In the News
ABC News: Cash-Rich Super PACs Prolong Flagging Presidential Campaigns
Julie Bykowicz, Associated Press
Those super PAC investments work as an incentive against a candidate giving up too soon, however dim the prospects.
While super PACs have dumped buckets of money into politics, they’ve also helped ensure a more competitive democratic process, said Bradley Smith, a former federal elections commissioner who advocates for looser fundraising restrictions.
“The complaint used to be that the candidates would fold up before anyone even voted,” said Smith, founder and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics. “It’s not a bad thing that’s not the case anymore.”
Washington Examiner: Why do candidates suspend their campaigns instead of ending them?
Jason Russell
Legally, “suspending” a campaign means nothing to the Federal Election Commission. But eventually a candidate has to formally terminate his campaign with the FEC. Before that, it needs to finish paying staff salaries, wind down any leases and pay off debt.
“You can’t turn these things off, they’re not like a light switch,” Center for Competitive Politics President David Keating told the Washington Examiner. “You have people on the payroll, you have payroll taxes to deposit with the IRS and so on. … These things take a while to wind down.”
For all intents and purposes, the Graham campaign is over. Why not just say that instead of using “suspend”?
“My guess is they just do it because everyone says that at this point,” Keating said. “In some cases it has legal significance, but they’re pretty rare and not that common right now.”
The Media
Huffington Post: Donald Trump Shouldn’t Have Bothered Buying Airtime. Cable News Ran His Ad 60 Times For Free.
Michael Calderone
Donald Trump doesn’t need to buy media exposure.
Television networks have given Trump the most attention this election cycle due to a unique mix of celebrity, accessibility, front-runner status and propensity for making outrageous and offensive remarks. But Trump, claiming his campaign is $35 million under budget, pledged last week to spend $2 million a week on ads, with the campaign on Monday placing its first order for spots in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Before early state voters stumbled across Trump’s ad on local stations, national news networks had already broadcast it dozens of times, beginning at 5:30 a.m. Monday.
Politico: Donald Trump’s free media bonanza
Hadas Gold
But that number doesn’t even include the many times all the major channels aired large chunks of the ad. Significant portions of the spot were played at least 20 times in the same period across the cable networks in that same 24-hour period. Though none of the broadcast networks played the full ad in either their blockbuster morning shows or evening news programs, all of them, from NBC’s “Today” to CBS’ “Evening News,” dedicated multiple segments to it, often airing 10- to 15-second clips.
It all amounted to a promotional coup for the author of “The Art of the Deal,” whose guerrilla marketing strategy —hype up his first ad buy, invest a little, and get even more back for free — paid huge returns in what campaign operatives call “earned media.”
Independent Groups
More Soft Money Hard Law: Super PAC: The Law and The Politics
Bob Bauer
But this is a point of interest to elites and others versed in campaign finance law and policy. There is also the political point about the Super PACs and their place in a narrative about the failings of government–of the “system.” A politics perceived to be in good health, producing functional government, would absorb Super PACs with less controversy. Voters generally care about results more than process, and about process largely to the extent that it is associated with poor results. It was shown a while ago that campaign finance controls do little to shore up public confidence in government, and that, in the words of David Primo and Jeffrey Milyo, these laws’ effects on citizen trust “is sometimes perverse, rarely positive, and never more than modest.” But the public may well respond critically to campaign finance activity when it feeds into a perception or experience of more general political dysfunction.
Huffington Post: Donald Trump Has Led The Polls For Months, And Barely Any Money Has Been Spent Attacking Him
Sam Stein and Paul Blumenthal
From April 2015 through Jan. 4, 2016, independent groups spent roughly $99.3 million on ads for the 2016 presidential campaign.
Of that total, just $1.71 million was spent to attack or negatively portray Republican front-runner Donald Trump, according to a Huffington Post analysis of the campaign finance data.
The relative pittance of resources placed behind anti-Trump ads so far is remarkable considering the real estate tycoon’s persistent lead atop the Republican primary polls, and the near-universal belief outside his universe of supporters that he’d be a horrific candidate for the Republican Party and a dangerous president.
Amending the Constitution
Los Angeles Times: Do we need a constitutional convention on campaign finance?
Richard L. Hasen
Even if a convention could be limited to overturning Citizens United, existing proposals for how to word an amendment raise some issues. One would declare that only “natural persons” have constitutional rights, which would seem to allow the government to ban the printing of corporate-owned newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times.
Other proposed campaign finance amendments, including the one Democrats in the U.S. Senate supported in 2015, are equally problematic. They all seem to suffer from one of two defects: either they’re draconian (written in such a way that they could squelch important political debates), or they’re toothless (leaving matters in the hands of the same U.S. Supreme Court that decided Citizens United).
