In the News
Nonprofit Times: Schedule B Target Of Federal Legislation
Mark Hrywna
U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) said during last week’s hearing that he feared the bill would create a loophole for foreign governments or drug traffickers to use their money to influence government without disclosure. “The last thing we should do is give donors a license to hide their money. Who knows what they’ll do with it…”
The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP) President David Keating thanked Roskam in a letter supporting the legislation. CCP has been in a legal battle with California Attorney General Kamala Harris over requirements that it file Schedule B with the state. He said the argument of undue influence by outside groups is only meant to “whip up hysteria,” as the reporting requirement does not stop organizations that want to launder foreign money into federal elections.
Free Speech
Cleveland Plain Dealer: The left should defeat bad ideas with better ideas, not with attempts at censorship
Ted Diadiun
Assaults on the First Amendment are becoming a staple of “debate” in this country – not only political debate at Trump campaign appearances, but against any ideas a particular group of people deem unworthy.
Historically, the best way to defeat disagreeable ideas is to overpower them with better ideas. But too many people are finding that tiresome, and instead simply try to shut down the people with whom they disagree.
Sadly, that tactic is employed almost entirely from the liberal side — the alleged bastion of open-mindedness and receptiveness to new ideas.
Usually it’s a mistake to cast one side of the political divide as the villain in any dispute or misbehavior. Takes two to tango, and all that.
Independent Groups
USA Today: Ted Cruz’s $10 million donor backs Donald Trump
Fredreka Schouten
Toby Neugebauer, a wealthy energy investor, likes Ted Cruz so much that he deposited $10 million into a super PAC designed to boost the Texas Republican’s presidential ambitions.
On Wednesday, Neugebauer was in Donald Trump’s camp after the reality TV star’s big win in the Indiana primary Tuesday ended the campaigns of Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
“Today, I am a Trump supporter,” Neugebauer told USA TODAY. “I am excited about the voters he turned up.”
CNN: Ted Cruz donor sat on $9 million in super PAC
Theodore Schliefer
Toby Neugebauer made headlines last year by donating $10 million to a pro-Ted Cruz super PAC.
He’s taking $9 million of it back.
The Texas energy investor and son of retiring Rep. Randy Neugebauer ran Keep the Promise II, one of several pro-Cruz super PACs under the Keep the Promise umbrella. But despite pleas from fellow Cruz backers throughout the campaign, he never followed through with big spending to help the Texas senator against Donald Trump, only spending $1 million of his $10 million investment.
MinnPost: How the junior senator from Minnesota came to be Democrats’ No. 1 fundraiser
Sam Brodey
And, to be sure, Franken has proven an adept fundraiser, both for himself and others, during his time in the Senate and before. He says he’s raised cash for Democrats for over 20 years, and he founded Midwest Values PAC before he even ran for Senate.
But this cycle has been a bonanza for the PAC, blowing away expectations even for this seasoned fundraiser. To date, he has raised $1,868,914 this cycle, and is picking up the pace as election day draws nearer. In the last half of 2015, Franken pulled in roughly $135,000 per month, while he’s raised an average of $205,000 per month in 2016.
Midwest Values PAC has already exceeded all its prior election cycles, surpassing its previous best, its 2012 haul of $1,627,000.
Issue Speech
ABC News: Lawmakers urge FTC to investigate ‘dark money’ group attacking consumer watchdog group
Susanna Kim
Protect America’s Consumers, a political lobbying group, has spent nearly $58,000 on cable TV and online ads disparaging the nearly 5-year-old government agency, according to a report by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates for open government. One of the ads includes quotes from Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, and Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who say they were taken out of context to try to undermine the consumer agency they actually support.
The three Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, urging an investigation of the ads.
Effects of Campaign Spending
CPI: Ted Cruz and friends spent $10 per vote in Indiana. Trump won anyway.
Michael Beckel
In all, Cruz and two supportive super PACs — the Club for Growth, an anti-tax organization that endorsed him, and Trusted Leadership PAC, a big-money vehicle designed to boost the U.S. senator from Texas — spent more than $4 million on television and radio advertising in Indiana, according to data provided to the Center for Public Integrity by The Tracking Firm, a nonpartisan media tracking company headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Despite the spending spree, Cruz won only about 405,000 votes, finishing in a distant second behind Trump, the front-runner who ultimately won about 590,000 votes.
International Business Times: Here’s How Much Ted Cruz Spent To Lose His Republican Presidential Primary Bid
Angelo Young
The latest Federal Election Commission data show Cruz and his backers spent $112.1 million on the campaign, far more than the $83 million spent by his two rivals, New York billionaire Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Cruz far outspent his rivals from both his campaign committee and his 13 supportive political action committees (PACs). His team spent $69.7 million versus the combined total of $61.6 million for both Trump and Kasich. Cruz’s support PACs spent $42.4 million, almost twice as much as Trump and Kasich’s outside backers.
