In the News
National Review: Conservatives Should Support Proposal That Would Allow Parties to Coordinate with Campaigns in the General Election
Bradley A. Smith
Of course, campaign-finance laws are regularly used for short-term political gain, so in this, the CAP and the Freedom Caucus are not doing anything that others don’t do. But conservatives have held themselves out as being better than that. The Freedom Caucus mission statement, for example, says that it exists to promote “limited government, the Constitution, and the rule of law, and policies that promote the liberty, safety, and prosperity of all Americans.” It says nothing about sacrificing limited government and liberty for short-term political gain.
If the Freedom Caucus will sell out its First Amendment principles for perceived short-term political gain, are its members any different from the establishment they vowed to replace? Can we trust them to hang tough on the Second Amendment when political advantage beckons? On spending? On anything?
The nearly irresistible temptation to use campaign-finance laws to handicap one’s political rivals is a major reason that campaign-finance laws are terrible policy, and they show why the First Amendment was intended to prevent Congress from ever passing laws to limit political speech. At least that’s what principled conservatives used to argue. We’ll soon discover where the Freedom Caucus — or is it now the so-called Freedom Caucus? — stands.
CCP
Heroes and Villains in the Gun Control Debate
Scott Blackburn
Imagine for a moment that billionaire Michael Bloomberg was a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and gun rights. Imagine that, inspired by this belief, he spent $28 million of his personal fortune to help elect candidates that agreed with his position – the great majority of whom were Republicans. Now imagine that a nearly 150-year-old membership organization, the National Rifle Association, opposed these efforts, and using the collected dues of several million Americans, countered Mr. Bloomberg’s endeavors by also spending $28 million to elect pro-gun control legislators, primarily Democrats.
In the minds of campaign finance regulators, who do you think has exerted outsized influence in our democracy? The super-rich guy who spent his personal fortune? Or the organization that represents millions of citizens across the country, who are only able to exert political power by pooling their resources and speaking with one voice?
To most regulators, in this scenario, the plucky group of average Joe’s fighting the good fight for reasonable gun control laws would be the good guy. But change only the underlying policy positions? Suddenly the NRA is emblematic of the alleged problem of “money in politics.”
Political Parties
Roll Call: Tensions Rise as Omnibus Bill Negotiations Stall
Niels Lesniewski
“We have about 40 or 42 poison pill riders, but some are really big — Hobby Lobby, campaign finance reform — things that should have never even been on the appropriations,” Mikulski said. “So we’re kind of stuck at the riders stage.”
Her remarks came as House Republican leaders planned to advance a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government for a few days beyond Friday’s deadline.
The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat warned Tuesday of dire consequences if Republicans force language on abortion into the omnibus and said he wouldn’t be surprised if the debate runs up through Christmas Eve.
Independent Groups
NBC News: Jeb Bush, Super PAC Have Spent Nearly $33 Million in Ads
Mark Murray
The biggest overall advertiser in the 2016 race is Right to Rise, the Super PAC backing Jeb Bush, which has spent $31.7 million in the contest, while the Bush campaign has chipped in an additional $800,000.
Why SuperPAC’s May Not Be As Powerful as They Seem 1:54
By comparison, all other current Republican campaigns and the outside groups supporting them have spent a combined $36 million-plus in TV and radio ads.
Hillary Clinton and her allies are the biggest advertisers in the Democratic race, having spent nearly $11 million in TV ads — $10.6 million from the campaign and additional $200,000 from a pro-Clinton Super PAC.
Center for Public Integrity: Anti-Trump ad fueled by pro-Bush millionaires
Cady Zuvich
The pro-Bush super PAC has aired more TV ads — almost 15,000 — than any other presidential committee or non-candidate political group this year. In October, the group aired more than twice as many ads as any other group or candidate. In November, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders’s 5,281 ads barely edged out those sponsored by Right to Rise USA…
The outsourcing of its political messaging hasn’t proved particularly effective for the Bush campaign. Latest polls show Bush well behind Trump, Cruz and Rubio — all targets of Right to Rise USA’s latest ad flurry — as well as retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
If Bush’s presidential run flops, he’ll join three other Republican candidates who relied heavily on outside spending before flaming out: Rick Perry, Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal.
