In the News
Cato: Mayday PAC’s Missteps
Lawrence Lessig’s Mayday PAC was supposed to bring about the end of superPACs. Instead, it may have violated some of the least complicated elements of campaign finance regulation. David Keating of the Center for Competitive Politics comments.
Chamber of Commerce: Event: Free Speech and Business
Note: Features CCP Chairman Bradley A. SmithThe First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the essential right of expression for citizens as well as entrepreneurs. But there are new challenges to freedom of expression, particularly for businesses.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation will explore these challenges at a program on December 3, 2014, bringing together constitutional experts, legal scholars, and policy and opinion leaders to discuss today’s First Amendment environment and its impacts upon businesses in the public square.
First Amendment
The Hill: Left’s latest assault on First Amendment nothing new
By Jenny Beth MartinDemocrat FEC Vice Chairman Ann Ravel is unambiguous about both the perceived threat to her president and the way to combat it. When her attempt to overturn the 2006 “Internet exception” ruling failed on a 3-3 party line vote, Ravel took serious offense. Because the FEC wouldn’t force free Internet advertising into the same classification as paid ads on radio or television, she needs to shake things up. “A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the Internet and other emerging technologies is long overdue,” she said, as if regulating political speech is the logical next step.This is not Ravel’s first attempt to wipe her feet on the Bill of Rights. Two years ago in California, she attempted to bring bloggers and “online commentators” under state regulation. Unbowed by her failure at the state level, she now wants to take her speech-stifling act national. If Ravel and her Democrat FEC colleagues have their way, bloggers and websites like The Drudge Report will answer to the federal government. Attack Watch was silly; these proposed new regulations are deadly serious.
IRS
Wisconsin Reporter: Little conservative group gives up in nonprofit status battle with IRS
By MD Kittle“We bring in speakers, meet regular, discuss the issues of the day and try to educate and inform. We try to get the public involved, I guess,” Munyon said. “I don’t know if (the IRS) looked at us as a little entity they could bully around. We got stacks of correspondence and it got so overwhelming … all of our time and effort was consumed by them.”The Rock River Patriots were caught in an administrative Catch-22. Munyon in April 2012 applied for 501(c)(4) designation for the group, as a pending tax-exempt, “social welfare” organization.The IRS cashed the group’s $400 application fee on May 2, 2012, according to documents.Munyon was informed by letter in January 2013 the IRS was delayed in reviewing applications for tax-exempt status, all the while the meter was running on the conservative organization’s tab with the IRS.
SCOTUS/Judiciary
Washington Monthly: The ACLU Fronts a Drive to Disable Ethics Rules for Federal Contractors
By Josh SwannerThe latest front in the ongoing war over campaign finance is in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit—the transformed D.C. Circuit, which now has a majority of Democrats. Wagner v. Federal Election Commission, which was heard in October, was a hearing in front of the full court—“en banc” is the legal term—and marked the first time all the new judges sat together.Wagner continues the relentless attack by civil libertarians and conservative political groups on contribution limits—money directly given by individuals or companies to political candidates. In this case, the plaintiffs are government contractors. Current law forbids them to give money to political campaigns or parties—for the common-sense reason that contractors might be willing to kick back money to politicians as a “quid pro quo” for the contracts those politicians influence. Since 1940, contributions by individual federal contractors have been illegal under section 441c of the Federal Election Campaign Act.The plaintiffs are three individual contractors, previously or currently under contract with the federal government, who want to directly contribute money to federal candidates or political committees while working for the government. The American Civil Liberties Union represents the plaintiffs, pushing the theory that the total ban is a violation of both the First Amendment, and even more boldly, the Fifth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Politico: One last try: Senate Dems push campaign finance reform
By Burgess EverettSo some Senate Democrats are pushing for a bill requiring e-filing to be attached to an expected omnibus government spending bill that would fund the government until next September, according to sources in both parties familiar with the discussions. With Republicans taking the Senate in January, Democrats are hoping for one last opportunity to modernize the campaign finance record-keeping by marrying it with the must-pass omnibus.The bill was written by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and has 52 co-sponsors — including 10 Republicans. However, Senate Democrats are unlikely to win passage of such a provision without some concession to GOP members. Republicans would likely insist on including one of their preferred campaign finance measures in return for the the e-filing legislation.One such proposal that Republicans have floated as a trade-off would relax some coordination rules between political parties and outside groups and effectively override existing spending limits for coordinated spending between political parties and candidates.
The Hill: Survey says: Constituents lobby best
By Vicki NeedhamNothing makes a bigger impression on lawmakers than a visit from constituents, according to a new report released Friday that examines strategies for lobbying Congress.The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), in a three-year survey of Capitol Hill staffers, found that constituent visits to the Washington office (97%) and to the district office (94%) have “some” or “a lot” of influence on undecided lawmakers, more than any other strategy.
Brookings: The Limits of Legislative Transparency
By Sarah BinderInstead, in “Making Deals in Congress,” Frances and I assess whether standard tools of negotiating in other contexts might prove relevant and effective in facilitating successful negotiation of “win-win” deals in Congress. These standard tools include secrecy, penalty defaults for inaction, and repeated interactions across key players. We recognize that transparency has many normatively desirable properties. Our point is simply that transparency entails trade-offs, imposing direct costs on successful deal-making. This is especially true given today’s exceptionally polarized and competitive political parties and given the information environment in which lawmakers work. As we observed in our piece, greater public attention to Congress today combined with polarized parties increases the incentives of lawmakers to adhere to party messages. Such partisan constraints on lawmakers are rarely conducive to setting aside differences and negotiating a deal.
