CCP
Activists are Already Trying to Rewrite the History of the 2016 Election
By Joe Albanese
After failing to make their cause a key issue of the campaign, supporters of greater government regulation of political speech have unsurprisingly begun to paint 2016 as an election year in which shady plutocrats further consolidated their grip on the American political system. Case in point: The Huffington Post’s “Money in Politics” reporter, Paul Blumenthal, has written that “The super-rich have managed to increase their influence on elections, even though the 2016 presidential race will cost less than the previous one, reversing a longtime trend.”
The latter two clauses of that sentence already indicate why it is strange to believe this particular election cycle is breaking new ground in “Money in Politics.” But Mr. Blumenthal’s focus is on “mega-donors,” and much-reviled “super PACs.”…
The overarching fallacy of this piece is the simplistic assumption that more spending automatically translates to more electoral influence. Super PACs – formally known as Independent Expenditure-Only Committees – primarily spend money on advertising advocating for a specific candidate or issue. Their influence in an election is limited to how effective those ads are at persuading voters, who ultimately decide the outcomes of elections.
FEC
Boston Globe: More calls for a probe of Thornton law firm’s political donations
By Viveca Novak and Andrea Estes
Attorney General Maura Healey and an election watchdog group on Wednesday called for a federal investigation of possible campaign finance violations at Thornton Law Firm in Boston as the number of politicians disavowing the lawyers’ money continued to swell…
The Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based election watchdog organization, filed a formal complaint against Thornton and three of its lawyers with federal regulators, arguing the attorneys illegally acted as “straw donors” for the law firm, which gave the lawyers “bonuses” that offset their donations.
Under Federal Election Commission rules, the agency must ask Thornton and the individual attorneys for a response within five days.
Donor Privacy
Tyler Morning Telegraph: Anonymous speech is protected, too
By Editorial Board
One of the more ominous-sounding threats to our democracy – at least according to the Democrats – is “dark money,” or political donations made anonymously. But that’s wrong, as history shows…
Anonymity is important, and always has been.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that there are good reasons to not disclose the source of donations. The case was called NAACP v. Alabama, and it was decided in 1958. The state of Alabama wanted to force the NAACP to reveal its donor and membership lists. The Court held that if Alabama did so, the NAACP’s members and donors could be at risk…
The principle is still valid today. More and more, people are vilified for their political positions (tech firm Mozilla fired its CEO for supporting California’s Proposition 8, for example).
That’s why anonymity in political speech is important, and must be protected.
Candidates and Campaigns
New York Times: Presidential Election: Trump Hits $100 Million in Small Donations in October, Team Says
By Nicholas Confessore, Rachel Shorey, Alexander Burns, and Alan Rappeport
Donald J. Trump raised $100 million in small donations in October, his campaign announced on Thursday. But Mr. Trump’s announcement – made in a news release sent to reporters late in the afternoon – contained few other details, and his figures cannot be independently verified until after Election Day, when the winning and losing campaigns file their next financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission.
Mr. Trump’s tally appeared to include money raised into party accounts he jointly controls, but did not specify what threshold he used for “small” donations, and a spokeswoman did not immediately reply to a request for clarification. The release did not specify whether the total represented any money that was raised earlier in the year but was only recently transferred into his campaign accounts.
The Intercept: Clinton Loyalist Thought Super PAC Coordination With Campaign Was “Skirting if Not Violating Law”
By Jon Schwarz
Neera Tanden, President of the liberal Center for American Progress and policy director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, is arguably Clinton’s most fervent supporter. In one of the hacked emails to and from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta published by WikiLeaks, Tanden emphasized that “I would do whatever Hillary needs always.”
But as a recently released email chain shows, even Tanden was concerned in May last year that plans of a pro-Clinton Super PAC to directly coordinate with the campaign were “shady” and “skirting if not violating [the] law.”…
After reading the email exchange, Lawrence Noble, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, commented: “We not only agree it is shady, we think Correct the Record coordinating with the campaign is illegal, which is why we have filed a complaint.”
