In the News
The Federalist: Trying to ‘Get Money Out Of Politics’ Is A Fool’s Errand
Luke Wachob
Self-styled “reformers” have convinced themselves that their issue is the key to every issue, and that they alone stand in the way of oligarchy. Every movement for policy change has some extremists on the fringes, but in the movement to control political speech, the inmates appear to be running the asylum.
Proposing constitutional amendments that are dead on arrival, pretending to be a beleaguered citizen petitioning the government agency that you chair after failing to persuade your fellow commissioners, and urging presidents to sacrifice their administrations on the altar of campaign finance reform are not serious ideas. They are mere gestures; publicity stunts with a limited shelf life. Before too long, they stop being effective and start damaging your movement’s credibility.
Disclosure
Real Clear Science: Animal Rights Activists Behave Like Stalkers
Alex Berezow
That was good advice. Animal rights activists and their environmentalist allies have a bad track record in Seattle. In 2001, the Earth Liberation Front, an ecoterrorist group, firebombed a facility at the University of Washington. The same group was also responsible for burning people’s homes.
Thankfully, No New Animal Lab has not resorted to those tactics. At least not yet. Instead, they have chosen to behave like creepy stalker ex-boyfriends, screaming over the phone at the executives of Skanska (the firm contracted to build a new animal lab at the University of Washington) and protesting outside their homes. Similar tactics with the intention to intimidate and harass were used against University of Washington faculty. According to the Seattle Times, Skanska successfully obtained a protection order against the group, preventing some of its members from protesting outside their executives’ homes.
The court’s decision was wise. Other similar incidents in California turned violent. It may be only a matter of time before like-minded groups in Seattle once again resort to violence.
Independent Groups
Vogue: Szelena Gray Wants to Fix Our Broken Campaign-Finance System—Right Now
Robert Sullivan
Gray, Mayday’s chief operating officer, works as quickly as she thinks and talks: Within just 65 days of its launch in a turnkey office in Harvard Square last May 1, the organization—using primarily social media and blogging—crowd-funded an astounding $7 million, working with the Obama campaigns’ famed digital strategists Stephen Geer and Dan McSwain, among others. Earlier this year at SXSW (note the millennial targeting), Mayday announced the launch of its wildly ambitious second phase: by year’s end, lining up 218 reform-minded candidates in the House—enough for a so-called simple majority—who, with the right presidential leadership, can fix our broken campaign-finance system within one election cycle.
It’s a tall task, but like many young strategists today, Gray builds light and tactile machines; Mayday is mean and lean and takes things one political season at a time. Most recently, she and her team have been working with their 70,000 supporters to build local and regional support. Meanwhile, they’re mining their data to both find the voters who care and engineer ways to fire them up. “We’re looking at how to better model the type of person who could be engaged and motivated,” says Gray.
Time: Is a Pro-Bush Super PAC Obscuring Its Spending?
Carrie Levine
The super PAC’s biggest single vendor this year through June is a mysterious limited liability company, LKJ, LLC, whose owners are hidden behind the state of Delaware’s opaque registration laws. The company doesn’t appear to have a website or a physical office.
It’s only known address: a Washington, D.C., post office box — one it shares with a company run by Heather Larrison, the national finance director for Bush’s official presidential campaign.
Supreme Court
Time: The Worst Supreme Court Decisions Since 1960
Andrea Sachs
Here’s a sampling of the opinions generated when we asked court-watchers to put the worst decisions of the past 55 years on the scales.
Richard Delgado, University of Alabama
Citizens United v. FEC (2010) and Bush v. Gore (2000). Citizens United because it departed from precedent and distorted the political process in ruinous fashion; Bush v. Gore because it was unprincipled, result-driven, and exposed the court to well-deserved scorn.
Jamal Greene, Columbia University
Bowers v. Hardwick (1986). The worst decision since 1960 is Bowers, in which the court upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia anti-sodomy law. It was narrow-minded, cynical and offensive, very much in the sad tradition of Plessy v. Ferguson.
Cass Sunstein, Harvard University
Citizens United v. FEC (2010). Because it is undermining our system of democracy itself.
Candidates and Campaigns
Associated Press: Draft Biden, super PAC urging VP to run for president, launches TV ad focusing on his family
Josh Lederman
Draft Biden says it’s spending upward of $100,000 to air the 90-second ad on national cable networks.
The ad uses audio from a speech Biden gave in May at Yale University. Biden recalls the car crash that killed his wife and daughter just after he was first elected senator in 1972. Biden says he found redemption by focusing on his sons.
The ad ends with white lettering that reads: “Joe, run.”
The States
Los Angeles Times: State high court set to hear arguments on Citizens United advisory measure
Maura Dolan
California legislators decided last year to ask voters whether they supported overturning a landmark ruling that allowed unlimited corporate spending to support or denounce federal candidates.
A conservative taxpayers group balked, arguing that state legislators lack the power to put advisory measures on the ballot. The California Supreme Court agreed to remove Proposition 49 and to decide in a later ruling whether it could go forward in a future election.
The court will hear arguments on the case Tuesday, generally the last step before issuing a decision. If the Legislature wins, Californians will be able to cast an advisory vote next year on whether Citizens United, a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned campaign spending laws, should be repealed by a federal constitutional amendment.
San Antonio Express-News: Ethics agency files lawsuit over dark money subpoenas
David Saleh Rauf
The Texas Ethics Commission is going to court to try and compel Empower Texans President Michael Quinn Sullivan to comply with subpoenas that are part of a pending dark money investigation.
The commission filed a lawsuit Monday asking a Travis County judge to enforce subpoenas against Sullivan, an anti-tax and limited government activist who has fought for more than a year and a half in various courts to have the state agency’s document demand quashed. It marks the first time the state’s campaign finance regulator has filed with a court to compel response to a subpoena.
Missoulian: Commissioner of political practices dismisses GOP complaints against Engen
Martin Kidston
According to records, Campbell was listed for contributions of $160 in March and again in October. Larsen was listed for contributing $150 in March and $100 that September.
But Motl said past decisions issued by his office allow candidates to use “limited discretion” in allocating contributions between a husband and wife, thus resulting in four individual contributions.
“Affording such discretion to divide a single over-the-limit contribution between spouses respected the constitutional mandate to provide enhanced opportunity for contributions that fit within the modest contribution limits set by Montana law,” Motl found.
New Mexico Politics: Flawed NM campaign reporting system needs reform, many say
Heath Haussamen
New Mexico has taken significant steps toward improving campaign transparency in recent years. Reports of fundraising and spending filed by candidates, lobbyists and PACs are available to the public online in a searchable database.
That means many of the problems revealed recently were essentially sitting out in the open.
Even in Duran’s case, some evidence of the alleged crimes was available for the public to discover, had anyone looked. Lobbyists and PACs reported contributions to Duran as far back as 2010 that her campaign never reported receiving.
Arizona Daily Star: Tucson “dark money” group wins legal challenge
Becky Pallack
Pima County Superior Court Judge Gus Aragon said there were no grounds for the temporary restraining order the Democrats were seeking…
The Foundation for Responsible Accountable Government Inc. gave $50,200 to Revitalize Tucson, an independent expenditure committee, which then spent $45,600 on billboard ads attacking Democratic Tucson city council members who are up for reelection this year…
Tellman’s attorney, Vince Rabago, tried a line of questioning in court to find out about the anonymous donors, but foundation president and Republican activist Christine Bauserman testified the names of people who give money to the group are “nobody’s business.”
