CCP
The changing rates of political advertising
By Sarah LeeJust an interesting note on an emerging issue in the world of campaign finance: The Big Boss had a few thoughts this morning on the issue of ad rates for super PACs relative to ad rates for candidates. This U.S. News & World Report piece from this past summer does a fair job of explaining the issue and how it may affect new candidates to a race, and how it already affects super PACs.
Independent groups
Wall Street Journal: Soros: The Super PAC Man
One of the great cons of the 2012 Presidential campaign has been the loud Democratic fretting that President Obama would be outspent by Mitt Romney and Republicans. The much-massaged story has been that because Democrats and liberals are too virtuous to accept or donate Super PAC money, they’d be unspent by the dastardly capitalists financing the GOP.The article continues:We don’t begrudge Mr. Soros his right to indulge his partisan preferences, in contrast to those on the left who want to block donations from the Koch brothers and others on the political right. Elections might be more competitive if we spent more. What is hard to take, however, is all the liberal moralizing about the evils of money in politics. Their real objection is to money spent for their opponents.
Wall Street Journal: Is Your Political Donation Deductible?
A crazy quilt of federal tax and election laws makes simple answers elusive. “At best the rules are opaque, and at worst they’re misleading,” says Ellen Aprill, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who studies the area.
Independent Institute: The Supreme Court’s Citizens United Corporate Campaign case Should Be Controversial—But Not for the Reason You Think
What most people have heard about the case is that it “allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts in federal elections,” a ruling the extreme left considers controversial. (The Court voided a section of federal campaign law.) But we rarely hear that the Court upheld only the rights of corporations to spend independently of the candidates—and that the justices left in place the part of federal law that bans corporations from donating to candidates.
Wall Street Journal: Movie Mogul’s Starring Role in Raising Funds for Obama
By PETER NICHOLAS and ERICA ORDENMr. Katzenberg was organizing a fundraising dinner at the Los Angeles home of actor George Clooney and insisted that President Barack Obama plan to swing by each of the gathering’s 14 tables and spend time chatting up guests who had paid $40, 000 a seat, according to people who helped arrange the event.
The Hill: ‘Dark money’ flowing back to issue ads
By Kevin BogardusThe groups had moved away from issue ads, known as “electioneering communications,” after a court ruled in March that they would have to disclose their donors for the ads. The groups began spending instead on “independent expenditures,” which expressly advocate for or against a candidate’s election and don’t require donor disclosure.
Boston Globe: Karl Rove’s political group making robocalls targeting Elizabeth Warren in Senate race
By Noah BiermanKept at bay for months in the US Senate race by a pact curbing outside advertising, Karl Rove’s political group, Crossroads GPS, has begun blasting voters with “robocalls” targeting Elizabeth Warren.
SCOTUS/Judiciary
Washington Post: The Supreme Court, absent from the election debate
By Robert BarnesSteven R. Shapiro is the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and, as you might expect from someone in that job, he watches the Supreme Court as closely as anyone. He’s a savvy analyst of the court’s work and the public’s reaction to it.
Candidates and parties
Washington Post: Debate questions for the candidates
By George WillThe spectacles we persist in dignifying as presidential “debates” — two-minute regurgitations of rehearsed responses — often subtract from the nation’s understanding. But beginning Wednesday, these less-than-Lincoln-Douglas episodes might be edifying if the candidates could be inveigled into plowing fresh ground.
NY Times: Tired Cries of Bias Don’t Help Romney
By DAVID CARRIn the last few days, conservatives have become agitated about Mitt Romney’s drop-off in the polls. So did they think the stumble was because of the ill-fated “47 percent” slip of the lip, or the hasty effort to gain a political edge after the death of an American ambassador in Libya, or more problematically, a campaign that can’t seem to stop pratfalling no matter what the news?
Washington Post: D.C. Council member Michael Brown’s troubles fit a pattern, former aides say
By Tim Craig“I had reached my limit,” said Lewis Thomas, who managed the independent candidate’s bid for an at-large seat from May until September in 2008. “He wouldn’t show up to events, would come to events late, and didn’t want to do the work because he has the strongest sense of entitlement that I have ever seen . . . and the greatest form of arrogance I have seen.”
Lobbying and ethics
NY Times: Cooperation Is Cited as Lobbyist in Bribery Case Is Sentenced to 3 Months
By Benjamin WeiserRichard J. Lipsky, the prominent New York lobbyist who pleaded guilty in a political corruption case and had been secretly assisting federal investigators, was sentenced to three months in prison on Friday by a judge who said he deserved “substantial credit for his cooperation.”
