In the News
Overton County News: SCOTUS limits asset forfeiture
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously ‘Wednesday, Feb. 20 that civil asset forfeiture as widely practiced by state and local governments can violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and its prohibition against excessive fines. On her second day back on the bench after undergoing cancer surgery, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg announced the Timbs v. Indiana decision.
“For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history: Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties,” Ginsburg wrote. “Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. … Even absent a political motive, fines may be employed in a measure out of accord with the penal goals of retribution and deterrence.” …
The Institute for Justice received amicus brief support from libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, but support for this case also proved to span the ideological spectrum. The left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Constitutional Accountability Center, and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also filed their own supportive briefs alongside the right-leaning Judicial Watch, Institute for Free Speech, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Congress
By Kevin Breuninger
Senate Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping bill to protect and expand voting access, limit big-money influence in elections and boost public officials’ ethics requirements, following the passage of near-identical legislation in the House.
But even Democrats doubt that the ambitious bill stands much of a chance of making it through the Republican-held Senate led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The “For The People Act,” introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., offers a laundry list of reforms that its Democratic sponsors claim will “put power back in the hands of the American people.” …
Schumer, at a press event Wednesday morning, challenged the Republican majority in the Senate: “Where do they stand on dark money cascading into our system? Where do they stand on making it easier, not harder, for people to exercise their right to vote? Where do they stand on cleaning up the swamp?”
The Senate bill was introduced less than three weeks after its so-called companion legislation in the House, H.R. 1, cleared that Democrat-led chamber on a 234-193 party-line vote.
McConnell’s stance on H.R. 1 suggests he will refuse to allow a vote on the Senate Democrats’ bill…
The White House said in a statement in early March that “if H.R. 1 were presented to the President, his advisors would recommend he veto the bill.”
HuffPost: Every Senate Democrat Backs Sweeping Campaign Finance, Voting Rights and Ethics Reform Bill
By Paul Blumenthal
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) on Wednesday introduced the Senate version of the campaign finance, voting rights and ethics reform bill that House Democrats made their top priority.
With all 47 Senate Democrats signed on as co-sponsors, Udall’s bill marks a newfound unanimity in the party in favor of establishing publicly financed congressional elections and dramatically expanding voting rights.
“Every single member of the Senate Democratic caucus is an original cosponsor of our For The People Act – which means that every single congressional Democrat, in the House and Senate, supports this landmark package of reforms,” Udall said in a statement. “That is historic, and as Mitch McConnell vows to do the bidding of the special interests and obstruct these badly-needed reforms, the contrast that we are laying out for the American people could not be clearer.” …
The For The People Act is a bill “that we can take on tour for the next two years and basically say: Why won’t Mitch McConnell bring this to the floor of the Senate? What’s he scared of? Why’s he standing against democracy?” Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), the lead sponsor of the House bill, told HuffPost after the bill passed the House…
Support from Democratic Party presidential candidates will also help amplify the party’s pro-reform message to voters, Sarbanes argued. The Senate bill is endorsed by six declared presidential candidates.
Online Speech Platforms
Reason: Devin Nunes’ Lawsuit Against Twitter Is an Attack on Every American’s Right to Free Speech (Video)
By Peter Suderman, Ian Keyser & Todd Krainin
According to Republican Congressman Devin Nunes, the abuse he’s endured on Twitter is of a “breadth and scope” that “no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life.” He’s been called a “presidential fluffer and swamp rat,” a “Putin shill,” an “unscrupulous, craven, back-stabbing, charlatan and traitor,” and “voted ‘Most Likely to Commit Treason’ in high school.”
Now this California lawmaker and Trump ally is suing Twitter for $250,000,000 for “emotional distress and mental suffering, and injury to his personal and professional reputations.” He’s also asking the court to force Twitter to reveal the true identities behind the “Devin Nunes’ Mom,” “Devin Nunes’ cow,” “Fire Devin Nunes,” and “Devin Nunes Grapes” accounts.
On what grounds can an elected official sue a social media platform for speech that offends him? “Twitter is not merely a website,” the lawsuit alleges: “it is the modern town square”-a “public forum” with a “private owner.”
Named in the quarter-of-a-billion dollar lawsuit, right alongside “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’s Cow,” is Liz Mair, a Republican strategist and self-described libertarian. Mair angered Nunes for, among other things, delivering a pair of yellow New Balances to his congressional office after he ran out of a committee hearing on the Russia scandal.
Reason’s Peter Suderman sat down with Mair to talk about the lawsuit and what it means for free speech on the internet.
