CCP

Over a Year Later, Coloradans Find out Exactly What was in Legislators’ Disclosure Bill

By Alex Cordell

In their rush to hurriedly pass this bill, legislators neglected to notice that the language in the measure accidentally triggered the same requirements for legislative and statewide candidates running in the 2018 election. Now, 30 days before the 2017 school board elections, candidates running for state positions up to and including the governor’s office are being forced to report all campaign contributions of $1,000 or more within 24 hours on a daily basis – even though their primary is not for another eight months, and the general election is still over a year away.

After the announcement from the Secretary of State’s office that candidates running in the 2018 election were bound by the same reporting requirements, many legislators were quick to express their frustration. Even legislators who sponsored the original bill attempted to distance themselves from the bad press surrounding the law, saying that “it was only our intent to deal with the school board elections,” and that the “reporting requirements are cumbersome enough without what the new law is requiring campaigns to do.” …

When lawmakers and unelected bureaucrats attempt to control every aspect of our political process, they end up creating new, unnecessary hurdles that campaigns are forced to grapple with, hindering their ability to connect with voters and share their message. 

First Amendment

National Review: Trump vs. the First Amendment

By Kevin D. Williamson

Gutting the First Amendment is one of the top priorities of the Democratic party, which seeks to revoke its protection of political speech – i.e., the thing it’s really there to protect – so that they can put restrictions on political activism, which restrictions they call “campaign-finance reform.” They abominate the Supreme Court’s solid First Amendment decision in Citizens United, a case that involved not “money in politics” but the basic free-speech question of whether political activists should be allowed to show a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the days before an election. (Making a film and distributing it costs money, you see, hence “money in politics.”) They lost that one, but every Democrat in Harry Reid’s Senate – every one of them – voted to repeal the First Amendment.

Right-wing populists, too, are an illiberal bunch, and they would be entirely happy – for the moment – to see the executive branch empowered to harass the editors of the New York Times or to silence lefty television talkers such as Rachel Maddow. They are repeating the progressives’ mistake: imagining what their guy could do with vast new antidemocratic powers while never bothering to consider that the other side’s guy is probably going to get in there one of these days and enjoy the same powers.

Reason: Snowflakes on the Right: Conservative Hecklers Shut Down Speakers at Whittier College

By Robby Soave

Last week, at Whitter College in California, guest speakers were heckled by angry members of the audience, forcing organizers to end the event early.

This time, the hecklers were neither liberal nor students. They were conservative activists, and adults (in age, if not temperament).

The speakers were California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Assembly Leader Ian Calderon. They had pledged to answer questions from the general public, but several irate MAGA-hat-wearing audience members were intent on hijacking the event from the get-go…

This shameful act of censorship is a good reminder that even though angry far-left students are at fault in the majority of recent college free speech debacles, they are by no means the only or paramount threat to the First Amendment-on campus or anywhere else. Such a distinction belongs first and foremost to President Trump, whose repeated calls for muzzling of the press and abridgments of the speech rights of people he dislikes are, in the opinion of The Atlantic’s eminently reasonable civil libertarian Conor Friedersdorf, grounds for impeachment. Trump’s censorious supporters in California seem cut from the same cloth.

Internet Speech Regulation

Politico: Google, Facebook putting an early mark on political advertising bills

By Steven Overly and Ashley Gold

Lobbyists from the Silicon Valley behemoths have met with the staffs of Sens. Mark Warner and Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Derek Kilmer, all of whom are drawing up bills that would impose new regulations on the industry, according to Democratic aides and company representatives. The Senate bill is expected to be formally introduced next week. It is not clear when the House legislation, which has not been previously reported, will be introduced…

The companies are keen to show steps they’ve taken to police themselves when it comes to monitoring and disclosing the ads on their sites, efforts that could be used to fend off heavy-handed regulation as investigations into Russian interference in the election bring unprecedented scrutiny on their businesses…

The Democratic Hill aide said staff is pitching the bill as a solution to a national security threat and not a significant change to campaign finance laws, and they anticipate Republican pushback if it is framed as a campaign finance issue.

Original thresholds outlined in the Warner-Klobuchar letter, such as the amount of money an entity must spend on online ads to be subject to public disclosure, have changed in the past weeks after conversations with industry and pro-transparency groups, the aide said.

FEC

Daily Caller: FEC Commissioner Uses Russian Meddling As Excuse To Restrict Internet Speech

By David Warrington

Weintraub said she will start her attack on online free speech small by tweaking FEC disclaimer requirements for online paid ads. Republican Commissioner Lee Goodman, an Internet freedom advocate, said (at minute 13:30) he was suspicious of Weintraub’s objectives, because demanding disclaimers on foreign ads would be illogical. Foreign paid ads already are prohibited by law. Adding a disclaimer requirement for ads that already are illegal would not be effective. Furthermore, he questioned whether the United States could effectively police disclaimers on ads posted by foreigners, on foreign computers, through foreign servers, on foreign soil-it is, after all, the World Wide Web.

