In the News
Columbus Dispatch: Obama should not violate deal with Congress
Brad Smith
President Obama has indicated that he is considering issuing an executive order requiring companies who have contracted with the federal government to disclose their giving to trade associations, nonprofits and other organizations that participate in the political process. Succumbing to pressure from liberal Democrats and activist groups favoring greater regulation of political speech, the president appears to have settled on this order as — in the words of his chief of staff — one of his “audacious executive actions” that are not “subject to undoing through [Congress] or otherwise.”
Such an action would be bad policy. But equally as important, the order would directly contravene the Omnibus spending bill that the President signed into law just last month. More than simply bad policy, it is bad government.
CNN: Who’s funding this pro-Ted Cruz super PAC?
Theodore Schleifer
Donors are increasingly using LLCs like these to give to political groups ever since the Citizens United decision made it easier for non-individuals to cut checks. But the prevalence of these opaque companies on Stand for Truth’s report is widespread, campaign finance observers say.
“The super PAC probably gets more corporate funding than most do by a pretty big margin, but still the bigger donors are individuals,” said David Keating of the Center for Competitive Politics, a group advocating for looser restrictions on donations. “This isn’t Exxon Mobil corporate funding.”
Los Angeles Times: All the money in the world isn’t buying votes this primary season
Noah Bierman
But as anti-establishment fervor has grown, many of those billionaires have seen their money wasted.
“Certainly, the cataclysmic arguments about super PACs, what was being said in 2010, has not come true,” said Bradley Smith, former chair of the Federal Election Commission, who advocates loosening campaign finance rules. “What I think you’re really seeing here, they’re normal. They’re citizens spending money. And some citizens are sending votes that way, and some are not.”
Trump’s prominence in the campaign is one reason that super-PAC money has had less impact than some people expected. His celebrity and wealth have allowed him to ignore many big super-PAC donors.
Odessa American: Crawford mailer criticizes Landgraf
Ruth Campbell
In a letter to House Speaker Joe Straus and Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, Director of External Relations Matt Nese of the Center for Competitive Politics, said the measure would require a person or group making “aggregate undefined political expenditures exceeding $25,000 in a calendar year to file numerous reports to the government publicly identifying a group’s supporters, even if a supporter has no knowledge, and may not agree with, some or all of the communications that trigger the reports.”
“We strongly believe such requirements would violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court,” Nese wrote.
CCP
Proponents of Bad Government
Luke Wachob
…the FEC does deserve criticism for its slow response to Citizens United – failing to codify the 2010 ruling into its regulations until 2014. But eventually it did, and whatever criticism is warranted should not be aimed at the Commission as a whole, but at those commissioners who were slow to act because they personally disagreed with the Citizens United decision. That is clearly not what’s bothering the Philly Inquirer’s Editorial Board. Tipping its hand by deriding the decision as “ill-conceived,” you can tell the Board, like many other so-called “reformers,” is simply unhappy with Citizens United and wants the FEC to write regulations to blunt the ruling’s impact.
I don’t believe that the Philly Inquirer Editorial Board wants the FEC to openly defy the Court, but I do believe they want it to subtly undermine and circumvent the Citizens United decision. That desire leads to criticism of the FEC, not – contrary to what its critics would claim – for failing to do its job, but rather for insisting on it by refusing to write regulations that conflict with legal precedent.
Supreme Court
New York Times: The Many Ills of Campaign Money (LTE)
Paul Sherman
Richard W. Painter, making the conservative case for campaign finance reform, argues that campaign donations encourage big government (“Big Money, Big Government,” Op-Ed, Feb. 3). He might as well argue that ants cause picnics. Big government attracts money, not the other way around.
Oddly, Mr. Painter pairs his argument with calls for a “less activist Supreme Court” that would grant Congress even greater authority. But judicial deference is what has given rise to our huge federal government. For decades, and frequently at the urging of self-identified conservatives, the court has systematically failed to check legislative and executive excesses.
Independent Groups
Wall Street Journal: PAC Payments Raise Questions Over Rubio Campaign Finance
Beth Reinhard and Rebecca Ballhaus
After he began running for president, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio continued to send monthly payments to top campaign and Senate aides through his leadership PAC, Reclaim America, raising questions with election experts about whether the PAC is subsidizing his presidential campaign activities beyond legal limits.
A leadership PAC is a committee created most often by current and former members of Congress to help them expand their influence and raise their profile.
Cash from those accounts can be used to pay for staff and travel unrelated to a lawmaker’s campaign or congressional activities, such as speaking before a state party. Such committees are also used to support other candidates and incumbents by making donations to their campaigns of up to $5,000 per election.
More Soft Money Hard Law: Claims about Corruption in the Case for Political Equality
Bob Bauer
Yet the arguments about consequences go on, largely drawing on the ages’ old debate about the link between campaign cash and corruption or undue influence. One reason is the practical one to be expected in a clash over policy. Proponents of regulation often believe that they have to show corruption to prevail, and it has be corruption of the worst kind, with a Watergate-level scandal certain to erupt if nothing is done. But they then run into the problem that when the claims outpace the evidence–when candidates with by far the most money fail, or well-funded interests don’t get what they want from legislators, or the surveys show that public confidence in government is not linked to campaign finance law–the argument-from-consequences takes a bad knock.
