In the News
New Jersey Star-Ledger: Let’s expose ‘dark money’ without threatening free speech, advocates say
By David Keating and Amol Sinha
When policy harms the people, our democracy relies on civic and advocacy organizations to mobilize and hold government accountable. Unfortunately, a bill in the New Jersey Legislature threatens to upend that fundamental check on power and silence many of the voices that speak truth by interfering with privacy and exposing personal information.
The legislation, S1500, would publicize names, home addresses, and employment information of donors to any New Jersey nonprofit that speaks on issues of public concern, such as discussing legislation with lawmakers, speaking to community members about grassroots causes, or publishing factual legislative scorecards.
The purported purpose of the bill is to increase transparency of ‘dark money’ in politics. However, as currently drafted, the bill goes well beyond that purpose by impacting thousands of nonprofit advocacy organizations. The narrative around the bill implies that there is something nefarious about giving to nonprofits. As a result, if the bill passes, issue advocacy groups that help make the state and nation better, and indeed help make government more accountable, could lose funding or choose less effective ways to speak.
Additionally, this legislation would provide ammunition for retaliating against those who organize. By outing those who associate with civic groups, the bill would arm powerful people with potentially damaging information that could jeopardize donors’ and activists’ lives.
This is neither far-fetched nor an abstraction. Consider Saily Avelenda, whom former Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen targeted in a fundraising letter to her employer based on her involvement in NJ 11th for Change, which was trying to secure a town hall meeting with the Congress member. “One of the ringleaders works for your bank!” the letter said. Ms. Avelanda later resigned from her job.
Cato: How Regulation Cripples Online Political Speech (Podcast)
By Featuring Allen Dickerson and Caleb O. Brown
Online political speech is often dramatically different from the speech presented via terrestrial broadcasting. That difference is critical to protecting speech in the face of one-size-fits-all regulatory regimes. Attorney Allen Dickerson with the Institute for Free Speech comments.
The Oklahoman: Election system doesn’t need fixing
By Editorial Board
We have written more than once about some of the problems with H.R. 1, which was approved by the House last week. These include an effort to crack down on campaign contributions. As even the American Civil Liberties Union has noted, the bill would effectively trample on the First Amendment’s right to free speech.
Among other things in the bill, it requires groups that run political ads to provide the names of donors who give more than $10,000. Political groups would be forced, the ACLU noted, “to make a choice: their speech or their donors. Whichever they choose, the First Amendment loses.”
Bradley A. Smith, who heads the Institute for Free Speech, has complained that H.R. 1 would “place sweeping new limitations on speech” and do so “in a very complex, vague and unintuitive manner.” Many of the proposed limits would serve as “a total ban on speech” for advocacy groups, unions and others, Smith says.
H.R. 1
Pauls Valley Daily Democrat: A rushed and partisan product
By Congressman Tom Cole (OK-04)
While the Democrats mistakenly called their hallmark H.R. 1 bill the “For the People Act,” a closer review and analysis of its content reveals that the legislation would be more aptly named “For the Politicians Act” or the “Welfare for Politicians Act.” …
H.R. 1 represents the largest and most damaging threat to free speech seen in recent years. First, it calls for a taxpayer-financed piggy bank that would operate like an ATM for campaigns participating in a to-be-created program that would match small-dollar campaign contributions six to one.
Taxpayers would have no say in who gets those dollars, meaning their hard-earned money could go to fund candidates and politicians with whom they disagree.
Also undermining the First Amendment, H.R. 1 would criminalize actions that are currently viewed appropriate as advocacy for candidates.
Even the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) voiced concern with the legislation.
In a 13-page letter sent to the House Rules Committee, the ACLU cautioned, “There are also provisions that unconstitutionally impinge on the free speech rights of American citizens and public interest organizations. They will have the effect of harming our public discourse by silencing necessary voices that would otherwise speak out about the public issues of the day.”
Hendersonville Times-News: Mark Meadows blasts HR1, ‘For the People Act’
By Staff Reports
Congressman Mark Meadows Friday voted no on House Resolution 1, or “the For the People Act,” coming out against the House Democrats’ first major legislative priority because he believes the bill in reality does the opposite of its stated purpose of giving power back to the people…
“HR 1 should’ve been called the ‘For the Politicians’ act, because that’s exactly what it is – a bill that overhauls America’s election system for the benefit of nothing more than incumbent and career politicians,” Meadows said in the statement.
