In the News
Wall Street Journal: The Super Pac Bust
WSJ Editorial Board
Campaign fundraising may preoccupy the press corps, but it isn’t dominating the presidential race. A new analysis from the Center for Competitive Politics shows that the amount of spending by candidates and their Super Pacs was negatively correlated with results in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is illustrating that piles of Super Pac cash can’t elevate a candidate if voters aren’t persuaded by his message. Mr. Bush spent $24,332,242 through the end of 2015 with another $70,382,875 in independent expenditures by his supporters through the New Hampshire primary on February 9. His results in Iowa (sixth place) and New Hampshire (fourth) add up to $2,592 per vote.
Montana Standard: Emails show Bullock’s office quietly influenced ‘dark money’ rules
James DeHaven
Last year, Gov. Steve Bullock’s office quietly helped rewrite Montana’s political rulebook — contributing edits, reviewing drafts, and nixing proposed changes to controversial regulations meant to implement the state’s divisive Disclose Act.
Hundreds of pages of correspondence obtained through a records request filed by the Independent Record detail two Bullock staffers’ intimate involvement in the fraught rule-making process that followed the act’s passage in April 2015…
“Incidentally, to the extent that some of these regulatory definitions are so preposterously open-ended and impact the definitions of ‘coordination’ and political ‘contributions,’ one could argue with a straight face that the commissioner’s coordination with Governor Bullock on these regulations results in a campaign contribution (that is potentially excessive, prohibited, and/or not lawfully disclosed) from Motl to Governor Bullock,” attorney Eric Wang, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Center for Competitive Politics, wrote in an email Feb. 10.
CCP
Bush Proves (Again) That Money Doesn’t Buy Elections
“Money can’t buy love, or votes,” said CCP President David Keating. “Has there ever been a better example than Jeb Bush of the fact that voters decide the outcome of elections, not money? From Blair Hull and John Corzine to Linda McMahon and Meg Whitman, Jeb Bush joins the litany of failed candidates with big campaign warchests who ultimately lost or dropped out. While money is critical for getting a message out, it can’t convince people to cast a vote, make Americans like a candidate, or fix systemic issues within a campaign.”
Independent Groups
Washington Post: Nearly $100 million in super PAC money couldn’t save Jeb Bush
Matea Gold
As of Saturday, the group had raced through at least $95.7 million out of the $118.6 million it had collected by the end of January, according to Federal Election Commission filings…
To no avail. Bush’s favorable rating actually plummeted over the course of the campaign, falling from 63 percent in July to 44 percent in January, according to Washington Post-ABC News polls of Republicans nationally.
The super PAC’s failure to help Bush gain traction will be one of the most scrutinized aspects of his failed candidacy, in part because he built his strategy around having the well-funded group by his side. The former governor installed his longtime adviser Mike Murphy at its helm, and spent the first half of last year helping sock millions of dollars into the super PAC
Supreme Court
New York Times: Supreme Court Appointment Could Reshape American Life
Adam Liptak
There is a reason Republican senators are so adamant in their refusal to let President Obama appoint a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, a towering figure in conservative jurisprudence. An Obama appointment would be the most consequential ideological shift on the court since 1991, creating a liberal majority that would almost certainly reshape American law and American life.
“At-risk precedents run from campaign finance to commerce, from race to religion, and they include some signature Scalia projects, such as the Second Amendment,” said Lee Epstein, a law professor and political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.
“Some would go quickly, like Citizens United, and some would go slower,” she said. “But they’ll go.”
IRS
Washington Post: The IRS gives up on fighting ‘dark money’
Editorial Board
The social welfare exemption has existed for more than a century. In the original statute, groups were to be “operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare.” In 1959, regulators interpreted the law to mean that groups had to be “primarily” engaged in social welfare — some politics was allowed. Recently, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified to the Senate Finance Committee that “primarily” means that at least 51 percent of a group’s activity must be devoted to social welfare — or, no more than 49 percent to political activity. This has been the agency’s rule of thumb for some time, but it failed to clarify the definition, granting all varieties of groups 501(c)(4) exemptions even though they were heavily political. The agency’s ham-fisted attempt a few years ago to target tea party groups in this regard triggered a Republican political backlash and weakened its ability to deal with the problem.
Influence
Washington Free Beacon: Katy Perry Cashes in on Clinton Support
Lachlan Markay
Pop star Katy Perry’s company has been paid nearly $200,000 by the campaigns of presidential candidates she has endorsed, including Hillary Clinton, public records show.
Perry endorsed Clinton in October. Two months later, the Hillary for America campaign reported paying Perry’s company, Kitty Purry Inc., about $70,000 for “event production.”
