In the News
National Review Online: Why the Media Hate Super PACs
Bradley A. Smith
In a world that values free speech, super PACs should be a welcome part of the political landscape. Their ads promoting Jeb and Hillary will run alongside ads by Trump and Sanders, ads by the DNC and by the RNC, and ads by groups that want less government spending or more environmental regulation, such as End Spending Action Fund and Next Gen Climate Action. These snippets of paid political speech will run between news broadcasts featuring political stories with partisan tilts, and on talk shows where celebrities interview and endorse candidates.
All of these sources of influence and information, and countless others, are absorbed by voters, who reach their conclusions and cast their ballots as they see fit. When voters step into voting booths, the more information they have to inform their choices, the better.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Don’t fear Wisconsin campaign finance fix
Eric Wang
The Brennan Center further objects that “limiting disclosure to groups that run ads explicitly asking viewers to vote for or against a candidate means that the vast majority of super PAC and other outside spending will stay in the shadows.” To the contrary, the legislation requires super PACs to “make full reports…of all contributions, disbursements and obligations received, made, and incurred by the committee.” Donors’ names and addresses must be disclosed, and anonymous contributions of more than $10 are prohibited…
Putting aside its half-truths and distortions, the Brennan Center may be correct in claiming that the legislation does not necessarily regulate political speech to the maximum extent that is constitutionally permissible. But why should it? Just because the Legislature may do something doesn’t mean that it should. Most people value their right to criticize the government without having to register and file reports with the government. Wisconsinites should be thankful the Legislature is treading lightly on their First Amendment rights.
The Assembly has already passed AB 387 to fix the mess in Wisconsin’s campaign finance law, and the Senate should follow suit by passing companion bill SB 292. The fearmongering surrounding the legislation is bogus, but the consequences of inaction are frightening and real.
ScotusBlog: Thursday round-up
Amy Howe
Tomorrow the Justices will meet for their November 6 Conference. One petition that they will consider is Center for Competitive Politics v. Harris, a challenge to a California policy requiring non-profits to disclose the names of their major donors. In his column for The Washington Post, George Will urges the Court to grant review, while the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal does the same.
Reform Agenda
More Soft Money Hard Law: Professor Lessig’s Suspension of his Candidacy and the Reform Agenda
Bob Bauer
If money in politics is neither Cause nor Crusade, if it is not pronounced the key to all other problems, it remains a significant question of public policy. Viewing it that way does not minimize its importance. In fact, tempered rhetoric and a down-to-earth policy focus may help to move the discussion along.
Reform skeptics have responded poorly to the reformers’ excited portrayal of the stakes: pervasive “corruption” and the like, accompanied by aggressive constitutional positions and heavy-handed legislative or regulatory proposals. The language of crisis has not made reasoned debated easier, only harder. It has also exacted a cost in the movement’s credibility, as claims are made that, with reform, we will see transformative change in policy and government performance. There is little evidence for this, and few believe it.
Independent Groups
The Erick Erickson Show: The Idiocy of Super PACs
Erick Erickson
There has been a lot of hand wringing from the press about the evil, awful Citizens United decision before the Supreme Court and the rise of the evil, awful Super PAC, but really, what difference has it made?
Rick Perry had a very well funded Super PAC that fell flat as he withdrew. Then there was the Scott Walker Super PAC that likewise was well funded and had even more billionaires pledged to support it than Rick Perry’s.
Right now, the Ted Cruz Super PAC has done very little. But the more egregious of them all has to be the Jeb Bush Super PAC.
What little they have done has been terrible. The ads are simply atrocious. The Bush Super PAC ad buys correspond to Bush’s popularity going down in the states where the ads have run. But they’ve also failed not only to help Jeb Bush go up in the polls, but they’ve failed to touch Donald Trump who is kicking the snot out of Jeb Bush.
Tampa Bay Times: Group backing Marco Rubio faces another campaign finance complaint
Alex Leary
Conservative Solutions Project, a nonprofit, has raised at least $16 million and has funded a number of television ads that feature Rubio. A newer spot included the image of Utah Sen. Mike Lee, but Rubio was the clear focus. The group has spent about $8 million so far and has reserved another $2 million in air time, according to ad tracking data reviewed by the Associated Press.
