerly ForestEthics, in May 2016, claiming the groups plotted to defame the Georgia-based logging company as a “forest destroyer” through social media posts and newsletters…
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar ruled on Tuesday that nearly all of the 296 “defamatory” statements cited in Resolute’s complaint are “shielded by the First Amendment as not provably false, or statements that ‘cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts.'” …
“Today’s landmark decision should be a lesson for other corporate bullies attempting the same underhanded legal tactics, like Energy Transfer, that they will not succeed in attempts to criminalize free speech,” Wetterer said in a statement, referring to the $900 million RICO and defamation suit Energy Transfer – the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline – filed against Greenpeace in 2017…
Resolute’s attorney Michael Bowe, with Kasowitz Benson Torres in New York, said his client will continue to pursue defamation claims against Greenpeace, and that Resolute will file an appeal to revive claims dismissed by Tigar on Tuesday.
Congress
Wall Street Journal: Michael Cohen Subpoenaed to Testify Before Senate Intelligence Committee
By Rebecca Ballhaus and Dustin Volz
The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday subpoenaed President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to appear before the panel, according to a spokesman for Mr. Cohen, a day after Mr. Cohen postponed testimony before a House committee citing attacks by the president on his family.
Mr. Cohen is scheduled to testify before the Republican-controlled Senate committee in a closed-door session on Feb. 12, a person close to Mr. Cohen said.
The subpoena, issued Thursday morning, came a day after the chairmen of the House Oversight and Intelligence committees issued a joint statement saying they expected Mr. Cohen to testify before their panels and that not doing so was “never an option.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN Thursday that the panel would subpoena Mr. Cohen “if that’s necessary.”
Mr. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison last month and is scheduled to begin serving his sentence on March 6.
The subpoena, first reported by CNN, marks an escalation in Congress’s interest in Mr. Cohen, who in August pleaded guilty to crimes including two campaign-finance charges for arranging hush-money payments to two women alleging affairs with Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump directed him to arrange the payments, implicating the president in two federal crimes.
Independent Groups
Roll Call: Liberal ‘dark money’ groups spent more in 2018 than conservative groups
By Simone Pathé
The new Democratic House majority is making campaign finance overhaul a central part of its sweeping good governance agenda…
But when it comes to the big-money world of outside spending, over which candidates have little control, it appears that liberal groups had a banner year in 2018…
[L]iberal “dark money” groups outspent conservative groups, according to a new report from Issue One that analyzed data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Dark money groups spent $150 million in the 2018 midterms. And unlike super PACs, which must disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, these politically active nonprofits are not required to do so.
Liberal groups spent about 54 percent of that total in the 2018 cycle, with conservative groups only spending 31 percent. Nonpartisan or bipartisan groups made up the remaining 15 percent…
The biggest liberal spender was a group that plays in Senate races. Majority Forward, founded in 2015 as an affiliate of the Democratic super PAC Senate Majority PAC, reported spending about $46 million in 2018…
Majority Forward was the top-spending outside group in the Montana Senate election last year, where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester defeated Republican Matt Rosendale…
Despite benefiting from that outside spending, Tester has been vocal in the Senate about increasing transparency in campaign spending.
“You’ve got groups with really nice-sounding names dumping millions of dollars into these campaigns that quite frankly aren’t being totally honest,” Tester told CQ’s Shawn Zeller on a podcast last month. “They’re not being honest with the people about who’s paying for the ads, and the ads stretch the truth a long ways, let’s just put it that way.”
Daily Beast: Stacey Abrams Retools Her Dark-Money Group
By Lachlan Markay
Until December, Abrams ran a dark-money group called Fair Fight Action. The organization is bankrolling her speaking tour, and bought a host of social-media ads echoing her allegations that her Republican opponent, now-Gov. Brian Kemp, “robbed” Abrams of an election victory in November through alleged efforts to disenfranchise black voters in his capacity as Georgia’s secretary of state.
