In the News
Learn Liberty (IHS): Are Super PACs Good for Democracy?
Brad SmithWhat exactly is a Super PAC? Professor Bradley Smith, the former Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission, brings some clarity to these controversial groups by taking a close look at Super PACs: what they do and how they impact elections.
Washington Free Beacon: Obama campaign under fire for possible overseas donations
By Andrew Stiles“Given President Obama’s rhetoric about foreign influence in our elections, you’d think they’d bend over backward to ensure the very highest standards for his own campaign,” David Keating, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, told the Washington Free Beacon. “There are simple things they could do to make people a lot more confident, but it appears they haven’t done that.”
WNYC: Revealing Dark Money and Big Data
Bradley Smith, Chairman and Co-Founder of the Center for Competitive Politics, Adam Rappaport, Chief Counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and ProPublica’s Kim Barker discuss how social welfare nonprofit groups, known as 501(c)(4)s are avoid regulation to finance the campaigns. They’ve already spent more than $71 million on television ads, more than all super PACs combined, according to estimates from Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. Kim Barker has been reporting the series Revealing Dark Money and Big Data for ProPublica.
CCP
CCP Takes Part in ProPublica Event Discussing Money in Elections Tuesday, Oct. 9, 6:30 pm
By Sarah LeeCCP will take part in a forum tonight in New York City with pro-reform group ProPublica to discuss what they’re calling the rise of “dark money” in campaigns. CCP’s representative will try to counter this idea by presenting the fact that, for the most part, where and how people choose to give is not only already disclosed, but generally fairly easy to figure out and therefore neither “dark”, nor “secret”.
Independent groups
Wall Street Journal: Goldman Turns Tables on Obama Campaign
By LIZ RAPPAPORT and BRODY MULLINSIn the four decades since Congress created the campaign-finance system, no company’s employees have switched sides so abruptly, moving from top supporters of one camp to the top of its rival, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of campaign-finance data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
NY Times: Buying the Election?
By JOE NOCERACampaign finance these days reminds me a lot of that scene. I lived for a few years in Washington, right around the time that Congress, aroused by the Watergate scandal, was reforming the country’s campaign finance laws. It instituted a system for presidential elections that combined small contributions from individuals ($1,000 or less), public financing from the taxpayers and a cap on how much the candidates could spend. In the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter year of 1976, the two candidates were allowed to spend — can we pause here for dramatic effect? — around $35 million each.
Candidates and parties
Daily Beast: The Illegal-Donor Loophole
By Peter Schweizer , Peter J. BoyerThere has been no shortage of media attention paid to the role of money in the current presidential contest. Super PACs, bundlers, 527s, and mega-donors have attracted abundant notice. But there has been surprisingly little focus on perhaps the most secretive and influential financial force in politics today: the wide-open coffers of the Internet.
Roll Call: Members’ PACs Test Unregulated Spending
By Eliza Newlin CarneyIn this cycle’s costliest and most competitive House and Senate races, Members of Congress are deploying a little-noticed but influential weapon: their personal political action committees, typically known as leadership PACs.
NY Times: New ‘Super PACs’ Alter Landscape for House Races
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and JO CRAVEN McGINTYIn the shadow of the supersize “super PACs” that have reshaped the battle for the White House and Senate, a new and potentially potent kind of super PAC is proliferating in the closing weeks of the campaign and taking aim at House races.
Campaigns and Elections: Protecting your campaign committee from fraud
By Mark Warren & Jennifer MayConventional wisdom would have you believe that misappropriation of campaign funds in the political world is a rare occurrence. But the truth is that no one really knows how widespread the misappropriation of funds really is. It’s not something that is widely reported and it can be difficult to detect.