It was not immediately clear which event that referred to or what services Perry’s company provided. Neither the Clinton campaign nor Perry’s manager responded to questions about the arrangement.
Bloomberg: Mark Hamill, Goldie Hawn Help Clinton Raise $14.9 Million in January
Matt Isaacs
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ended Jan. with $32.9m cash-on-hand and through Jan. 31 had raised a total of $130.4m for her bid, according to FEC report
Mother Jones: Sheldon Adelson Bets it All
Matt Isaacs
Adelson had been a political donor for decades and was even named a Bush Pioneer for raising more than $100,000 for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. But that was peanuts compared with what he would stake now. He bankrolled nearly the entire $30 million budget of Freedom’s Watch, which he had launched as a right-wing counterpoint to MoveOn.org, and used it to drum up support for Bush’s 2007 surge in Iraq. Weidner sat on the board of the group; Karl Rove was a key adviser. When the 2008 campaign drew near, Adelson crowed to the Wall Street Journal that the cavalry was “coming over the hill, bugles blaring. I’m looking for a horse…and trying on chaps and boots and stirrups.” But Freedom’s Watch soon dissolved after staffers bridled at Adelson’s micromanagement.
Candidates and Campaigns
Associated Press: Trump wins big in South Carolina; Clinton takes Nevada
Julie Pace and Bill Barrow
Donald Trump barreled to victory in South Carolina’s Republican primary Saturday, deepening his hold on the GOP presidential field as the race headed into the South. “Let’s put this thing away,” he shouted to cheering supporters.
South Carolina marked Trump’s second straight victory — this one by 10 points — and strengthened his unexpected claim on the GOP nomination. No Republican in recent times has won New Hampshire and South Carolina and then failed to win the nomination.
“There’s nothing easy about running for president,” Trump said at his victory rally. “It’s tough, it’s nasty, it’s mean, it’s vicious. It’s beautiful — when you win it’s beautiful.”
CPI: Numbers to know about the 2016 presidential race
Dave Levinthal, Michael Beckel, and Carrie Levine
Saturday didn’t just play host to Democrats’ Nevada caucus and Republicans’ South Carolina primary.
Federal rules also required presidential candidates — and the legion of super PACs that support them — to reveal and detail their income and spending during January.
Raise money they have: Candidates and their allied groups have collectively spent more than $700 million so far competing in the 2016 White House race.
But some fared better than others. Here’s a rundown of the more curious statistics to emerge:
Politico: Trump rewrites campaign cash rules
Kenneth Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf
But money hasn’t bought success.
There’s one area where Donald Trump is badly trailing the field — spending ― and that makes his resounding wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire all the more frustrating to his Republicans he’s trouncing and worrisome to the party leaders trying to block him from winning the nomination.
According to a Politico analysis of reports filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission, through the end of January the campaign of the billionaire real estate showman had spent a total of $24 million. That’s less than half as much as the rivals who finished in a distant second-place tie behind him in South Carolina, Marco Rubio (whose campaign and super PAC and non-profit allies have spent $76 million) and Ted Cruz ($60 million), the analysis found.
Los Angeles Times: Hillary Clinton faces one problem she didn’t expect: Money
Evan Halper
Now, at a crucial point in the race, Clinton finds herself under financial stress. The Bernie Sanders money machine keeps churning, sweeping up millions of dollars more than the Clinton campaign has been able to find of late, positioning the democratic socialist from Vermont to compete in states where he was never expected to be a threat.
As Clinton’s network of fundraisers in cash-rich regions like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area struggles to fill events where tickets typically cost $2,700 — the maximum a donor can give in the primary — Sanders is not holding any. His money comes almost entirely online and keeps coming and coming, far faster and more steadily than small donations do on Clinton’s website.
Bernie Sanders addresses supporters after losing Nevada caucuses
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made a speech to his supporters in Las Vegas on Saturday night following his loss in the state to rival Hillary Clinton. Sanders told the crowd that the key issue of his campaign has been momentum – ‘bringing more and more people into the political process’ – but he also targets the ‘corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American democracy’
The States
Washington Post: D.C. attorney general seeks to ban PACs like the one that benefited mayor
Aaron C. Davis
The District’s first elected attorney general has proposed tight new restrictions on campaign fundraising in the city, aiming to prevent another political action committee like one that was aligned with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) last year and that raised unlimited contributions from businesses seeking contracts from her administration.
The legislation submitted Thursday by Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) puts new focus on closing what critics have cast as a loophole that allows unlimited donations to District PACs in non-election years.