Fundraising
New York Times: Inside Kamala Harris’s Small-Dollar Fund-Raising Operation
By Shane Goldmacher
Over the last two years, Ms. Harris has systematically constructed a database of donors and email addresses that raised several million dollars for her fellow Democrats, demonstrating an uncommon potency for a first-term senator, according to federal election records and interviews with numerous political strategists. Now, as she makes her own run for president, her digital following serves as a kind of stealth weapon, putting her in perhaps the best position to challenge the small-dollar fund-raising operations of two top rivals, former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Those two candidates outgunned every other 2020 Democratic candidate with their roughly $6 million hauls in the first day of fund-raising, besting Ms. Harris by 4 to 1. Ms. Harris raised $1.5 million, the next-highest total in the field, from more than 38,000 donors in the first 24 hours.
In a campaign in which small donations have emerged as an early proxy for viability, Ms. Harris’s team hopes her grass-roots appeal will allow her to compete at the highest level of American politics. The first full look at her strength will come in her total fund-raising for the first quarter of 2019, which ends Sunday and will be publicly disclosed in the first half of April…
Unlike Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, who have sworn off big-money fund-raisers, Ms. Harris has raced across the country to appear at events where donors give as much as $2,800 to attend; last week she held fund-raisers in Texas and California.
Political Parties
The Intercept: The DCCC Is Trying to Put Me Out of Business – and I’m a Democrat.
By Monica Klein
Six hours after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced that it was blacklisting firms that work with primary challengers, I met with a potential client who was considering a Democratic primary. The client told me that two consultants dropped out that morning – and now the candidate may not run at all.
The timing of the DCCC’s blacklist is not remotely coincidental. In the first quarter of an off-year, many potential candidates decide whether to jump into a race. If campaign staff dries up before day one, a once-daunting campaign can feel impossible.
This is precisely what the DCCC wants. The committee is hoping that these young women will stop contemplating challenges against Democratic incumbents. We can’t allow the DCCC to succeed and block these brave challengers…
Our party desperately needs countless more Ocasio-Cortezes who won’t wait until their representative is done serving – especially when these elected officials have stopped “serving” anyone but themselves and their donors…
Yet instead of embracing Ocasio-Cortez and the fresh path she has opened, the DCCC and other national “Democratic” organizations are wrapping their arms more tightly around the heavily white, male incumbent Democrats in Washington.
As astounding as Ocasio-Cortez’s meteoric rise was, part of the now-infamous story is how she did it with just grassroots volunteers and minimal campaign infrastructure…
Outsider candidates without political experience – say, a former bartender or a public school teacher – are precisely the types of leaders we need more of in Washington, and exactly the types of candidates who benefit the most from early campaign guidance.
Candidates and Campaigns
Washington Post: Why Trump probably won’t get in trouble for campaign finance violations
By Stephen R. Weissman
[T]he most effective route toward creating “reasonable doubt” would be to show that Trump did not “willfully” break the law.
This contention was the bedrock of Lowell’s closing argument in the Edwards case… [H]e highlighted the testimony of two longtime veterans of the federal campaign finance system: the campaign’s chief financial officer and a former member of the Federal Election Commission.
Both agreed that the specific issue of whether donor payments for personal expenses of a “third party” associated with an affair were illegal in-kind contributions had never come up during their careers. The CFO also noted that after Edwards was indicted, FEC staff auditing his campaign’s financial reports raised no concerns about its failure to disclose the payments in question. In light of this testimony about the law’s silence on the matter, Lowell asked, how could Edwards be found to be deliberately violating the law?
Trump could have an easier time demonstrating that he did not act “willfully.” Unlike Edwards, who was well-acquainted with federal contribution limits as a former senator, vice-presidential nominee and presidential candidate, Trump was a political novice. His then-lawyer, Cohen, has acknowledged that he did not provide Trump with legal advice challenging his schemes. Trump’s campaign counsel (and former White House counsel) Donald McGahn was an election law expert and former FEC commissioner. But no evidence has appeared that Trump consulted him. Even if he had, Trump is most unlikely to have encountered opposition to his schemes.
At a July 2011 FEC meeting that concluded the audit of Edwards’s campaign, McGahn declared that the mistress payments alleged in the just-issued federal indictment were “not reportable” as contributions or expenditures.