New Hampshire Public Radio: Sanders Campaign Says Super PAC Should “Spend Their Money Somewhere Else”
Associated Press
In an email Monday to supporters, his campaign manager Jeff Weaver says Sanders has been surprised to learn about the pro-Sanders campaigns of outside groups that are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money from donors. Sanders rails against such groups on the campaign trail, saying they contribute to a corrupt political system.
“They should spend their money somewhere else,” Weaver writes in the email. “We do not want their help.”
IRS
Nonprofit Times: IRS Proposal Could Lead To Collection of Donors’ SSNs
Andy Segedin
Delaney said that his concerns with the proposed amendment start with the safety of the general public and are followed by the repercussions nonprofits may face. Nonprofits coming into the practice of collecting donors’ Social Security numbers could pave the way for scam artists, who could use the amendment as a means of soliciting individuals’ personal information. “As soon as this thing hits the books, it’s dangerous,” he said. “Even if not one nonprofit does it, it creates danger. Suddenly, the scam artists can use it. That, then, creates the identity-theft opportunity. As soon as that happens and news gets out, it will have a further chilling effect on nonprofits. People will say ‘I don’t want to go anywhere near that.’”
The States
New York Sun: Next: The Sheldon Silver Campaign Reform Act For Tax-Funded Elections
Seth Lipsky
Our Democrats couldn’t care less that Silver sold his office for reasons that had nothing to do with raising money for his campaign. They know that he represented a safe district on the Lower East Side, winning easily (in 2008 he got 100 percent of the vote).
No, it wasn’t to fund his election campaigns that Silver committed his crimes. He aimed to get rich, pocketing $3.3 million from his share of legal fees (the “quo”) from cases referred to his law firm by a doctor who got state grants (the “quid”).
Yet we’re already hearing how his conviction is grounds for the Legislature to force the taxpayers to pay politicians’ election expenses. The New York Times greeted the verdict with an editorial calling for “public funding of elections for all state offices.”
The Missoulian: Motl says Wittich should be removed from office for corruption
Holly Michels
In court documents filed Nov. 16, Motl says Wittich participated in quid pro quo corruption by receiving secret and improper contributions from corporate groups “and in return he pledged primary fealty to that corporate group of special interests rather than to the people of his district.”
The document was filed as part of a lawsuit the commissioner of political practices filed against Wittich over alleged campaign violations in 2010.
“The specter of corporate-sponsored candidates creates general corruption of the public trust,” Motl wrote, adding that Wittich’s removal from office was an appropriate remedy.
Bangor Daily News: Augusta should make implementing Clean Elections initiative a priority
Hannah Pingree and Chris Rector
Over the next months, Augusta will be consumed with many issues: the state budget, drug enforcement, energy costs, taxes, school funding, ranked-choice voting, welfare, marijuana, and the limits of executive authority. Important as those issues are, implementing the Clean Election initiative should be among those top priorities.
Michigan Live: Michigan GOP bill looks to write super PACs into state campaign finance law
Jonathan Oosting
Senate Bill 638, introduced last week and advanced out of the Senate Elections and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday in 4-1 vote, would create independent-expenditure only committees in the Michigan Campaign Finance Act.
The state-level super PACs would be prohibited from donating directly to candidates but could make unlimited contributions to ballot committees and spend unlimited amounts on activities that may benefit a candidate
Wisconsin Watchdog: Did DA who launched political John Doe probe break campaign finance laws?
M.D. Kittle
Candidates for elected office may be excused for basic errors in completing Wisconsin campaign finance disclosure forms. But when it’s the top law enforcement officer in Milwaukee County, the one who has “repeatedly sought to hold others responsible for campaign finance violations, the acceptance of an illegal campaign contribution and failure to properly file campaign finance reports must certainly dictate that John Chisholm has committed Malfeasance in Office,” the petitioners state.