Given these obvious limitations, Weintraub’s true aim, just like Ravel’s, must be greater burdens on all political communications by American citizens online. YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and webcasts streamed over the websites of American citizens will be fully regulated-starting small with disclaimers and soon moving to expenditure reports and even censorship of links, re-tweets and free online interviews under broad theories of “coordination” and prohibited corporate in-kind contributions.

FCC

ABC News: FCC chairman silent amid Trump’s attacks on press

By Megan Hughes

Reps. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Mike Doyle, D-Pa., members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, are calling for a hearing with Pai and the other FCC commissioners so that “they can publicly disavow President Donald Trump’s repeated threats.” …

Lori Brainard, a professor at George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, said revoking news networks’ licenses could happen — if the FCC allowed it.

“The FCC can do what it wants. The FCC can investigate whatever it wants,” Brainard said…

In a speech last month in Washington, Pai stressed the need for a “shared cultural commitment to the importance of free speech,” pointing to college campuses that silence views perceived as unpopular or offensive. However, he also pointed to demands from people on Twitter, requesting the FCC “yank licenses from cable news channels…because they disagree with the opinions expressed on those networks.”

“Setting aside the fact that the FCC doesn’t license cable channels, these demands are fundamentally at odds with our legal and cultural traditions,” he said.

New York Post: NBC’s license won’t be revoked over Trump: FCC commissioner

By Mark Moore

Jessica Rosenworcel, one of five commissioners on the FCC, is the first to respond to Trump’s threat last week to pull NBC’s license after it reported he called for a tenfold increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal.

“History won’t be kind to silence, and I think it’s important for all the commissioners to make clear that they support the First Amendment and that the agency will not revoke a broadcast license simply because the president is dissatisfied with the licensee’s coverage,” she said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

She said the eight-year licenses are given to local stations – not the networks – and the stations must obey all FCC rules to have their license reinstated.

She also said the FCC must follow the First Amendment.

“It’s essential that the FCC in all that it does is careful to abide by the First Amendment when it engages in any kinds of policies engaging broadcast licensees,” said Rosenworcel, who was appointed to the FCC this summer by Trump.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has not addressed Trump’s comments.

Independent Groups

Pillar of Law: Did Represent.Us Just Bag a Bunch of Omaze-ing Foreign Money?

By Stephen Klein

Today, the reform community’s messaging on foreign political money is front-and-center, largely focused on the 2016 presidential campaign. It is a far-reaching effort of which Represent is undoubtedly well aware. But when it came time to fuel their efforts, between righteousness and money, Represent went with money.

Hypocrisy is human, and there is no shortage of it even in the holy halls of campaign finance reform. The point that Represent should take from this is that a group like theirs, with a large advisory council that includes prominent legal scholars and already enough money to employ a significantly large staff, can nevertheless step in it. This issue likely didn’t even cross their minds.

Here, it’s just optics, but if the law extended as far as they themselves want it to extend, Represent would be subject to audits, fines, and maybe even an investigation and prosecution by the Department of Justice just for one misstep in an otherwise clever fundraiser. Represent’s mission of implementing draconian regulation onto politics is a problem for democracy, not a fix. Given Represent’s company, I suspect their friends would never report them to the government even if there was a legal violation here, but such clubby discrimination is but another facet of “reform” that makes it anything but.

The States

U.S. News & World Report: Officials Open to Addressing Initiative Campaign Finance Gap

By James Nord, Associated Press

A new batch of ballot measure campaigns – on everything from government ethics to marijuana laws – are now collecting signatures before next month’s submission deadline to get on the 2018 ballot. And campaign finance rules still don’t require them to reveal who is paying for the push until next year.

But several South Dakota officials have said recently they’re open to more financial reporting requirements for initiatives earlier in the election cycle, while supporters are in the vital stage of shopping their causes before voters. One state senator, after being contacted by The Associated Press, said he is having legislation drafted and would solicit feedback from other lawmakers before next year’s legislative session.

“It would inform citizens so they would have some chance of knowing who is actually paying for a ballot committee’s work before they sign the petition,” said Democratic Sen. Reynold Nesiba, who helped lead a successful 2016 initiative to cap payday loan interest rates.

Nesiba plans to run idea past other members of a legislative panel that met this year to weigh changes to South Dakota’s ballot question process. A different campaign finance task force is to meet Monday at the Capitol, and Chairman Jordan Youngberg, a Republican senator, said he’s open to discussing the issue.

Colorado Springs Gazette: Colorado Ethics Watch to close its doors at year’s end

By Marianna Goodland

Colorado Ethics Watch, the ethics advocacy group that has spent the last decade ensuring Colorado’s campaign finance and ethics laws are followed, announced Thursday it will cease operations at the end of the year.

The shutdown is a financial matter, said Colorado Ethics Watch Executive Director Luis Toro. “It’s harder for us to justify our existence now that citizens can file their own complaints,” he told Colorado Politics. He also cited the national political atmosphere over ethics, stating the attention being paid to President Donald Trump and his ethics issues leaves little room for ethics concerns at the state level…

At the time Ethics Watch was started, Toro said, “if we didn’t file the (campaign finance) complaint, no one would.” That’s a model that Toro said has worked well until the last few years, when citizens started filing their own complaints, both on campaign finance and on ethics.