Bloomberg: Wall Street and Kochs Fuel Most Expensive U.S. Senate Race Ever
By Bill Allison and Elizabeth Dexheimer
The most expensive U.S. Senate race in history is unfolding in Pennsylvania, where Wall Street, unions and billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch are flooding the state with money.
At least $139 million has been spent by advocacy groups and the candidates, Republican incumbent Pat Toomey and Democrat Katie McGinty, Federal Election Commission filings show…
The biggest source of money in the race is the Democrats’ super-PAC, the Senate Majority PAC, which has spent about $19.9 million so far. Its Republican counterpart, the Senate Leadership Fund, has spent about $11.7 million…
There are 18 other groups that have spent more than $1 million on the race. Among those supporting Toomey are the Kochs’ Freedom Partners Action Fund, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Club for Growth Action. Others, including Majority Forward, Women Vote!, and Planned Parenthood’s political arm are backing McGinty.
The Hill: FBI investigating alleged donor scheme tied to Senate candidate
By Jonathan Swan
The FBI is investigating an alleged illegal donation scheme involving a wealthy Saudi family that supports Democratic Florida Senate candidate Patrick Murphy.
The Hill has found no evidence that Murphy himself was involved in, or even aware of, the alleged scheme. The Murphy campaign declined to say whether the candidate is aware of the FBI probe, but the campaign said neither Murphy nor his campaign staff is being investigated.
The Murphy campaign noted that a conservative super PAC earlier this year filed a complaint on the issue that the FBI is looking into…
The allegation – originally submitted by a Republican super PAC run by a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) – is that Murphy’s high school friend and major political donor, Ibrahim Al-Rashid, coordinated a “straw donor” scheme to boost Murphy.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: PolitiFact checks campaign finance claims by Trump, Clinton
By Ariella Phillips
With less than a week left before the Nov. 8 election, PolitiFact Georgia is looking at how Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have fared on fact-checks about major issues in the race for president of the United States.
Today we look at their statements on campaign finance…
The States
Montana Standard: Federal judge upholds Montana campaign disclosure law
By Matt Volz
Montana’s new campaign disclosure law has survived its first test, with a federal judge rejecting arguments that it unconstitutionally interferes with the free speech of groups that want to influence elections without revealing where they get their money or how they spend it.
U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen, in ruling for the state Monday, cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 that allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections. In that case, the justices ruled that although disclosure requirements burden the ability to speak, they are constitutional because they don’t prevent anyone from speaking…
“Providing Montana voters with information about individuals and groups competing for their attention serve important government interests,” the judge wrote.
Observer New Jersey: Alabama Case Could Signal More Turmoil in Campaign Finance Law
By Jeff Brindle
The fact that campaign finance law is in an unsettled state was underscored recently by the United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh District, when it upheld Alabama’s ban on transfers of money between political action committees (PACs).
In Alabama Democratic Conference (ADC) vs. Attorney General, State of Alabama, the appeals court rejected a challenge to a new Alabama law that bans one PAC from contributing to another.
In essence, the courts are trying to decide- when is a political fund-raising committee truly independent in this post-Citizens United era.
Because of the conflicting opinions and the importance of the issue, it is quite possible that this question will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. If the high court comes out with a new precedent, it could even have a ripple effect in New Jersey if a future legislature moves to ban PAC-to-PAC transfers.
Wisconsin Watchdog: 2008 Podesta emails appear to show John Doe-style coordination among liberal groups
By M.D. Kittle
In late spring 2008, liberal organizations and donors got together to form what was loosely billed as the “Wisconsin progressive donor collaborative.”…
The collaborative, arguably, is similar to political fundraising activity that conservative groups were involved in during Wisconsin’s bitter recall campaigns of 2011 and 2012.
Strikingly similar.
There is a key difference, however.
The people and groups involved in the 2008 initiative apparently were not hounded by a partisan prosecutor in a politically driven “illegal coordination” investigation.
It doesn’t appear that Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, the Democrat who in 2012 launched the “John Doe II” against 29 conservative groups and Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign, or the former state Government Accountability Board had anything to say about Advancing Wisconsin and its political partners.