The States
Burlington County Times: Dark money disclosure bill advanced to Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk
By David Levinsky
Legislation to require so-called “dark money” groups operating in New Jersey to reveal their donors has reached Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk…
Murphy has expressed support for requiring disclosure, but has not indicated if he would sign the bill as written…
The bill has undergone several changes after being approved by the Senate last month, but it would still mandate the disclosure of contributors who give more than $10,000 to nonprofit 501(c)4 groups that are not currently subject to disclosure requirements if they engage in political activities, lobbying or campaigning. It would also mandate the disclosure of expenses of more than $3,000 and would also boost contribution limits to state and county political committees…
Stricken from the bill was language that would have made it retroactive to Jan. 1, 2018…
The Assembly removed the retroactive language, and the Senate removed wording making 501(c)6s, such as chambers of commerce, trade boards and business leagues, subject to the requirements.
The bill has still garnered opposition from several nonprofits that have complained it is too broad and could jeopardize the privacy of people who donate to nonpartisan groups like the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union…
Amol Sinha, executive director of the ACLU, has said the measure could unintentionally have a “chilling effect” on the ACLU and other groups.
“We advocate for transparency, but we also advocate for privacy,” Sinha said during a January hearing on the bill…
Supporters have said the bill doesn’t seek to discriminate between so-called “good or bad actors,” but requires disclosure of all groups that want to sway elections, legislation or policy.
Mississippi Business Journal: Transparency or targeting? Bill Crawford’s big lie
By Jameson Taylor
I was troubled to read Bill Crawford’s recent op-ed about “dark money.” It’s not honest, it’s not fair, and it’s not transparent. Bill Crawford is lying about House Bill 1205.
HB 1205 does one very simple thing: it allows a nonprofit whose donor list has been leaked by a rogue government official defend itself in state court. The bill changes nothing pertaining to nonprofit donor disclosure or transparency already required by the Secretary of State (lines 17-19). The bill changes nothing pertaining to federal donor disclosure or transparency. (Pro Tip: State law can’t override federal law or federal regulation, including IRS rules.) The bill changes nothing pertaining to Mississippi campaign finance law (lines 73-75). The bill changes nothing pertaining to a political action committee (PAC). None of these things are touched by HB 1205, and anyone who says or implies otherwise is lying…
I trust Gov. Bryant is going to set the record straight by signing HB 1205 and protecting the right of every individual to support the causes they believe in without fear of discrimination and retaliation. In doing so, he’ll be affirming that Mississippi is still a place – unlike California or New York or Washington State – where we understand the difference between transparency and targeting.
The Nation: New York State Can Lead the Country on Publicly Financed Elections
By John Nichols
Democratic presidential candidates can signal their support for real reform by backing state-based initiatives to counter the compromising and corrupting influence of big money on our politics.
That’s what Elizabeth Warren did Monday, when she declared that “Public financing of elections is the single best solution to reduce the undue influence of big money in our politics.” Highlighting a critical push this week by the group Fair Elections for New York for establishment of a system of publicly financed elections, Warren tweeted to her 2.32 million followers: “New York could be on the road to #FairElections this week! Hope this passes in the state budget.” …
New York, where Democrats now control the governorship and both chambers of the legislature, is in a position to lead. A broad-based coalition of labor, environmental, racial- and social-justice groups, organized as Fair Elections for New York, is making the push for doable and potentially transformative reform proposal…
Time is of the essence, as the deadline for a state budget is April 1.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been advocating for meaningful reform of the state’s campaign-inance system-including the publicly funded matching plan-as have key legislators. The question is whether a clearly defined commitment to these reforms will be included in the 2019-20 state budget.
Earlier this month, Cuomo told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer said that he was “cautiously optimistic” that the plan will be included in the budget. On Tuesday, he restated his support in unequivocal terms, which is encouraging.
Grand Forks Herald: North Dakota House approves bill to protect pipelines, critical infrastructure
By Amy Dalrymple, Bismarck Tribune
A bill approved Monday, March 25, in the North Dakota House aims to prevent people from tampering with pipelines and other energy infrastructure, but opponents argue it will stifle free speech.
House members voted 76-14 in favor of Senate Bill 2044, introduced in response to activists who turned an emergency valve of an oil pipeline in northeast North Dakota in 2016…
The bill includes a penalty for an organization that is found guilty of conspiring with an individual who tampers with or damages critical infrastructure.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the bill criminalizes activity beyond intentionally damaging infrastructure to include “interfering with” or “inhibiting” the operations of critical infrastructure.
“Existing law already prohibits trespass and malicious destruction of property and conspiracies to commit the same,” said Heather Smith, executive director of the ACLU of North Dakota.
Smith added that making an organization criminally liable for all damage would “impermissibly burden the rights of political association that are protected by the First Amendment.”
