In the News
Michigan Capitol Confidential: IRS-Style Viewpoint Discrimination in Grand Rapids City Government?
Tom Gantert
The apparent viewpoint discrimination committed by the office of the Grand Rapids city attorney may not be an isolated incident, according to the Center for Competitive Politics, a Virginia-based advocacy organization that works on First Amendment issues. In an email, CCP research fellow Scott Blackburn wrote: “This is just another example of an ongoing trend we are seeing across the country. From California to New York to the IRS in Washington, government agencies are purposefully misusing tax laws to target citizen groups for their political beliefs. Such actions are intended to intimidate donors, tie organizations up in expensive legal battles, and ultimately silence opposing viewpoints.”
CCP scholars are not the only ones to compare Mish’s conduct to the unresolved scandal involving the IRS official Lois Lerner, who resigned and invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination when it was revealed that the bureau she ran had targeted conservative nonprofits for inaction on tax-exemption requests.
IRS
CNBC: Americans deserve better than the IRS
Rep. Rick Allen, (R-GA)
For 27 months, from February 2010 until May 2012, the IRS systematically targeted conservative tax-exempt applicants for additional scrutiny and delay. This is an egregious violation of the First Amendment rights of ALL Americans. The leader of this scheme was Lois Lerner, an IRS official at the time.
For two more years, the IRS circumvented Congress’ investigations. Lois Lerner time and time again, refused to cooperate with Congress in its investigation of targeting conservative groups, and instead hid behind the Fifth Amendment. Not surprisingly, the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice unilaterally decided not to prosecute Lois Lerner for her unlawful actions.
Thankfully, Congress vowed to continue to find answers and hold the IRS accountable for its actions. While it is disappointing that it takes an act of Congress to remind the IRS that the Constitution is the law of the land, we cannot let history repeat itself. I refuse to allow another American to be persecuted and targeted by IRS bureaucrats for expressing their First Amendment rights, no matter their beliefs.
Independent Groups
Huffington Post: Why The 2016 Election May Not Break Spending Records
Paul Blumenthal
The reliance on super PACs by the Republican field stunted fundraising and spending by candidates’ actual campaigns. In fact, super PACs engaged in the race have spent $346 million — more than the candidates themselves.
Spending by the actual campaigns of the 17 Republican candidates was $293 million. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) led a tiny field that has spent $328 million. Overall, candidates in both parties have spent a combined $624 million.
This sounds like a lot of money, but it’s less than the inflation-adjusted $894 million that candidates spent in 2008. Spending by candidates of both parties in the 2016 campaign has been less than in 2008…
This cycle’s record super PAC spending may decline in the general election, with Donald Trump the most likely Republican nominee. Most of the party’s biggest donors either previously funded super PACs for candidates other than Trump, or are contributing to anti-Trump super PACs like Our Principles PAC.
SEC
Washington Post: It’s time to move ahead with the SEC nomination process
Editorial Board
What’s more, there are thorny legal questions as to whether the courts would ultimately regard campaign spending as the kind of “material” matter for investors which the SEC has authority to regulate. A nominee who opined on a hypothetical SEC rule strong enough to satisfy Mr. Schumer et al. might find her impartiality questioned if and when the commission did vote on it. Indeed, given GOP opposition to corporate disclosure, extracting a statement from a nominee might prevent her from being confirmed in the first place. Meanwhile, many public companies have decided voluntarily that it’s good business to reveal their political spending through the nonpartisan Center for Public Accountability. That’s no substitute for a uniform legal requirement but it’s progress.
The SEC has a lot of other important business on its agenda. Mr. Schumer and his allies have made their valid point; now it’s time for them, and the rest of the committee, to move these nominees along.
Effects of Campaign Spending
NPR: Sanders Campaign Has Spent 50 Percent More Than Clinton In 2016
Peter Overby
The massive spending advantage wasn’t enough for Sanders. In March he won 912 delegates to Clinton’s 1,141. Now, just two big primaries remain – California and New Jersey – along with nine smaller ones and Sanders’ path to Democratic nomination is all but non-existent.
Supreme Court
Huffington Post: Chuck Grassley Admits It’s ‘A Gamble’ To Let Trump Fill SCOTUS Vacancy
Jennifer Bendery
For all his success in the polls, Trump has given few details on any of his policies or the kinds of judges he’d put on courts. All he’s said about the Supreme Court is that he’d defer to the conservative Heritage Foundation to give him names.
“If Trump’s elected president, it probably is a little more unknown than if there’s a [Sen. Ted] Cruz elected president,” Grassley said Wednesday in an interview with Robert Leonard of KNIA/KRLS radio in Iowa.
“I would have to admit it’s a gamble.”
FEC
CRP: Take your kids to work at the FEC, and let them dis the place!
Viveca Novak
And so it was at the FEC, where staffers and commissioners organized a scavenger hunt. Kids were given a list of activities to complete that included the innocuous and the more pointed. Going to Commissioner Steve Walther’s suite and finding pictures of cowboys (he’s from Nevada) was among the former, as was finding a hidden teddy bear in the staff director’s office.
Assignment No. 5, from Commissioner Lee Goodman, was a little more loaded, going straight to the root of many disagreements about the regulation of big money in the campaign finance system: “Look at a copy of the Constitution and find the part that protects your freedom to speak.” Goodman, a Republican appointee, has engaged in some bitter disputes with Democrats on the panel that trace back to differing interpretations of how the First Amendment applies to campaign contributions and outside spending.