According to Campaign Legal Center executive director J. Gerald Hebert:
The publicly available facts indicate that Conservative Solutions Project is little more than a single-candidate 501(c)(4), with no other mission than to advance the presidential aspirations of Rubio and as such is in clear violation of the tax code.
MSNBC: Has the GOP’s great super PAC experiment failed?
Chuck Todd and Mark Murray
It’s still early with the first votes in Iowa and New Hampshire almost three months away, but this has now become a legitimate question to ask: Has the GOP presidential candidates’ Super PAC experiment failed? And failed badly? Consider some of the evidence:
Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise Super PAC has aired $15.5 million in TV ads so far – more than any other ‘16 entity – and those ads haven’t moved the polling needle;
Both Scott Walker and Rick Perry focused more on building up their Super PACs than their actual hard-money campaigns, and both men are no longer in the GOP race;
And maybe most damningly, Super PACs and other outside groups pay, on average, about FOUR times what campaigns do (since campaigns get discount rates from local TV stations). To put that into perspective, a presidential campaign needs to spend just $4 million in TV ads to get the same bang for the buck that Bush’s Right to Rise has spent so far ($15.5 million). Or to put it another way: The $6.5M in TV ads the Clinton camp has spent would cost a Super PAC $26 million.
Gyrocopter
U.S. News and World Report: Lawyer: Man who flew gyrocopter from Gettysburg to Capitol to plead guilty to a felony charge
Jessica Gresko
Hughes protested that no one got hurt in his “spectacular” act of civil disobedience last April 15, but prosecutors charged him with crimes that carried a potential of 9 ½ years in prison. On Thursday, his lawyer said in an email to The Associated Press that Hughes had agreed to plead guilty to a felony in connection with the case, a charge that carries a potential of three years in prison.
Candidates and Campaigns
Huffington Post: How Campaign Finance Disenfranchises America’s Silent Majority of Socialists
Jay Mandle
The attractiveness of socialist ideas in the United States is revealed by the large crowds Sanders attracts. Advocating for beefing up social safety nets is exactly what has propelled Sanders to 30% support in the latest polls, not so far behind Hillary Clinton’s 53%.
Sanders’ socialism has not prevented his candidacy from receiving extensive small-donor financial support. As of the end of September, the campaign has received US$41 million, almost none of which went to supportive outside groups and three-quarters of which were contributions of $200 or less. More than a million people have been willing to promote their left-of-center beliefs with contributions to the Sanders campaign.
But while this support is impressive, finance is the Achilles heel of socialist electoral politics. While democratic socialists may propose popular ideas, they are forced to rely on small donors.
Time: Lawrence Lessig Would Not Have Qualified for CBS Debate
Sam Frizell
Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig ran for president mainly to raise awareness for his ideas about campaign finance reform, then dropped out when he couldn’t get much of a hearing…
The Nov. 14 debate requires candidates to have polled above 1% in national polls recognized by CBS News over a five week period from Sept. 29 to Nov. 3, CBS said. Many polls had not asked about Lessig, and in a CBS poll taken last month, the minor presidential candidate registered no support.
The States
Bangor Daily News: $1.7M spent convincing Maine voters to hike public campaign financing
Darren Fishell
Political committees spent a collective $1.7 million to campaign for expanding the state’s publicly financed election system, battling vocal but frugal opposition.
A group working to defeat the measure raised just more than $44,000.
The battle over proposed changes to Maine’s public campaign financing system was the most hotly contested of three state ballot questions for outside expenditures to either support or oppose the measure.
The Bulletin: Disclosure is a better answer to campaign finance
Editorial Board
While we believe there’s plenty of work to be done where reporting of contributions is concerned, the prospect of a constitutional limit on free speech is far, far less appealing. As history has shown, limiting funds in one area of politics simply drives them to another. That’s true nationally; it would be true in Oregon, as well…
Oregon activists, lawmakers and just plain folks should take a dim view of carving out exceptions to free speech rights. Rather, they should work to expand what voters know about those who finance the speakers.
Wisconsin Public Radio: GAB And Campaign Finance Overhauls Expected Friday
KP Whaley
WPR state government reporter, Shawn Johnson join us to discuss the news that Wisconsin state senators plan to take up the Government Accountability Board (GAB) and Campaign Finance bills passed by the Assembly two weeks ago. The bills dismantle the GAB, and allow for unlimited corporate contributions to political parties.