SEC
Courthouse News Service: Court Declines Role in Campaign Finance Case
Cameron Langford
In a complaint filed against the SEC in May, Silberstein claimed Aetna officials rejected shareholder proposals in 2012, 2013 and 2014 that would have required more transparency for its political contributions.
He said these requests were made after Aetna inadvertently revealed that despite its public stance in favor of health care reform, it contributed more than $7 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Action Network — two groups that opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Free Speech
Popehat: President Obama And The Rhetoric Of Rights
Ken White
The President also invoked my least favorite trope, Trope Two, “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” He didn’t even fully invoke it, only mentioning “fire in a theater,” calling to mind a malicious effort to disrupt a showing of Glitter or something. The important thing is that the trope is just a rhetorical flourish used to repeat that not all speech is protected, culled from a case in which the Supreme Court contemptibly approved of jailing a man for protesting the draft in World War One. It’s a throwaway line from a case that is now universally recognized as wrongly decided. It’s a line about rhetoric, not law. Using it doesn’t send the signal “I will propose principled, text- and history-based exceptions to the rights conferred by this amendment.” It signals “exceptions to rights can be shaped by the whims of the majority and by the fears of the moment.” That’s a foolish message in this instance.
Wisconsin ‘John Doe’
Wisconsin Watchdog: Bad Santa: John Doe prosecutor delivers letters to the people he spied on
M.D. Kittle
Opening the manila envelope, the Wisconsin conservative learned that government agents had secretly seized his emails – professional and personal – sent and received over a two-year period beginning in Jan. 1 2009…
“Just unbelievable,” said the conservative, who asked not to be identified. He remains active in Wisconsin politics. “It feels like a different country. It feels like something that shouldn’t be done in the United States of America.”
In a court filing Tuesday announcing that he had completed his court-ordered chores, Schmitz informed the Wisconsin Supreme Court that he has sent out 159 “Special Prosecutor” notices to people and organizations whose records were seized by prosecutors of secret investigations commonly referred to as “John Doe I” and “John Doe II.”
Candidates and Campaigns
Wall Street Journal: Chris Christie’s 24-Hour Fix for Campaign Finance Woes
Heather Haddon
While campaigning in New Hampshire this week, Mr. Christie unleashed a blistering, 10-minute critique of the system for national candidates to raise hard money for their operations, which is limited to $2,700 contributions from individuals per election.
“I’m expected to run a nationwide campaign to 330 million Americans at $2,700 a person,” Mr. Christie said during a campaign event in Manchester Monday afternoon. “If you think that’s a good system, then what you think is, that I should spend almost every minute of every day raising money.”
Mr. Christie, a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association who is no stranger to raising money, said he would advocate for candidates to be able to take any level of contribution from any entity. The catch: candidates would have to disclose the donations within 24 hours.
Politico: How Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cared for Democratic donors
Isaac Arnsdorf
While handling diplomatic issues, she took time to meet with billionaire George Soros, now one of her presidential campaign’s top donors. She gave briefings to mega-donor and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, sent birthday wishes to billionaire Haim Saban, and lunched with supporter and philanthropist Jill Iscol.
After a day of meetings with the Czech, Tunisian and Pakistani foreign ministers, Clinton flew to New York for the birthday party of her friend Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of the clothing line Esprit who has given more than $400,000 to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns. Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl MIlls helped Mack McLarty, once Bill Clinton chief of staff and now a major donor, get into a U.S.-China event where he could promote his business interests, another e-mail in the latest batch revealed.
Wall Street Journal: Campaign: Don’t Worry, Bernie Sanders Can Beat Clinton, Then Beat GOP
Peter Nicholas
“We have really built the infrastructure and have access to the resources which will allow us to go toe to toe with our Democratic competitors all the way to the convention next summer,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said.
Mr. Sanders’s fundraising has surpassed expectations. Lacking the donor network the Clinton family built over a quarter century on the national stage, Mr. Sanders has nearly matched her fundraising haul. In the final quarter of 2015, he raised more than $33 million, compared to her $37 million. In the third quarter, the Sanders campaign collected $26 million; the Clinton campaign, $28 million.
The States
The Nation: California Could Sound the Loudest Call Yet for Overturning ‘Citizens United’
John Nichols
On Monday, however, a 6–1 decision by the California Supreme Court ruled that “Long-standing historical practice among the states demonstrates a common understanding that legislatures may formally consult with and seek nonbinding input from their constituents on matters relevant to the federal constitutional amendment process.”
This is good news for the fight for reform in California and nationally, as it provides legal justification and support for the use of advisory initiatives and referendums to build popular support for this necessary amendment—and to put pressure on lawmakers to act.