But it was the task in Commissioner Caroline Hunter’s office that had at least a few people in the building talking: “Go to Commissioner Hunter’s suite (Room 919). Hit the FEC seal on the mouse pad with the inflatable ‘Bomp-It’ mallet.”
Influence
International Business Times: Bernie Sanders Campaign Spending Shows The Enduring Power Of The Political Consulting Industry
Ned Resnikoff
Sheingate told IBT that while he doesn’t have anything against political consulting, he does think the structure of the industry can bias campaigns toward certain strategies. Consulting firms often earn a share of a campaign’s spending on things like ad buys, which gives consultants a financial incentive to urge greater media spending — independent of its efficacy.
“The folk wisdom is you’ve got to buy ads to be successful. That’s how consultants think the political system works,” said Sheingate. “And there’s research that suggests that ads are not as effective as the amount of money they spend on them indicates.”
Citizens United
Reason: Democrats United
Jacob Sullum
In “You Are Now Free to Speak About Politics,” reason’s December 2010 cover story, I laid out the history behind Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court decision protecting the right of corporations to spend money to influence the political debate, and defended its logic against the left’s apocalyptic rhetoric. “The over-the-top reactions to Citizens United reflect a view of corporations as giant, soulless automatons that are…bound to wreak havoc if let loose in the halls of political power,” I wrote. “That view obscures the fact that corporations, no matter how large or profit-driven, are by definition associations of individuals who have joined together for a common purpose.”
Nearly six years later, the Democratic Party’s top candidates for president, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, have both made it clear they’re committed to reversing that decision—but neither of them appears to understand how that would work.
Candidates and Campaigns
Detroit News: Clinton can save herself from dark cash
Nolan Finley
Despite railing against the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that protected unlimited donations to political action committees, she’s not leading by example. Clinton is one of the biggest Big Money candidates ever.
So far in the 2016 presidential cycle, she and the groups supporting her have raised more than a quarter of a billion dollars. Of that staggering amount, $76 million has come from the super PACs enabled by Citizens United. That’s roughly the same as the three remaining Republican candidates combined.
That begs the question: Why does Clinton feel she needs so much super PAC help when she’s running against a primary candidate who has eschewed them and is raising his dollars largely from individual donors, exactly the way she says the process should work?
Washington Post: Democrat Chuck Schumer, one-man super PAC
Paul Kane
Facing a dramatically underfunded challenger in the fall, Schumer may find himself in the position of being able to transfer millions of dollars to Democratic committees that would boost the party’s chances of winning critical Senate races…
Under federal election law, campaign committees raise contributions under specific limits, currently $2,700 from individuals and $5,000 from political action committees, but at any point candidates can declare they have excess cash and donate unlimited sums directly to other party committees, charities or other nonprofits such as universities.
The law forbids something like “Friends of Schumer,” as the Democrat’s campaign committee is known, from shipping unlimited sums directly to the campaign of a specific candidate, instead requiring those mega donations to go to party committees that in turn can spend the money to benefit those campaigns.
The States
Cato Institute: Bill De Blasio’s Blatant Campaign-Finance Hypocrisy
Randal John Meyer
The Board of Elections report is pretty damning, citing “considerable evidence” of wrongdoing. “The de Blasio team solicited contributions for the benefit of the campaigns of Justin Wagner, Terry Gipson, and Cecilia Tkaczyk, and instructed contributors to route the donations through” political committees as straw donors, which then deposited the money with the candidates’ own committees…
De Blasio attempts to sound the reformer from the left side of his mouth; he attempts to defend his illegal campaign-finance practices from the right side. What comes out is hypocritical gobbledygook.
There’s no doubt New York needs election-law changes. The campaign-finance rules unfairly benefit those in power — especially when they apply two standards for two-faced politicians like de Blasio.
New York Post: The mastermind behind de Blasio’s shady finances
Aaron Short
An influential labor-union lawyer has guided Mayor de Blasio’s efforts to raise abundant political cash amid the labyrinth of city and state campaign-finance laws.
Longtime de Blasio pal Kevin Finnegan — a former political director of the powerful SEIU 1199 hospital-workers union — found ways for labor groups to funnel cash to de Blasio’s campaigns and causes in amounts above legal spending limits, said a source familiar with the mayor’s campaign practices.
Alaska Dispatch News: Ethics crusader tells court campaign contributions swayed his votes
Alex DeMarban
The civil trial, being heard without a jury, was brought by a Republican Party district committee and three supporters of Republican candidates. They say the state’s campaign finance laws violate the U.S. Constitution’s free-speech rights.
Supporters of the restrictions, including the defendant, say the limits reduce the chance of corruption and its appearance, helping increase the public’s confidence in the state’s political process.
Finkelstein, who was a Democratic representative, said he never took immediate, official action in return for money, which would qualify as bribery or quid pro quo corruption. But the big checks influenced him months or even years later, he said.
“It’s almost human nature,” he said.
Wichita Eagle: Kansas senator tries to force vote on campaign reform
Dion Lefler
Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, made a motion to try to bring up SB 516, which would prohibit companies from getting state or local government contracts for more than $10,000 if they had contributed to the campaigns of the elected officials making the decision.
It also would prohibit companies from contributing to officials’ campaigns while also being paid to provide goods or services to government.
The bill has languished in committee without a hearing, but Holland tried Friday to try to pull it out of the committee and bring it to a vote on the Senate floor…
The Senate probably won’t take up new measures, called “general orders,” before adjourning for the year, said Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita.