“The bill takes hard-earned taxpayer money and spins it into campaign cash, funneling it straight into the pockets of Washington, D.C. politicians. It forces people to participate in an electoral system, whether or not they want to, trampling on First Amendment rights. It seizes rights and authority that should belong to states and individuals, and instead redirects them to Congress’s already over-inflated power complex. It even provides your tax-payer dollars as ‘vouchers’ that recipients then have to turn around donate to a politician.” …
Meadows’ thee amendments were turned down by the rules committee, the release says…
Meadows amendment No. 39, to remove caps on direct contributions to candidates from individuals, requiring donations of more than $200 to be disclosed within 24 hours. “This would effectively mean eliminating the need for SuperPAC’s and nondisclosed contributions, taking power away from PAC’s and ‘dark money’ and returning it to small-dollar donors,” the release says.
Congress
Bloomberg: The Left Can’t Blame Money in Politics for Its Policy Failures
By Ramesh Ponnuru
The progressive impulse to blame campaign spending for political disappointments is one reason House Democrats just passed HR 1, a package of changes to the political system that includes new restrictions on political spending and public financing of campaigns. Among the bill’s “findings”: “The torrent of money flowing into our political system has a profound effect on the democratic process for everyday Americans, whose voices and policy preferences are increasingly being drowned out by those of wealthy special interests.” …
But moneyed interests don’t play nearly as large a role in high-profile political controversies as progressives sometimes think. The fossil-fuel industry is politically influential, to be sure. But it’s not responsible for surveys showing that 68 percent of Americans are unwilling to pay an extra $10 in monthly electric bills to combat climate change, even as similar percentages worry about it. That bottom-line sentiment is what really keeps Congress from taking decisive action.
The NRA, meanwhile, would have nearly no power if it weren’t for the fact that millions of Americans share its views about guns and are more inclined than other people to vote on the issue. Support for Israel has much the same political basis: Most Americans favor it, and a significant minority favors it intensely…
[O]ur government puts many obstacles between apparent popular majorities and policy victories. Republicans have ideological commitments to deregulation that can sometimes conflict with and even thwart public opinion, just as Democrats have their own commitments. Planned Parenthood’s campaign contributions aren’t what mainly keeps Democrats from following the polls on late-term abortion.
Washington Examiner: Ocasio-Cortez struggles on Twitter to delegitimize the ethics complaints against her
By Becket Adams
The Intercept’s Jon Schwarz promoted his reporting this week on the FEC fine against Right to Rise by tweeting: “Luke Thompson, the guy who kicked off the dumb campaign finance smears of [Ocasio-Cortez], used to work for the Jeb! super PAC Right to Rise USA.” …
Ocasio-Cortez seized (or pounced?) on Schwarz’s tweet to go after Thompson personally.
“Whoah: the creepy org filing bogus ethics complaints against me just actually got hit with one of the biggest fines in FEC history,” her office tweeted, adding in a since-deleted follow-up, “(Rather, same guy – nor org, since they have a zillion shadow groups).”
Her office took another crack at it and tweeted, “(Rather same guy who operated at the org).” …
First, Right to Rise has not filed an ethics complaint against Ocasio-Cortez…
Secondly, Thompson doesn’t work for any of these groups. He doesn’t even work for Right to Rise anymore.
Lastly, there’s nothing to show Thompson was ever involved in Right to Rise accepting the $1.3 million donation that resulted in its fine, or that he even knew anything about it.
Though news media have not yet criticized the congresswoman for smearing Thompson, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before our very brave and noble political press holds her to account for tweeting outright falsehoods to her more than 3.5 million Twitter followers. Any minute now, reporters and pundits will denounce the Democratic star for abusing her perch in Congress to slander a private citizen whose greatest sin is that he raised questions about how her office raises and disburses cash.
DOJ
Wall Street Journal: DOJ Probes Whether Fugitive Financier Supplied Donation to Trump Re-Election Effort
By Tom Wright and Bradley Hope
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether $100,000 donated to a Trump-related political fundraising committee originated from a fugitive Malaysian businessman alleged to be at the center of a global financial scandal, according to people familiar with the matter.
The $100,000 donation was made in December 2017 to the Trump Victory committee-which is involved in helping re-elect President Trump in 2020-by Larry Davis, a U.S. citizen who co-owns LNS Capital, a Hawaii-based investment company, people familiar with the investigation say.
Authorities are seeking to determine whether transfers totaling $1.5 million to LNS Capital seven months earlier-originating with the Malaysian businessman, Jho Low-financed Mr. Davis’s donation to Trump Victory, say the people familiar with the matter.
It is a federal offense for foreign individuals or companies to make direct or indirect donations to U.S. politicians or fundraising committees…
Trump Victory is a joint financing committee for the 2020 presidential election involving the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and a number of state Republican parties.