Abrams has been floated as a challenger to Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) next year, and Fair Fight Action, which listed Abrams as its chief executive until last month, is making moves that would allow it to play in that or another political contest. Last month, the group quietly amended its own charter in an apparent effort to step up future political activity.
Fair Fight changed its name from the Voter Access Initiative, and removed language from its bylaws that barred the organization from “directly or indirectly” participating or intervening “in any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.” …
The change will allow Fair Fight to, for instance, donate funds to a super PAC supporting a specific candidate for office, or run ads itself promoting that candidate or attacking his or her opponent. If that candidate is Abrams herself, it won’t be the first time that her nonprofit work has helped build her political infrastructure.
Disclosure
By Benjamin Fearnow
A group opposing the legalization of marijuana across the U.S., fearing it will become “the next Big Tobacco,” unveiled an online tool to track industry donations to federal politicians.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana, or SAM, published the online tracker this week in a move which reveals the anti-legalization group’s fears that cannabis, marijuana and other products are moving closer to decriminalization at the federal level. The interactive “SAM Tracker” shows Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Dina Titus of Nevada and Barbara Lee of California-all states where recreational marijuana has been legalized-as the top recipients of “major marijuana money.”
Earlier this month, Blumenauer, founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, proposed H.R. 420 to regulate marijuana much in the same way as alcohol products are currently regulated by the government.
A spokesperson for Blumenauer’s congressional office told Newsweek Wednesday the SAM group’s tactic is a classic case of anti-legalization groups attacking the messengers and lawmakers who are making progress on the pot legalization front because they’re losing the messaging battle — a sentiment echoed by Blumenauer himself on Twitter Wednesday.
“It’s not a surprise that I’m #1 on this [donation] list. I’ve been working on this issue since 1973 when Oregon was the first state to decriminalize possession…”
FEC
Orlando Sentinel: Complaints filed with FEC against 2 who loaned $180K to Rep. Ross Spano
By Steven Lemongello
Lakeland resident Jan Barrow filed two letters of complaint with the FEC Office of General Counsel on Dec. 21 asking for an investigation into Cary Carreno and Karen Hunt, two friends of Spano who loaned him the combined $180,000 between May and October 2018.
An attorney for Spano, R-Dover, said in a letter to the FEC in December that those loans, combined with Spano’s subsequent personal loans to his own campaign of $167,000, “may have been in violation of the Federal Campaign Finance Act.”
Barrow, president of the Democratic Women’s Club of Lakeland, said she filed the complaints as an individual and a registered voter in Spano’s 15th District, which includes parts of Lake County…
She argued in her complaints that the loans were “a clear violation” of the law that limits individual contributors to a candidate to just $2,700 per election cycle…
Elliot Berke, who represents Spano, Hunt and Carreno, said Spano “believed he was acting in full compliance with the law – as did Mr. Carreno and Ms. Hunt when they entered the promissory notes with him – based on the consultations they had at the time.”
In an email Tuesday, Berke said, “We aren’t aware of any actual complaint that’s been filed with the FEC or anywhere else.”
“We did self-report this matter directly to the FEC last year, and have been in contact with lawyers there about it,” Berke wrote. “That’s been slowed down due to the government shutdown – but we look forward to working with them to reach a mutually agreeable resolution.”
Candidates and Campaigns
Houston Chronicle: Julián Castro leads Democratic presidential candidates in swearing off PAC money – but will it hurt?
By Bill Lambrecht
Julián Castro’s vow to forgo PAC money is fast becoming the norm for Democrats seeking their party’s 2020 nomination in the new era of presidential politics that requires candidates to build armies of online donors.
