In the News
Politico: Time to shed light on disclosure bill
By DAVID KEATING and ERIC WANGFive months later, they now have a completed bill pending in the Senate yet shy away from discussing the legislative details. What are they hiding?Let’s begin with the bill’s overall framework, which Wyden and Murkowski describe breathlessly as a “whole new approach” to campaign finance law. This is a broad overstatement. The legislation requires any person or entity sponsoring “independent federal election related activities,” or receiving or soliciting contributions for such activities past certain thresholds, to register and report as an “independent political actor” with the Federal Election Commission. Those requirements parallel the treatment of PACs, which have been around for almost 40 years.But the Supreme Court ruled 37 years ago, and reiterated recently in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that citizens and entities wishing to speak out about political issues cannot be forced to assume the “onerous restrictions” of PACs. Far from introducing a “new approach,” Wyden-Murkowski ignores a series of landmark Supreme Court cases that struck down vague and overbroad requirements in earlier laws that bear a remarkable resemblance to their proposal.
MyWestTexas: Senate Bill 346 ‘darkly undermines speech’
By Michael Quinn SullivanIf we were their intended target, they failed miserably. Instead, they will subject to threats and intimidation donors to tea party groups, home-school organizations, right-to-life advocates and civil rights causes.They falsely describe SB 346 as a new kind of transparency. It is nothing of the sort. True transparency — legislation requiring legislators to disclose what sweetheart contracts they and close family members get from government entities — was buried by legislative lackeys and left to die procedurally on the calendar.Instead, they fast-tracked legislation returning Texas to the dark days of official suppression and political oppression.Article continues: The Center for Competitive Politics, founded by the former chairman of the Federal Elections Commission, described it as “unclear what threat SB 346 is meant to address.” After all, they write, independent political expenditures — dollars spent by entities not beholden to any political party or candidate — made up “less than 1 percent of the total amount spent by all candidates for statewide and legislative office.”
Disclosure
Wall Street Journal: The IRS Scandal Started at the Top
By Kimberly StrasselThe Obama call for scrutiny wasn’t a mistake; it was the president’s strategy—one pursued throughout 2012. The way to limit Romney money was to intimidate donors from giving. Donate, and the president would at best tie you to Big Oil or Wall Street, at worst put your name in bold, and flag you as “less than reputable” to everyone who worked for him: the IRS, the SEC, the Justice Department. The president didn’t need a telephone; he had a megaphone.The same threat was made to conservative groups that might dare play in the election. As early as January 2010, Mr. Obama would, in his state of the union address, cast aspersions on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, claiming that it “reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests” (read conservative groups).The article continues: In case the IRS missed his point, he raised the threat of illegality: “All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation.”
Independent Groups
LA Times: Crossroads GPS believes it is under IRS scrutiny
By Matea GoldWASHINGTON — Crossroads GPS, the behemoth conservative advocacy group behind some of the most robust attacks against President Obama’s administration, said Monday that it believes it is among the organizations subjected to special scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.The statement by the group comes as campaign finance reform advocates and congressional Democrats have claimed that the IRS failed to examine the activities of Crossroads and other major political players, even as agents in Cincinnati were inappropriately flagging conservative groups based on terms such as “tea party” and “patriot.”But on Monday, a spokesman for Crossroads said the group’s experience with the IRS indicates that it was also caught in the dragnet.
Washington Post: A bushel of Pinocchios for IRS’s Lois Lerner
By Glenn KesslerIn fact, just two days before the ABA conference, Lerner appeared before Congress and was asked by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) about the status of investigations into 501(c)(4) groups. She provided a bland answer about a questionnaire on the IRS Web site, failing to take the opportunity to disclose the results of the probe. (The clip is embedded below, with the question coming at 5:09.) Small wonder that Crowley is now calling for her to resign, saying that Lerner lied to him.
Washington Post: The impossibly complex world of campaign finance — in 1 chart
By Chris CillizzaHow certain groups qualify for tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(4) organization — a distinction that allows them to keep both their donors and donations secret — is the focus of the week (thanks to the buffoonery, at best, of some IRS officials) but it opens up (or should open up) a conversation about the vagaries of campaign finance law.
Corporate Governance
Washington Post: SEC pressed to abandon corporate political spending disclosures petition
By Dina ElBoghdadyHouse Republicans repeatedly warned the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday against dragging the agency into a political fray, evoking the scandal at the IRS over the targeting of conservative groups.
Candidates, Politicians and Parties
Washington Post: The Insiders: ‘Nothing to see here’ is not a viable strategy
By Ed RogersIt is easy to see why the administration wants the IRS scandal to be a non-event, but it’s harder to see how the facts will let this debacle evaporate. The hard questioning and scrutiny from Congress and some in the media will continue.In addition to just the grotesque political targeting that took place, there are a growing number of side stories that reinforce the notion that the Obama machine may have the distinct disadvantage of being totally guilty. My favorite is that Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS official who was in charge of the tax-exempt division when conservative groups were being targeted, is now the head of the IRS’s Obamacare office. I hope the Obama forces don’t move too quickly to replace her, as it is a political gift that will keep on giving on two fronts: the IRS scandal and the unfolding horror story of the Obamacare rollout. Senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer and other administration officials might try to drive the narrative that Republicans are just “looking to make political hay,” but even Obama might not be able to sweep this one under the rug.
Lobbying and Ethics
Washington Post: FBI interested in Bachmann campaign finance case
By Rachel WeinerAn attorney for Andy Parrish, the Minnesota Republican’s former chief of staff, confirmed that he will be interviewed by the FBI next week. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that two other former Bachmann staffers have also been contacted.Peter Waldron, who served as Bachmann’s national field coordinator in Iowa, has filed a Federal Elections Commission complaint alleging that the lawmaker’s campaign improperly used leadership PAC funds to pay presidential campaign staff — including national political director Guy Short — and concealed payments to state Sen. Kent Sorenson. Waldron would not confirm or deny that he had been contacted by the FBI.
