IRS
Forbes: IRS Won’t Release Lois Lerner Emails — Because They Might Be Duplicates
Robert W. Wood
The IRS says it may have found 6,400 more emails from Lois Lerner. What do they say? Who are they targeting? We don’t know, as the IRS says it won’t release them. The reason?
This is a good one. Not only the IRS, but the Obama Justice Department is weighing in on this. We need to be sure we have not already released these emails, they say. After all, they might be duplicates. We don’t even want members of Congress to see these until we can determine if we already provided them.
FEC
Wall Street Journal: Carly for America? Bad. CARLY for America? Fine.
Reid J. Epstein
It took the FEC less than three weeks to send a formal letter of reprimand to Carly for America.
“You must amend your Statement of Organization to change the name of your political committee so that it does not include the candidate’s name and/or provide further clarification regarding the nature of your committee,” an FEC analyst wrote to the committee May 17.
So after some deliberation, on Monday the Fiorina super PAC changed its name. It’s no longer Carly for America. It’s now Conservative, Authentic, Responsive Leadership for You and for America – though it will be known by the acronym CARLY for America.
Media
Poynter: Bloomberg launches campaign finance reporting team
Benjamin Mullin
The creation of the team was announced Monday by Senior Executive Editors Marty Schenker and Josh Tyrangiel during a meeting at the Bloomberg bureau in Washington, D.C. and represents an effort to bring the company’s financial reporting muscle to bear on politics as election season looms.
The team will comprise three full-time staffers to start. Josh Gallu, who currently covers SEC enforcement for Bloomberg, will lead the team, reporting directly to Schenker and Tyrangiel. He will be joined by Zachary Mider, whose reporting on tax evasion won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Also joining the team is Bloomberg’s Apple reporter, Tim Higgins, who will relocate from the West Coast for the assignment.
Independent Groups
Wall Street Journal: Speech Police, the First Amendment and ‘Dark’ Money (LTE)
Trevor Potter and Charles Fried
The court has struck that balance by drawing a sharp line: Contributions to parties and candidates may be limited and controlled, but individuals and corporations may speak freely so long as they do so openly and independently of the parties and their candidates.
From the beginning some have declared this balance incoherent. Some want all limits on contributions abolished, others with equal fervor would institute a European-style campaign regime with tight limits on all speech once a campaign is in the offing. I see the Campaign Legal Center, on whose board I sit, as a nonpartisan watchdog dedicated to maintaining the integrity of the court’s line.
The Oregonian: Candidate contribution limits will empower super PACS
John DiLorenzo
But, whatever your view might be as to the propriety of limits on direct contributions, they no longer have any utility in a post Citizens United environment. In fact, if you dislike the prominent role that super PACs currently play in politics, the best way to combat them is to abolish limits and allow unlimited direct contributions. If each state adopted Oregon’s policy – respecting direct political contributions as free speech—and adopted enhanced disclosure and transparency rules, we would reclaim the days when candidates could control and be accountable for their own messages and voters could cast their votes based on the candidates’ merits and understanding of who supports them.
Candidates and Campaign
Concord Monitor: Hillary Clinton on the issues: Six questions on the campaign trail
Daniel Bice
Do you have any thoughts on how the federal government could be more transparent or any steps you would take to make it more open or more accessible to the public?
[Clinton] That’s a good question because in my four fights, the fourth one is reforming government and the campaign finance system since Citizens United blew it up.
WisconsinWatchdog: Russ Feingold, father of campaign finance reform, having problems with his PAC
M.D. Kittle
Feingold, the father of campaign finance reform, has been exposed for using his political action committee to line his pockets and those of his progressive pals. Johnson’s camp and the Republican Party of Wisconsin have labeled it a “slush fund.”
Whatever you call it, the “dark money” narrative that Feingold helped his fellow liberals create seems to have backfired in his use of his Progressives United PAC.
The States
San Jose Mercury News: San Jose City Council should back move to overturn Citizens United
Ash Kalra and Brian Carr
Should your state legislature or city council have the power to pass laws to protect children and ensure public health and safety? If your response is a common-sense “yes,” you need to know that there is a growing trend to restrict our personal rights in deference to the alleged constitutional rights of corporations.
Bozeman Daily Chronicle: Transparency rules should be strict as possible
Editorial
Among the issues the panel is considering are what constitutes coordination; who must report donations and what the threshold is for donations that must be reported; defining what constitutes electioneering and communications between campaigns and committees; and how long a staffer must be no longer working for an elected politician or campaign before she or he can go to work for a PAC.
On the latter question, other states have mandated a “cooling off period” of a year or more so that former staffers will be less knowledgeable about what campaigns or politicians are up to before going to work for a PAC and sharing that information.
The panel should give serious consideration to mandating a two-year period between working for a politician or campaign and a PAC. That will span the election cycle and better ensure there is no coordination.
Connecticut Mirror: Irony not dead in this CT campaign finance fight
Mark Pazniokas
The Democratic Party is using federal campaign finance reforms co-sponsored by former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, a Republican, to challenge a subpoena issued by state elections officials investigating a GOP complaint about the re-election of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
Shays said Democrats are exploiting what he says was an unintended consequence of his pushing the Federal Election Commission to be more aggressive: A claim by the FEC of broad jurisdiction over campaign finance that supersedes state law.
“Our law was basically intended for congressional races, Senate and House. We weren’t jumping into gubernatorial elections”
Crain’s Chicago Business: Reformers push Rauner to sign campaign disclosure bill
Greg Hinz
The bill would change disclosure requirements for the group.
Right now, IE groups report their spending weeks late, often after the election on which they’re spending the money. Under the bill, any expenditure of more than $1,000 would have to be reported within five workdays, and within two days if spent in the final 60 days leading up to an election. That would put them on an even legal footing with other political groups.
