Free Speech
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Political inquisitions on the rise
Editorial Board
Now congressmen are getting in on the act. Three of them — California’s Maxine Waters, Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, and Texas’ Al Green — recently wrote to the Federal Trade Commission demanding an investigation into advertisements they don’t like.
The advertisements advocate reforms to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency created five years ago in the wake of the financial crisis. They quote the congressmen saying things such as “The CFPB needs to clean up its act,” and the congressmen claim their words have been taken out of context. Gracious…
Take note that this dispute has nothing to do with campaign finance, which is the context in which the term “dark money” usually appears. There is no threat of corruption, since the ads focus on a federal agency, not an individual politician. Despite that, we are supposed to believe there is something sinister about a group of citizens paying to broadcast their opinions about a government entity.
In their letter, the congressmen profess “wholehearted support for the First Amendment” — and then proceed to insist that “free speech may be appropriately restricted.” They are upset that the group’s ads aim to “hinder the effectiveness of” a federal agency and want another federal agency to investigate the use of their words by the “misleadingly-named, tax-sheltered, secretly-funded corporation” and take “corrective action.”
In short, the congressmen are demanding that a federal agency censor political speech about another federal agency because they don’t like the way they have been quoted. It’s not hard to see how the logic of such a demand could be extended to other institutions that also engage in political speech about government agencies — such as, oh, newspapers and magazines.
This is dangerous business, and not just for conservative groups. If inquisitions like these become accepted practice at one point on the political spectrum, they will soon be adopted by other points along it as well. The result will expose vast swaths of legitimate political discourse on the air, in print, and on the Internet to criminal and regulatory sanction. Then you can kiss your free speech goodbye.
Independent Groups
The Hill: The Democrats’ dark money hypocrisy
Richard Berman
It confirms former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s recent admission, “Labor unions are super-PACs Democrats like so we don’t go after labor unions.”
Clinton and Sanders should face the facts: If ours is truly a “corrupt campaign finance system,” then Big Labor propagates that system and labor reform is in order. The Employee Rights Act (ERA), for instance, would reign in union bosses’ massive political budget. It would require labor organizers to obtain opt-in permission from the rank-and-file—40 percent of whom vote Republican—before spending member dues on political activities and lobbying. This subjects union political spending to more democratic scrutiny.
Politico: Former ‘stop Trump’ megadonor switches sides
Alex Isenstadt
In an interview on Monday, Hubbard said he was still no fan of Trump, but he said that he viewed him as a better choice than Hillary Clinton. And he called on the party’s donor class, much of which remains deeply skeptical of Trump, to get on board.
“All of my favorite candidates dropped out one by one. We’re down to my least favorite candidate. And my least favorite candidate is better than Hillary Clinton in terms of what’s best for the country,” said Hubbard.
“I’m very happy to get behind Mr. Trump. He’s our best hope at this time,” said Hubbard, who over the years has been a major funder of the Karl Rove-founded American Crossroads. “He’s our candidate. There’s no point in crying about it.”
The Media
Gizmodo: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
Michael Nunez
The former curator was so troubled by the omissions that they kept a running log of them at the time; this individual provided the notes to Gizmodo. Among the deep-sixed or suppressed topics on the list: former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder. “I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news,” the former curator said.
Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. “It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,” said the former curator. “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.”
SEC
New York Times: Why Dark Money Is Bad Business
Kathleen M. Donovan-Maher and Steven L. Groopman
One of the most promising strategies to stem the tide of corporate dark money is a proposed rule at the Securities and Exchange Commission that would require public companies to report the amounts and recipients of their political spending. The rule has received a groundswell of support from a bipartisan group of former S.E.C. commissioners, state treasurers and law professors, and has generated more than one million public comments.
Defenders of the status quo argue the companies are simply exercising their right to free speech; critics contend that such speech, when anonymous, does immense harm to the democratic process.
Candidates and Campaigns
CNBC: Why billionaire Trump faces $$$ disadvantage versus Hillary
Jacob Pramuk
Trump loaned his campaign most of its cash for the GOP primary, which he all but won last week when his last remaining rivals suspended their campaigns. But facing higher spending demands in a likely contest with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the billionaire businessman has started to set up a more traditional fundraising organization.
Trump faces a tough task in quickly establishing a fundraising structure and securing the support of deep-pocketed Republican donors.
“I believe it’s going to be hard. He’s starting at a substantial organizational disadvantage to Hillary Clinton,” said Michael Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.
Wall Street Journal: Financial Sector Gives Hillary Clinton a Boost
Brody Mullins and Rebecca Ballhaus
The analysis of campaign-finance reports shows that some Wall Street donors have shifted their financial support from Republican candidates who dropped out of the race, such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, to Mrs. Clinton in recent months.
Mr. Trump, by contrast, hasn’t garnered more than 1% of Wall Street contributions in any month through March.
To be sure, it is still early in the general election money race, and Mr. Trump hasn’t aggressively pursued the finance sector for funds so far.
The States
San Antonio Express-News: Legal experts: Texas law banning use of legislative footage in political ads likely to be struck down
David Saleh Rauf
For the past 20 years, state lawmakers could rely on a Texas statute to thwart political opponents from using video and audio recorded on the House and Senate floor in attack ads.
That could soon change.
A tea party House candidate challenging one of Speaker Joe Straus’ lieutenants in a runoff is suing the Texas Ethics Commission to strike down a law barring the use of footage produced by the Legislature in political ads. That includes archived audio and video from the floor of the House and Senate, along with committee hearings.
Ethics experts and lawyers say the statute appears to violate the First Amendment and is likely to be shot down in the courts since taxpayers pick up the tab to record and store the footage from the Legislature.
Tucson Sentinel: Dark money group leads last-minute effort to speed up campaign finance changes
Evan Wyloge
The amendment directly borrows language regarding the requirements for a 501c(4) organization to register as a political committee from SB1516, which was passed and signed by Gov. Doug Ducey earlier this year.
The measure passed the Senate and House on party-line votes, with just a handful of House GOP members voting against it. It was sent to Ducey on Saturday.
Under existing law, those groups, which do not disclose the source of their income, have to pass the “primary purpose” test, meaning they have to spend a majority of their money on non-electioneering.
Politico New York: Senate committee advances bills targeting LLC campaign money and de Blasio
Bill Mahoney
On Monday, the Senate’s elections committee advanced a bill that would make it a class D felony to steer money to specific candidates through county or town party committees. It’s currently unclear whether it’s possible to run afoul of state prohibitions on attempting to circumvent contribution limits or mask the identity of donors by sending money through party committees as the mayor’s allies did in 2014.
De Blasio has been adamant that he acted within the confines of the law and existing practice, though many of his opponents claim he overstepped what’s acceptable. These opponents include Sen. Terrence Murphy, a Republican who is the bill’s sponsor and was a target of the money directed by the mayor in 2014, who has referred to the fundraising efforts as a “statewide corruption scandal engineered by the mayor.”
Great Falls Tribune: Group asks judge to strike state campaign finance laws
Associated Press
Portions of Montana’s campaign finance law are so vague and broad that the state regulator can enforce the law against groups he dislikes, while ignoring similar allegations against groups he supports, a nonprofit organization trying to strike down the law plans to argue in court Tuesday.
Attorneys for Montanans for Community Development will ask U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen during a hearing in Missoula to rule without a trial that the state’s rules governing campaigns are unconstitutional.
Attorneys for the state also are asking Christensen to rule in their favor without a trial. They argue that Montana’s campaign finance laws are constitutionally sound and there is no selective enforcement by the commissioner’s office.