After Mr. Davis donated the money to the committee, more than $60,000 of it was given to the RNC and $5,400 was given directly to the campaign to re-elect Mr. Trump, federal records show. The rest was distributed to state Republican parties and related campaigns.
Political Parties
Daily Caller: Andrew Yang Qualifies For First Democratic Debate
By Peter Hasson
New York entrepreneur Andrew Yang qualified for the first Democratic presidential debate after clearing 65,000 individual donors, Yang announced Monday night.
Democratic candidates can qualify for debates by either reaching the 65,000 donor mark, or by polling over one percent in three polls leading up to the June debate.
The States
Mississippi Center for Public Policy: Donor Privacy Legislation Passes Senate
By Steve Wilson
House Bill 1205 would prohibit state agencies from requesting or releasing donor information on charitable groups organized under section 501 of federal tax law. Some of these groups can engage in political activity.
The bill, which is sponsored by state Rep. Jerry Turner (R-Baldwyn) was originally written to include all of the different 501(c) designations. The bill was amended in the Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee for the bill’s protections to only include 501(c)(3) organizations, which are prohibited from political activity.
A floor amendment changed the bill’s language back to that in the original House language and removed a reverse repealer, which is a legislative tactic on a bill designed to keep alive and invite further discussion by preventing it from becoming law.
“It is an honor to support legislation that prevents corruption and intimidation by protecting the right of people to give to nonprofits of their choice and to prevent the politicization of the right of individuals to give to the causes they hold dear,” said state Sen. Jenifer Branning (R-Philadelphia)…
HB 1205 is being held on a motion to reconsider, which means the Senate will have until Friday to send it to the House for concurrence since it was changed.
If the House concurs with the changes, the bill will go to Gov. Phil Bryant. If not, the two chambers will have to settle their differences in a conference committee.
Albuquerque Journal: GOP lawmakers blast campaign finance bill
By Colleen Heild
Campaign finance reporting legislation on its way to the governor is touted as a way to increase transparency and accountability in New Mexico elections.
But some Republican lawmakers are crying foul because the measure – years in the making – was amended just days before final consideration to give top legislative leaders of both parties authority to create, in the words of one lawmaker, “super-caucus PACs,” that would be allowed to accept contributions up to $25,000 from a single donor for a primary election and another $25,000 for the general.
Further, there would be no limit to in-kind contributions to a candidate from a legislative caucus committee.
The additional fundraising ability – which also applies to political parties – puts legislative leaders in position to help boost political campaigns for chosen candidates and initiatives.
Republican leaders also say House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, gave lawmakers “incorrect” information earlier this month in arguing for the amendment when he told a House Committee it wouldn’t change contribution limits. Egolf said Tuesday that he should have used different language…
The designated leaders of the legislative caucus committees would be two Democrats and two Republicans – House speaker and minority floor leader and the Senate majority and minority floor leaders. Each would form one legislative caucus and would be the designated leader of his or her caucus committee…
The measure, approved by both the House and Senate last weekend along mostly party lines, is SB3. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is required to act on the measure this week.
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Shining a brighter light on campaign finance in Ohio
By Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose
These campaign finance reports should be searchable and available on your county board of elections and the Ohio Secretary of State websites. That’s why I’m supporting new legislation being introduced this week by state Sen. Michael Rulli that will allow local candidates for office to finally submit their campaign finance reports online…
In addition to the reforms being proposed in this new Ohio Senate bill, there is much more work to be done to bring true and real transparency to campaign finance reform. For too long, partisans on both sides of the aisle and deep-pocketed special interests have taken advantage of loopholes in campaign finance law to anonymously influence our elections.
Need an example? In 2017, voters were debating Issue 2, a ballot initiative which focused on drug pricing. Without debating the merits of the policy, consider that more than $74 million was spent on the ballot issue by both sides — making this the most expensive campaign in Ohio history. What’s worse is that this money, spent to motivate voters, was completely anonymous. The two entities on either side of this contest reported their money in and money out, as required by law — but who really were the Ohioans in the “Ohioans Against the Deceptive Rx Ballot Issue” and “Ohio Taxpayers for Lower Drug Prices” organizations? We’ll never know specifically where that money came from. Unless we do something about it, there’s nothing to stop this from happening again and again for both issue campaigns and independent efforts seeking to help one candidate or another.
I’m committed to finding ways for state law to help reform this broken system. It’s simply the right thing to do for the health of Ohio’s civic life. It’s about time we begin shining a bright light on the dark money that influences our politics.
