In the News
AP: Presidential candidates defy campaign finance limits through well-funded outside groups
Julie Bykowicz
The campaign finance watchdog group Democracy 21 has filed complaints against many of the candidates working with super PACs. Its president, Fred Wertheimer, sees “all sorts of edgy, and I would say illegal, coordination going on.”
Others see no cause for alarm. “What could be more American?” asked David Keating, director of the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for an end to campaign contribution limits. “More money means more speech. It ensures a robust debate about the future of our country and keeps people interested and involved.”
CCP
A Dysfunctional FEC? Calling Inigo Montoya
Brad Smith
Yet because Commissioners Ravel and Weintraub have been unable to convince a majority of the Commissioners at the FEC that their interpretation of the law is correct, it is the FEC that is labeled “dysfunctional” and the “poster child” for “all that is broken in Washington.” That lack of perspective may represent even better than any of the examples above why many consider Washington generally to be “dysfunctional” or “broken.”
We tend to think that these repetitive examples of government incompetence, biased enforcement, and massive breaches of sensitive, personal information of government employees, contractors, and American citizens generally should give us all pause before handing more power to the government to regulate political speech and to require excessive disclosure of personal information and historically private political conversations and contacts. Government serves certain necessary purposes in the world, but it works best when constrained to its core responsibilities. Beyond that, there are also many things it simply cannot do well, and many things it shouldn’t do. Regulating core political speech is one of those things.
Independent Groups
More Soft Money Hard Law: Writing Campaign Finance Rules: Between “Thorough” Regulation or None at All
Bob Bauer
This regulatory model–associated with the “thorough” regulation of campaign finance–can be faulted for lacking modesty and proportion, and for being certain to frustrate expectations. In the case of Super PACs, it has led to a quest to directly regulate political relationships, by providing that no friends or allies of the candidate can run a political committee that spends independently on her behalf, and then also to directly regulate speech, by attaching legal consequences to whether a candidate publicly approves of an expenditure by a PAC supportive of her candidacy. Proponents argue that this thorough brand of regulation is required for the rules to have the necessary bite.
These initiatives seem destined to run into the trouble that has plagued their predecessors. A campaign finance program that rests on rules structured along these lines may gain a temporary majority on the Court, as the McConnell case demonstrated, but the victory is likely to remain temporary.
First Amendment
Lancaster Online: First Amendment has been shaped by culture, context
April Kelly-Woessner
Scholars argue that the courts have expanded First Amendment protections over time. Yet, the same flexibility in interpretation that allows expansion of rights also allows for retraction of rights. If we accept the premise that courts are influenced by culture and context, as well as by the political values of the judges, then there is some reason for concern.
Survey evidence suggests that the millennial generation holds values considerably different from their parents’. The Brookings Institute recently published a report on how these values will change economic policies in the future. Likewise, when millennials command the political arena, their values will shape political and legal contexts.
Unfortunately for free speech advocates, the evidence is that they are not nearly as supportive of free expression and political debate as previous generations.
Washington Post: Donald Trump’s festival of narcissism
Dana Milbank
Trump is the Frankenstein monster created by our campaign-finance system in which money trumps all. The Supreme Court has equated money with free speech (by letting first candidates and then contributors spend unlimited sums), which means the more money you have, the more speech you get. Trump may be preposterous, but there are 8,737,540,000 reasons we have to listen to him — the figure Trump claimed is his net worth.
Candidates and Campaign
Minnesota Star Tribune: Johnson won’t respond to Feingold’s pledge request until more details emerge about PAC
Associated Press
Republican Ron Johnson says he won’t decide whether to take a pledge to keep third-party money out of his U.S. Senate race against Democrat Russ Feingold until more details emerge about Feingold’s political action committee.
Johnson told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he wants to get to the bottom of reports that the Progressives United political action committee founded by Feingold spent only 5 percent of its income on federal candidates and political parties.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Russ Feingold’s hypocrisy is kind of a big deal
Christian Schneider
According to a report earlier this week by the Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice, Feingold’s political action committee, Progressives United PAC, bought 100 leather-bound copies of the ex-senator’s 2013 book, along with 1,000 hardcover copies. Feingold also received $77,000 in salary from both the PAC and its nonprofit companion.
Of course, Feingold’s act for years has been not having an act. As a champion of campaign finance reform, he has consistently condemned the pernicious effects of money in politics. But evidently his distaste for campaign cash wasn’t enough to keep him from bathing his cronies in greenbacks.
The PAC was created with the stated goal of “directly and indirectly supporting candidates who stand up for our progressive ideals.” But instead, it appears it existed almost solely to support salaries for Feingold loyalists who lost their jobs after his 2010 loss to businessman Ron Johnson.
Buzzfeed: We Crashed Jeb Bush’s Super PAC’s Donor Call, And Here’s What They Said
Andrew Kaczynski and Ilan Ben-Meir
The super PAC tied to Republican presidential candidate and former governor of Florida Jeb Bush has raised $17 million so far in the New York-area alone, according to a conference call between the super PAC officials and donors on Wednesday…
Telling the donors on the call they were “killers” who he was going to “set loose,” Murphy said the number the SuperPAC would be filing by the next July reporting deadline would give opponents “heart attacks” and discourage their rivals’ donors from opening their wallets.
CPI: Florida pols boost Bush’s super PAC
Michael Beckel
The earliest donors to Republican Jeb Bush’s pre-presidential campaign machine include prominent Florida politicians, the state’s chamber of commerce and even a labor union, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of Florida campaign finance filings.
The States
KRQE: New Mexico AG wants more ‘transparency’ in campaign finance
Associated Press
New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas says he wants to increase “transparency and accountability” in the state’s campaign finance reporting process.
Balderas sent Secretary of State Dianna Duran a letter Wednesday describing what he sees as shortcomings in the current system of campaign finance reporting.
The Democrat says he’d like to see the reinstatement of mandatory fines for violation of the Campaign Reporting Act during the upcoming legislative session.
He also recommended that Duran establish a robust notification system to better track enforcement of campaign reporting legal requirements and that she employ a dedicated officer to conduct statewide trainings.