Executive Action
Washington Post: Campaign reform group calls White House response to secret money petition ‘offensive’
Juliet Eilperin
The White House responded Friday to more than 100,000 Americans who demanded that President Obama force federal contractors to disclose their campaign contributions within 24 hours — by telling them to wait and see.
Nearly 118,000 individuals signed a petition on the White House’s “We the People” platform, saying Obama needs to act unilaterally to impose the new disclosure requirement on firms receiving federal funds
The Hill: WH response to petition offends campaign finance advocates
Lydia Wheeler
“He has tools at his disposal, and yet he has done nothing but repeat the same empty rhetoric.”
After pointing out that Obama supported the Disclosure Act that was blocked by Republicans in Congress in both 2010 and 2012, the White House response goes on to say that the president is exploring every step he can take during his last year in office to make sure everyone’s voice can be heard.
Rootstrikers said it is not the time to pass the buck to Republicans in Congress. With 11 months left in his term, the group urged Obama to take action now to redeem his legacy.
Salon: The system is just this rigged: The Kochs, Citizens United and the real reason why corrupt big money must be kicked out of politics
Adam Eichen
Until the executive order is officially issued, we must continue to pressure the president. While many are cautiously optimistic the president will follow through on his promise to fight for our democracy, there is no guarantee.
And, in anticipation of the executive order and thereafter, our job must also be to expand the fight, advocating for even greater disclosure, contribution limits, revolving door bans, new ethics and lobbying laws, Federal Election Commission reform, and most important, public financing of elections and the restoration of the Voting Rights Act.
It will be a long, bitter fight to win comprehensive reform, but isn’t our democracy worth it?
Candidates and Campaigns
New York Times: Donald Trump’s Campaign, Billed as Self-Funded, Risks Little of His Fortune
Nicholas Confessore and Sarah Cohen
What remains is a quintessentially Trumpian endeavor that blurs the line between campaigning and brand-building and complicates Mr. Trump’s claims that he is funding his own White House campaign. About three-quarters of Mr. Trump’s total campaign spending has either gone to reimburse his own businesses or has been covered by funds from grass-roots donors, according to an analysis by The New York Times of F.E.C. reports. Virtually all of the money Mr. Trump himself has put into the campaign was lent, rather than donated outright, meaning that he could potentially sell enough hats and T-shirts to pay himself back down the road.
NPR: Fact Check: Clinton And Sanders On Campaign Finance
Peter Overby
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders both pledged their allegiance Thursday to the cause of campaign finance reform during the final Democratic presidential debate before the New Hampshire primary.
Polls show that many Americans agree: Too much money comes from too few donors. The candidates’ solutions, predictably, were somewhat less certain.
Politico: Bush loyalists concede the end may be in sight
Alex Isenstadt
“I acknowledge reality. There’s going to be three or four candidates remaining after New Hampshire,” said former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, a Jeb Bush adviser who also worked on George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns. “I think the field is going to narrow pretty quickly. We’ll see what happens in South Carolina, and from there you can see the dynamic starting to winnow the field pretty quickly.”
Washington Post: This one moment perfectly captures the Clinton-Sanders war over progressivism
Greg Sargent
And yet, at bottom, Sanders is not quite willing to say why it is that the acceptance of oligarchic money by specific individual Democratic politicians, such as Clinton or Obama, leads them to personally embrace policies that are insufficiently ambitious to address the soaring inequality that poses a quasi-extistential threat to the middle class and our political economy.
The States
Lexington Herald Leader: Grand jury brings fresh scrutiny to Alison Grimes’ campaigns
John Cheves
These family ties — and the question of whether candidate Grimes properly reimbursed businessman Lundergan — are getting fresh scrutiny now that a federal grand jury in Lexington has subpoenaed records from the pair related to her campaigns and his corporations.
“It is outright illegal to use any corporate resources to fund a federal campaign,” said Craig Holman at Public Citizen, a campaign-finance watchdog in Washington. “The candidate has got to be exceedingly careful that they are paying the full market value for these resources, and they better have the documentation on hand to prove they paid the full market value.”
Arizona Republic: Governor’s panel votes to block dark money disclosure
Laurie Roberts
Reagan, through her Elections Director Eric Spencer, asked the GRRC to block the Clean Elections Commission from requiring dark money groups to disclose who is bankrolling their political campaigns.
“Nowhere in the Citizens Clean Elections Act is the charge to act an all-encompassing campaign finance super regulator – especially in a way that conflicts with the Secretary of State’s authority,” Spencer wrote last month, in a 16-page letter to the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council.
To which I would ask, what authority?
Ever since she was elected secretary of state, Reagan has essentially protected dark money spending, adamant in her new-found belief that dark money campaigns can’t be regulated.
Associated Press: Panel punts on bill to limit personal use of campaign funds
Alan Suderman
A House committee has punted on a proposal to limit the personal use of campaign funds by Virginia politicians, a top ethics priority this legislative session of Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
The GOP-controlled panel voted Thursday to put off until next year a vote on legislation barring the politicians from using campaign funds for personal benefit with a promise to study the issue further.
Worcester Business Journal: House supports campaign finance constitutional amendment
State House News Service
The Massachusetts House on Wednesday voted to urge Congress to pass a constitutional amendment limiting private campaign contributions and super PAC spending.
The resolution filed Wednesday by House Judiciary Chairman John Fernandes calling on Congress to act was adopted on a 119 to 34 vote.