The full-scale shift to internet fundraising, Democratic veterans say, threatens to upset prevailing wisdom about the need to win early in Iowa and New Hampshire by enabling candidates who maintain legions of generous small donors to compete long into the primary season…
Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and Obama administration housing chief, disavowed political action committee support when he declared his candidacy this month. His pledge includes PACs of all kinds, including those of labor unions and environmental groups, taking him beyond several others in the race committing only to reject corporate PAC money…
Castro, campaigning in Iowa just before entering the race, had to allay fears of a Democratic activist that no-PAC pledges could be foolish in competing against well-funded Republicans.
“I think that in this day and age that every mom, dad, grandmother and uncle who wants change has five or ten dollars to give,” Castro said.
The States
Oregon Public Broadcasting: Oregon Legislature Kicks Off Work To Curb Campaign Spending
By Lauren Dake
Gov. Kate Brown, who was part of the state’s most expensive governor’s race ever last year, told lawmakers on Wednesday that it’s time to curb the amount of political money spent in Oregon.
A newly-created campaign finance committee in the state Senate is tasked with reining in Oregon’s campaign finance laws…
Campaign spending and donations should be posted quickly for the public to see, she said. Currently there is often a 30-day window before transactions become public.
The governor also said it’s time for Oregon to tackle what’s known as “dark money” …
Brown, who benefited tremendously from union support in the last election cycle, also told lawmakers that it’s time to limit how much candidates can accept.
Oregon is only one of a handful of states that doesn’t have any cap on how much money can be given to candidates.
Brown, who can’t run for re-election after this four-year term ends, has in the past pushed for a $2,600 limit for individual donors and $5,000 for political action committees.
Voters would need to amend the state’s constitution to move forward with changing the campaign contribution rules. Oregon voters have been reticent to amend the free-speech clause of the constitution.
The governor, a lawyer, said previously she thinks there is a route to amend the provision in the constitution dealing with elections…
The governor said she would like to see something on the ballot in the 2020 election.
KDRV NewsWatch 12: Governor Brown Highlights ‘Defending Democracy’ Agenda
By Jamie Parfitt
Speaking before the Oregon State Senate Campaign Finance Committee on Wednesday, Governor Kate Brown outlined what she calls her “defending democracy agenda” …
Brown suggested greater transparency for campaign contributions and expenditures, plus setting caps for those contributions. Brown cited her own recent gubernatorial race against Rep. Knute Buehler in 2018, which was the most expensive campaign in Oregon history.
“It costs more to run for office in Oregon than it does in Washington [D.C.],” Brown said.
The Governor said that she intends to see some of these changes represented in a constitutional amendment that would appear on the ballot in 2020. Constitutional amendments have to be ratified by popular vote.
Complete Colorado: Former policy director for Senate GOP files campaign finance complaint naming co-founder of Google
By Sherrie Peif
The complaint states in part: The “Sergey Brin Family Foundation contributed $170,000 to ProgressNow Colorado, which used the funds to support Proposition 112. Rather than file as an issue committee, however, ProgressNow Colorado – or its affiliated organization ProgressNow Colorado Education Fund – treated its issue advocacy as a “contribution” to Colorado Rising, a reporting issue committee.”
The complaint, which was filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office on Wednesday, asks new Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who ran her campaign on doing away with dark money, to hire an independent investigator for the complaint.
Griswold recently asked members of the General Assembly for more campaign finance “transparency.” [Charles Heatherly, the former policy director for the Colorado State Senate Republicans] and his attorney, former Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who drew up the complaint, say this will test Griswold’s office and how aggressive and even-handed she will be with her political allies.
“We all know how the Polis-Bridges-Gill ‘Colorado Blueprint’ reshaped Colorado politics,” Heatherly said, “but the role of the left’s ‘dark millions’ has never been investigated. Okay, let’s see if the new Secretary of State will investigate the facts and hold someone accountable if the law has been circumvented.”
Gessler echoed Heatherly’s remarks, adding that Griswold made “political hay by complaining about the allegedly unhealthy influence that unregulated money has on the political process,” Gessler said. “But her political allies hide money all the time. This will test whether the new Secretary truly intends to serve as an impartial watchdog or whether she is just posturing.”
