In the News
Politico: Clinton joint fundraising effort falls into ‘gray area’
Nick Gass
Nothing in Deutsch’s letter is on its face incorrect, Noble said. Whether it’s illegal? It’s a “gray area,” he added, warning that these sorts of arrangements would only grow unless they are stopped.
Others were not sure. Bradley Smith, a law professor at Capital University who served on the FEC for five years in the early 2000s, said the letter from Sanders’ campaign does not give him enough information to make an assessment.
Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at University of California Irvine, wrote on his Election Law Blog on Monday that “legally,” Sanders’ case “seems weak.”
FEC
The Hill: Republican warns of creeping threat of media regulation at FEC
Mario Trujillo
Publishers and filmmakers should be wary of Democrats at the Federal Election Commission trying to squeeze them out of an exemption created for the press, according to FEC Republican Commissioner Lee Goodman.
Goodman used a five-page statement, released Monday, to scold Democrats on the commission for trying to continue an investigation into a company that created and distributed a conspiracy theory film ahead of the 2012 election that claimed that President Obama’s real father was Franklin Marshall Davis, described as “an American Communist.”…
The FEC requires many organizations to report the donations they receive and any expenses used when attempting to sway federal elections. However, there is a broad press exemption for news or commentary released through newspapers, magazines and other media as long as they are not owned by a political committee or a candidate.
The FEC general counsel had previously recommended the film should fall under the press exemption.
Washington Examiner: Charge: FEC Dems would ban Drudge, NYT, free media on election eve
Paul Bedard
In rejecting the movie maker’s bid for the media exemption, Weintraub said, “Press entities do not act as press entities when they distribute millions of free DVDs immediately before an election solely in electoral swing states.”
Goodman wrote in a statement that her words could target any media that distributes news free at the end of the election in key states, from Drudge to the New York Times.
“There is no ambiguity in the point of this curt statement: all otherwise bona fide press entities are subject to investigation by the federal government through either the Commission (or the Department of Justice) based on nothing more than the means they pursue to market and exhibit their otherwise fully protected content,” he wrote.
Goodman explained: “There is nothing unusual about a press entity’s publication of election-related commentary in the months, weeks, and even days before an election when the public’s interest is piqued. Newspaper editorials are commonplace in the weeks and days leading up to an election. It also is common for press entities to distribute their fully-protected electoral commentary and advocacy free of charge.”
Independent Groups
USA Today: PAC donations from elderly donors draw scrutiny
Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars
Donations from hundreds of retirees such as Paulsen have helped make VIGOP, an obscure fundraising committee from the tiny U.S. territory, one of the top-spending political action committees in a constellation of groups tied to Virginia-based political treasurer Scott B. Mackenzie.
Sheila Krumholz, who examines political spending as head of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, called Mackenzie an “outlier” in the world of federal elections. Her tally of some 1,200 political action committees that are aligned with Democrats or Republicans or other ideological groups shows that, on average, 26% of what they take in is spent on political contributions.
“Mackenzie is giving virtually zero percent in campaign contributions for his biggest committees,” she said. “He’s in a different league because he has a slew of these (PACs). People think they are giving to these various operations, but there’s a whole lot of self-dealing going on behind the scenes in terms of the vendors that he uses.”
In an interview, Mackenzie defended his practices, saying the PACs’ operating costs are high because “it’s expensive to fundraise.”
Free Speech
Washington Post: Sanders campaign law firm demands that critic stop selling ‘Bernie is my comrade’ T-shirts
Eugene Volokh
That contention is absurd. You cannot use trademark theories to silence members of the American public who disagree with your client’s views and oppose his candidacy. They can hardly express their views in that respect without identifying the candidacy about which they wish to speak; and it is precisely because the logo is so recognizable that it is an excellent way of specifying which “Bernie” is the subject of commentary. Moreover, it is very common for people to express their views about presidential candidacies, completely independent of the campaign; such expression is so common that it defies belief that a reasonably careful consumer would believe that a shirt or bumper sticker associating your client with Communists necessarily came from the campaign itself.
Corporate Speech
New York Times: Ben and Jerry Deliver Free Ice Cream and Politics in Washington
Jada F. Smith
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, held an event on Monday night on the campus of George Washington University, where they personally scooped ice cream and spoke to students about campaign finance overhaul…
Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Sanders would get money out of politics, so that “we could create a situation where the oil companies and the coal companies are not dictating our energy policy, and the health insurance companies are not dictating our health care policies.”
“And you don’t end up getting saddled with humongous amounts of student debt because of the influence of the banks,” he said.
The two have spoken out on political issues before — even getting arrested earlier on Monday at the Capitol as part of “Democracy Spring” demonstrations that have been going on for the past week — but this election is the first in which they have personally made ice cream and customized light-up yard signs for a candidate, or given speeches around the country to help one get elected.
