CCP
CCP Response to Campaign Legal Center’s Response to CCP’s Comments on New Mexico House Bill 278
By Matt NeseOn behalf of the Center for Competitive Politics (CCP), I respectfully write in response to the February 28 letter of the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) raising objections to CCP’s analysis of House Bill 278. While CCP stands by the analysis conveyed in our February 17 letter, I nevertheless write to correct certain of CLC’s statements.In many respects, the competing analyses of CCP and CLC reflect differing views of the First Amendment. While CCP believes that “the First Amendment has its fullest and most urgent application to speech uttered during a campaign for office,”[1] and consequently advocates for a robust understanding of the Constitution’s protections of speech and association, CLC represents a narrow understanding of those same political liberties. In particular, CLC argues that the public’s interest in the funders of “election-related” speech is essentially limitless, even when communications are not related to an election, contributors are unaware that their funds will be used for that speech, and the technical burdens placed upon reporting organizations would be substantial. Consequently, CLC has downplayed or ignored court decisions placing limits on compelled disclosure, while trumpeting out-of-context passages culled from extremely lengthy and technical court rulings. Doubtless, CLC’s views are held in good faith, as are ours. But legislators should recall that “[w]here the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor.”[2]In that spirit, a few of CCP’s original objections do not, as CLC concedes, appear in the current version of H.B. 278 as substituted by the House Safety and Civil Affairs Committee. Consequently, I will limit these comments to the occasions where CLC goes beyond merely arguing a restricted view of the First Amendment. In certain cases, CLC has misrepresented the case law, or suggested that the Supreme Court has foreclosed CCP’s constitutional concerns. I write to note these errors and omissions, and to correct them. I also wish to emphasize that the bill, as it currently stands, proposes severe harms to the rights of free speech and association guaranteed by the First Amendment.
In the News
Election Law Blog: Schmitt on Reform Skeptics and Romantics
By Bruce CaneFirst, Mark mistakes our realism about second best solutions for party nostalgia and romanticism. In some ideal reform world, perhaps, the Supreme Court would have taken a less strict view of the accepted justifications for campaign spending restrictions, but we have to take their decisions as a constraint for the foreseeable future. These decisions have proliferated independent spending and dark money by outside groups. Perhaps the best long-term strategy for those who do not like the status quo is to work for changes in the Supreme Court’s composition. But failing that, we should be open to a second best strategy that tries to redirect more of the money flow into the regulated and disclosed channels and away from independent spending. The Court has recently made that task somewhat easier by lifting the aggregate limits on contributions to parties and candidates, but there is more that could be done to allow larger donations to the party organizations and leaders that prioritize winning over purity. This may prove to be wrong advice, but it is not nostalgic or romantic. Nor is it the same reason the American Political Science Association endorsed responsible parties many decades ago.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Bloomberg: Lindsey Graham is Campaign Finance Reform-Curious
By David Weigel“New Hampshire is an antidote to big money,” Graham said. “I would like to control the money in politics to the extent it will destroy the political process. There are probably 50 people in the country you’ve got to go to and see if they’d support you, because there’s unlimited giving … if we don’t have some control over the money, the most influential people in the country are going to be the ones with the most money.”
Wall Street Journal: Clinton-Alt-Delete
EditorialThe biggest news Tuesday was Mrs. Clinton’s disclosure that she has since destroyed the rest of the emails that she didn’t turn over to State. These were “personal” business, she averred, and “I didn’t see any reason to keep them.” They were about, you know, things like daughter Chelsea’s wedding, her mother’s funeral, and her “yoga routines,” and “no one wants their personal emails made public.”Now, that’s what we call convenient. With those emails gone, and her private server off-limits to investigators, no one else will be able to see how much of that “private” business really was private. Though Mrs. Clinton conducted both State business and personal business in her personal account, only she gets to determine what was really personal and what was the business of State.
State and Local
Arizona –– AP: Arizona Senate refuses to ask voters to kill Clean Elections
The measure can return for a second vote through a procedural maneuver.The question would be on the 2016 ballot if the House and Senate ultimately approve SCR1001.Pierce says after more than 15 years it’s time for voters to re-evaluate clean elections and public campaign financing.But opponents argue that it is wrong to force voters to choose between clean elections and funding schools.
Kentucky –– AP: House blocks attempt to double campaign contribution limits
The Republican-led state Senate passed a bill Monday that would increase donation limits to $2,000 from $1,000, a move that would affect the governor’s race in November. But House leaders said on Tuesday they wanted more time to study the issue.The move by the House sends the bill to a conference committee, where House and Senate lawmakers would have to work out a compromise if the bill is to pass this year. Lawmakers are scheduled to meet Wednesday before a nine-day recess. The legislature will adjourn on March 24.
Montana –– The Montana Standard: Campaign bill goes to panel viewed as more favorable
By Charles S. JohnsonHELENA — After a flurry of motions, some House Republicans and most Democrats voted Monday to send the session’s major campaign finance bill to a committee considered more likely to support it than the panel where election measures usually go.The House took six votes on various parliamentary motions in seven minutes before finally voting 50-49 on a motion by Rep. Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls, to send Senate Bill 289 to the House Business and Labor Committee.Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip, is sponsoring the bill for Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock. It would require all money — both contributions and expenses — raised and spent by groups for campaign electioneering to be disclosed. Ankney said it would shine the spotlight on groups that have made anonymous “dark money” attacks on candidates in recent years.
New Mexico –– The New Mexican: Democrat: Abolishing campaign donation limits will help fight ‘dark money’
By Steve TerrellSix years ago, the state Legislature passed and the governor signed a bill that established limits on campaign contributions in statewide and legislative races in New Mexico. On Tuesday, a Senate committee voted to abolish those limits.With bipartisan support, the Senate Rules Committee passed Senate Bill 689, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez, D-Belen. Sanchez said in an interview after the vote that he introduced the bill in an effort to get contributors to give directly to candidates’ campaigns rather than to independent expenditure groups, such as super PACS and nonprofits, which are neither subject to contribution limits nor required to disclose the names of donors.Sanchez noted the campaign contribution limits were passed before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which found limitations on contributions to independent expenditure groups are an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech.
Rhode Island –– AP: Lawmaker submits campaign finance bill after Fox scandal
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – A lawmaker has introduced a bill to require candidates to create a separate bank account for campaign funds.The House of Representatives is reviewing the campaign finance system after ex-House Speaker Gordon Fox pleaded guilty to exploiting weaknesses in it.Fox acknowledges making dozens of interbank transfers totaling $108,000, taking the money from his campaign account and using it for personal expenses.
Virginia –– Politico: Strange bedfellows defend Bob McDonnell
By Adam B. LernerNine of ten amici briefs filed last week and Monday argue that the definition of “official acts” used to convict McDonnell is too broad. And though none of the briefs dispute the fact that McDonnell’s family received upwards of $170,000 in gifts and loans from the CEO of a dietary supplement company, they each claim that the access and networking McDonnell offered in exchange were not exertions of gubernatorial power that should be considered “official acts.”The implication of the briefs is clear: If what McDonnell did constitutes federal corruption, then any number of federal and state officials, Democrats and Republicans, are equally guilty.Signers of the briefs include a number of former government officials with skin in the game — 44 former state attorneys general (23 of whom are Democrats), two former U.S. attorneys general, attorneys for the past five presidents, and the Republican Governors Association — as well as conservative and liberal scholars united around a separate idea that states should be allowed to determine their own corruption laws.
