Wisconsin
Wall Street Journal: The Latest Speech Assault
EditorialSome of our readers have asked why we’ve devoted so much space to the Wisconsin prosecutorial probe of conservatives for supposed campaign-finance violations. One reason is to oppose a particular injustice, but Wisconsin is also on the front lines of the latest national offensive to regulate free political speech and assembly.That came into stark view last week with a new and welcome judicial ruling in Wisconsin, only days after the Brennan Center issued a trumpet call for government to find more ways to criminalize campaign spending. The new liberal target is “coordination” between politicians and independent groups. This is dangerous stuff.
Independent Groups
Huffington Post: Silicon Valley CEOs Get A Warm Washington Welcome To Politics
By Ryan GrimAccording to people familiar with the situation, committee staff director andformer super lobbyist Gary Andres personally has been calling the CEOs of major Silicon Valley tech companies, hammering them for coming after Upton and spooking Mayday’s donors, who worry their companies will get rougher treatment when and if Upton survives.Upton himself has reached out to the donors, he told a local editorial board during a livestreamed interview on Friday. “I do know some of the folks that funded the PAC and, as I’ve talked to them, they are, or they were under the illusion that this was a group that was trying to focus on dysfunction and taking it out, getting people that can work together. And the people that I’ve talked to, some of them have put six figures into this PAC. They are really ashamed,” Upton said in the interview. “They are distraught. They said they were taken for a ride. It’s too late. They bought the stuff and it came out of the blue.”They may indeed be distraught. Upton has significant power as the chairman of the committee that regulates Silicon Valley, and the tech CEOs didn’t anticipate having him on their bad side when they chipped in to the PAC. Yet any major effort to challenge the status quo was bound to run up against one power center or another.
Daily Caller: Palin Donates Only 5 Percent Of PAC Contributions To Candidates
By Alex PappasHead on over to the website for SarahPAC, and you will be immediately asked for contributions to help “reverse Obama’s destructive policies” by sending “real conservatives to fix them.”But according to a new report, former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s political action committee has only doled out 5 percent of the money she raised to actual candidates for office this year.
Corporate Governance
Wall Street Journal (LTE): Companies Disclose in Their Interest
Your editorial “Political Spending Double-Cross” (Oct. 13) misrepresents the Center for Political Accountability as bullying companies into political disclosure and seeking to halt their political spending, using our annual benchmarking study as a cudgel. To grasp the total error of this view, one need only listen to companies that have embraced transparency.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Washington Post: Book review: ‘The Cynic: Political Education of Mitch McConnell,’ by Alec MacGillis
By Peter HambyThe story begins with a focus on McConnell’s election as Jefferson County judge-executive in 1977, a period the author mines for fresh detail about his early political thinking. As a Rockefeller Republican running for office in a sea of Democrats, McConnell pleaded for and won an endorsement from the AFL-CIO during his campaign and, once elected, made friends in the pro-choice movement by blocking local measures that would have restricted abortions. Back in those early post-Roe v. Wade days, the young Republican “had a very feminist perspective” on abortion, recalls one local official who worked with him.But McConnell, a Gerald Ford man in a party drifting rightward in the direction of Ronald Reagan, soon backed away from these positions as he prepared for higher office. These revelations set the parameters for MacGillis’s overriding thesis: that the win-at-all-costs McConnell has come to embody everything wrong with a noxious American political system, corroded by money and corporate interests, in which elected officials care only about winning the next election instead of solving problems.
Des Moines Register: Harkin takes heat over campaign funds
By Jason NobleHarkin, an Iowa Democrat leaving the Senate this year after five terms, has $2.37 million in his personal campaign committee account. Politico reported this week that rather than shift that money to the 2014 campaign effort, Harkin plans to donate it to Drake University to jump-start the new policy institute that will house his papers.
FEC
FEC: “Statement of Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel Encouraging Public Comments to Increase Disclosure and Address Corruption in the Political Process”
For the first time in more than a decade, the Commission is now accepting wide-ranging public comment on issues fundamental to campaign finance — including disclosure and corruption in the political process. Between now and January 15, 2015, citizens from across the political spectrum are invited to express their views, submit proposed policy solutions, and otherwise formally participate in the Commission’s policymaking process. Then, on February 11, 2015, the Commission will convene a public hearing where commenters will have an opportunity to speak directly to the Commission.
State and Local
Connecticut –– Hartford Courant: Record Campaign Finance Awards Handed Out
By Gregory B. HladkyHARTFORD – State officials said Monday that public campaign financing awards to candidates for 2014 will total more than $33 million – a record amount for Connecticut’s taxpayer-funded election system.According to records from the State Elections Enforcement Commission, nearly 290 different candidates have been approved for campaign financing grants for this election.“80 percent or more of the candidates [running this year] are receiving public financing,” Joshua Foley, a spokesman for the commission, said Monday.
New York –– NY Daily News: Bronx Councilman faces a King-ly fine for campaign finance gaffes
By Denis SlatteryThe Wakefield lawmaker may owe the city as much as $44,000 of the $58,000 he received in public funds in 2012, a former King campaign worker told the Daily News.King’s campaign was hit with a total of six penalties including failing to accurately report receipts, accepting money over the contribution limit and being unable to document $22,000 in expenditures.King said the treasurer was dealing with a personal matter in that 2012 run, and said the offenses were “nothing illegal.”