Influence
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: Party won’t back unlikely winner’s bid for Congress
Brian Francisco
Tommy A. Schrader of Fort Wayne emerged Tuesday from a three-way contest of little-known candidates, winning 37.5 percent of the vote in the Democratic Party’s primary election.
Schrader, a perennial candidate who captured his first congressional nomination in five attempts, did not publicly campaign or report raising money for the race…
“There was a possibility for this to happen,” Nightenhelser said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “Mr. Schrader has run several times and has some minor recognition that way, as well as the Schrader name up north is well-known from various business entities that carry that name. As far as I know, they are not related in any way.”
Schrader Real Estate and Auction Co., based in Columbia City, operates throughout northeast Indiana.
“Schrader is a name associated with a successful business in Northeastern Indiana, and name identification was an issue for the people that voted Tuesday,” Darland said.
Candidates and Campaigns
Wall Street Journal: Donald Trump Won’t Self-Fund General-Election Campaign
Monica Langley and Rebecca Ballhaus
“I’ll be putting up money, but won’t be completely self-funding,” the presumptive Republican nominee said in an interview Wednesday. Mr. Trump, who had largely self-financed his successful primary run, added that he would create a “world-class finance organization.” The campaign will tap his expansive personal Rolodex and a new base of supporters who aren’t on party rolls, two Trump advisers said.
The new plan represents a shift for Mr. Trump, who has for months portrayed his Republican opponents as “puppets” for relying on super PACs and taking contributions from wealthy donors that he said came with strings attached.
Bustle: Donald Trump’s Campaign Finance Spending Is Shocking Compared To How Much Money Hillary Clinton Has Spent
Alexi McCamond
The free publicity has assuredly help Trump keep his campaign spending low. And Clinton’s high spending has told a completely different story of a presidential candidate who has had to put a lot of resources into ads, social media, and other campaign strategies to get ahead in the polls. Clinton’s campaign has arguably had to spend so much money this election because she has been nearly tied with Bernie Sanders throughout the race. At one point, Clinton and Sanders were in an ad-spending war, essentially trying to buy votes ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire.
NPR: Will Donald Trump Get Back The $38 Million He Lent His Campaign?
Peter Overby
That means the campaign can pay him back if it has the money. But there’s a deadline. Trump has 11 weeks to repay himself — exactly at the moment when he needs to pivot and start raising cash for the general election campaign…
Trump had lent the campaign nearly $38 million as of March 31. It’s not much in the grand scheme of “really rich” candidates. Mitt Romney, for example, lent his 2008 primary campaign $44 million.
Romney later converted the loans into campaign contributions, something Trump may do as well. But the fact that Trump chose to make loans, not contributions, suggests he at least has hopes of getting repaid.
The States
Dinsmore: KY Campaign Regulator Reinstates Ban on Corporate Contributions to Political Campaigns; Allows Corporate-Sponsored PACs
Eric Lycan
The Kentucky Registry of Election Finance has issued new guidance in response to a court ruling that enjoined enforcement of Kentucky’s ban on corporate campaign contributions. As a result, unless and until further guidance is issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, corporate contributions to Kentucky candidates or committees remain prohibited. Unions and limited liability companies (LLCs), furthermore, are now prohibited from contributing. On a positive note, corporations may now establish and maintain political action committees (PACs), paying the administrative expenses from corporate funds and preserving the PAC’s funds for use as contributions to candidates.
WRGB Albany: New push for ethics reform after Silver sentencing
Kimberly Howard
McLaughlin is proposing a cap on certain campaign contributions. The assemblyman wants to limit the amount an individual, corporation, union, lobby group or business can give to a political committee to $10,000.
“New York State has the highest campaign contribution limits of any state that has campaign contribution limits. There’s about a handful that don’t,” New York Public Interest Group Legislative Director Blair Horner said. “I think [the legislation] would be a step in the right direction and we’d be supportive of it. Certainly, conceptually, the devil is always in the details on any bill.”
McClatchy: Missouri voters could decide on campaign contribution limits
David A. Lieb, Associated Press
Supporters of campaign contribution limits said Wednesday they had submitted more than 272,000 petition signatures to try to get a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
The measure would cap donations to candidates at $2,600 per election and to political parties at $25,000. The initiative also would impose other campaign finance restrictions aimed at preventing political committees from obscuring the source of their money.
Alaska Dispatch News: Judge challenges attorneys as campaign finance trial wraps up
Alex DeMarban
Kevin Clarkson, attorney for the plaintiffs who say their free-speech rights are hurt by the donation caps, said in his closing arguments the state never overcame a fundamental hurdle, proving the $500 maximum a person can give to a candidate per year is the proper amount to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption, as the law intends.
Proving why that number is correct is the state’s “first step,” but the state never met that obligation, he asserted.