Regulation
RegBlog: Campaign Finance’s Creeping Deregulation
Richard L. Hasen
Citizens United’s holding did not lead directly to broad deregulation. Few corporations want to spend money directly in their own name on election ads. But Citizens United led to additional lawsuits and requests for advisory opinions at the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The result was the emergence of “Super PACs,” groups which can take unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, and labor unions to fund election campaigns.
Now, rather than specific wealthy individuals or entities having to have their names on every ad as a sponsor, they can give the money to an anodyne-sounding group (like Stephen Colbert’s “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow” Super PAC), allowing for unlimited funding with fewer fingerprints.
Influence
Washington Free Beacon: Pelosi’s Husband Invested in Solar Firm Weeks Before Lucrative Expansion
Lachlan Markay
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s husband bought up to a quarter million dollars of stock in a now financially troubled green energy company just weeks before it announced a major 2014 acquisition that sent stock prices soaring, public records show.
SunEdison told regulators last week that it is eyeing bankruptcy under the weight of $11.7 million in debt. But in late 2014, investors were bullish on the company, which manufactures and operates solar and wind power facilities…
Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, had invested just in time. He bought between $100,000 and $250,000 in SunEdison stock on Oct. 24, 2014, according to congressional financial disclosures. The company announced its First Wind acquisition on Nov. 17.
Pelosi’s office did not respond to questions about the timing of the purchase and whether she or her husband had any advance knowledge of the deal.
XXL Magazine: 12 Rappers Who’ve Endorsed Hillary Clinton
Sidney Madden
Rappers young and old, from Snoop Dogg and Slick Rick to A$AP Rocky and Bobby Shmurda, have been candid and vocal when endorsing Clinton, saying that it’s time for a woman to get the job done. Since the 2016 Presidential candidates for both Democratic and Republican parties are putting in big bids and today (April 19) is primary voting day in New York, find out who in the hip-hop world is backing Hillary Clinton. Is your favorite MC on Team Hillary? Take a look in the gallery above.
Candidates and Campaigns
Wall Street Journal: Presidential Cash Dash: What to Watch For in the March Campaign Reports
Rebecca Ballhaus
Campaigns and super PACs are required to disclose their March fundraising details to the Federal Election Commission by midnight on Wednesday, offering a window into how their raising and spending levels have shifted as the race wears on. February’s reports showed how candidates and their allies adapted their operations to the first round of nominating contests. The new filings will reveal whether they doubled down on their tactics, or tried new ones.
Here are five things we’ll be looking for in Wednesday’s reports:
CPI: Underdog Sanders outspends Clinton on airwaves in New York
Dave Levinthal and Michael Beckel
Cruz and Kasich, along with their supportive super PACs, spent just $1.1 million on television and radio advertisements in the state ahead of today’s election, according to data from The Tracking Firm, a nonpartisan media tracking company headquartered in Washington, D.C.
All the while Trump — who has benefited from a large volume of free, “earned media” — did not air a single TV ad and spent a paltry $67,000 on radio ads in New York.
By contrast, Sanders spent more than $6.8 million on television and radio ads in New York, according to data provided to the Center for Public Integrity by The Tracking Firm — about $3 million more than Clinton.
The States
New York Times: Inquiry of Mayor de Blasio Fund-Raising Extends to ’14 State Senate Races
William K. Rashbaum
Prosecutors are focused on whether there was an effort to evade campaign contribution limits. They are trying to determine whether contributions solicited by the mayor went to smaller county committees with the intention that they then be passed on to candidates in the contested races, the two people said. Those county committees have no limits on campaign contributions from individuals, groups or companies, but candidates’ committees do.
In addition to the focus on the Senate campaign, federal authorities are continuing their investigation of the fund-raising of Mr. de Blasio’s mayoral campaign. On Monday, F.B.I. agents and state investigators made an early morning visit to the Brooklyn home of Mr. de Blasio’s former finance director, Ross A. Offinger, two other people said.
Mississippi Clarion-Ledger: House shoots down reform of ‘legalized bribery’ system
Geoff Pender
Mississippi politicians, as long as they avoid the tax man, can continue spending campaign money in ways that would land them in jail in most other states after the House killed a reform measure on a voice vote.
The voice vote Tuesday ensures constituents can’t tell how their representatives voted on the first serious effort at campaign-finance and politician ethics reform in decades. The vote effectively killed the measure, although it technically could be revived as the legislative session enters its final days.…
The lengthy bill also included an overhaul and cleanup of election and voting laws being pushed by Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, including a crackdown on PACs running anonymous ads and failing to report their creation and finances. Lawmakers had previously killed a measure Hosemann pushed for early voting up to 21 days before an election.
Flathead Beacon: Judge Weighs Whether Low Contribution Limits are Justified
Matt Volz, Associated Press
What Montana officials call evidence of corruption that justifies the state’s low campaign contribution limits is really just democracy in action, an attorney for individuals, groups and political organizations trying to strike down the limits said Monday.
Montana is defending its contribution caps, which are among the lowest in the nation, in a federal lawsuit that claims they unconstitutionally restrict freedom of speech, association and candidates’ ability to raise enough money to effectively campaign.
