In the News
NBC News: Could Taxpayers Be on the Hook for Donald Trump’s Campaign?
Jane C. Timm
While Trump has previously hinted that he considered public funding, in May he said he was leaning away from it. “I think I’ve ruled it out,” he told the Associated Press. “I don’t like the idea of taking taxpayer money to run a campaign.”…
“I can see him as the one guy who might think he can pull this off — that $100 million might be enough,” former Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith told NBC News. “Because he still thinks he’s going to get all this free media.”
Trump has reveled in the constant coverage he received during the primary; donors and campaign sources say his ability to draw the media’s attention is a big asset — one they’re betting on. An analysis by SMG Delta found that Trump had enjoyed nearly $2 billion in free advertising through February, more than double what Clinton saw and almost 10 times what establishment favorites Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush each received.
Talk Media News: FEC foreign money forum draws criticism
Ed Zuckerman
Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub drew a former colleague’s criticism for sponsoring a forum that suggests U.S. corporations illegally funnel foreign money into political contributions. The Center for Competitive Politics castigated Weintraub’s selection of participants that fails to include “a single prominent individual not in agreement with Commissioner Weintraub’s well-publicized agenda,” and described its lineup of speakers as “an advocacy organization’s private seminar.
Free Speech
Washington Free Beacon: Shut Up, They Explained
Tyler Arnold
Far from stopping at spontaneous protests, Strassel goes into the details of the McCain-Feingold Act, Citizens United v. FEC, the DISCLOSE Act, and the IRS scandal showing how liberals, with the help of some Republicans, have been pursuing anti-speech policies under the guise of government transparency.
She tells stories about everyday Americans whose privacy has been invaded by unreasonable investigations and whose free speech has been assaulted by the strong arm of the federal government under President Obama’s administration.
Strassel explains how Nixon-era corruption led individuals to demand more transparency in government. Although corruption is a very legitimate concern, she says the left has used transparency to justify going after individuals who donate to political causes. Investigating nonprofits to make sure that they are following campaign finance law has turned into the federal government, in the form of the IRS, harassing conservative nonprofits—who are complying with the law—and stalling the completion of granting their tax-exempt statuses.
IRS
Washington Post: Why the GOP is targeting the IRS (LTE)
Sheldon Whitehouse
The IRS controls the “dark money” spigot that fills GOP coffers. If the IRS enforced its rules, or fixed its rules where they could not be enforced, or referred what appear to be self-evident false statements by dark-money groups to the Justice Department for investigation, the river of dark money flowing to the GOP might dry up. Keeping the IRS battered, cowed and on its heels makes strategic sense for the GOP.
Forbes: IRS Targeting Scandal: Citizens United, Lois Lerner And The $20M Tax Saga That Won’t Go Away
Kelly Phillips Erb
It was the question heard round the tax world. But it was the answer that made waves. In 2013, then Acting Director of Exempt Organizations at IRS, Lois Lerner, apologized to a room of tax lawyers for the IRS’s inappropriate targeting of conservative political groups. Her comments set off a chain of events that would slash IRS funds, fire officials and consider impeachment proceedings for IRS Commissioner Koskinen’s actions. But the scandal didn’t begin or end there.
Independent Groups
New York Times: The Secret Power Behind Local Elections
Chisun Lee and Lawrence Norden
When the history of elections in 2016 is written, one of the central points is likely to be how little voters knew about the donors who influenced the contests. At the federal level, “dark money” groups — chiefly social welfare nonprofits and trade associations that aren’t required to disclose their donors and, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, can spend unlimited amounts on political advertising — have spent three times more in this election than they did at a comparable point in 2012.
Yet the rise of dark money may matter less in the race for president or Congress than for, say, the utilities commission in Arizona.
Bloomberg: Secret Campaign Cash Gushes Into U.S. State and Local Elections
Mark Niquette
Hundreds of millions of dollars in dark money have been spent to influence federal elections, and the same phenomenon is happening at the state and local levels, the researchers said. Dark-money spending rose 34 percent at the federal level between 2006 and 2014 and 38 percent during that time in the states examined, the study found.
“There’s just less scrutiny of what’s going on in state and local elections,” said Chisun Lee, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center and one of the report’s authors.
Political Parties
More Soft Money Hard Law: Reform and the “Chaos Syndrome,” Part II
Bob Bauer
So Mann and Ornstein, and Chait, are not wrong to say that the GOP is making its own unique contribution to the disturbing political antipathies polluting politics and crippling government. They do err in imagining that this is the whole story, or that Rauch is mistaken in proposing measures to make the most of a positive change in direction, whenever that moment comes. When party leaders and members overcome the stress and frustration and speak in good faith to the “other side,” they should be able to do so more often with the doors closed; and when they cut a deal and need to bring their caucuses along, they should have the resources–campaign funds and even a bit of “pork”–to corral the support they need.
And this is not an “all or nothing” proposition. It does not require dismantling all limits or all disclosure. It means thinking in different terms about the point at which the aggressive regulation of politics becomes a kind anti-politics that falls far short of purifying government but helps damage its capacity to function.
Vox: How to properly diagnose the chaos of American politics
Lee Drutman
A second general objection is that Rauch’s case that the parties have been weakened is actually quite weak.
Clearly, Republican elites failed to stop Trump (unless they somehow manage to thwart him at the convention). But Trump is not the product of Republican Party weakness. He is the inevitable backlash to a too-strong Republican Party leadership.
Though the widely discussed book The Party Decides failed to predict Trump, it impressively and accurately described how Republican and Democrat insiders controlled the presidential nomination process from the top down for the past several decades (and did again this year in the Democratic Party) by using endorsements and controlling money flows to select their preferred candidates. Under this system, elites and insiders made out splendidly well.
FEC
American Prospect: Foreign Contributions Risk Unites Liberals, Conservatives
Justin Miller
Outside money accounts for about 20 percent of all political money so far in the 2016 election, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. And undisclosed, “dark” political spending could reach as much as $600 million this election cycle, she predicted. Moreover, weak disclosure laws have made it increasingly difficult to uncover the existence of foreign money in elections, Krumholz said.
Influence
Daily Beast: Boeing’s Man Pushed for the Iran Nuclear Deal—and Now the Company Is Selling $25 Billion Worth of Planes to Tehran
Betsy Woodruff
But the American aerospace giant isn’t exactly publicizing the fact that it paid a lobbying firm to “monitor” the nuclear agreement that made its $25 billion sale to Tehran possible. Or that Boeing has on its payroll a former top Clinton administration official who used his clout to garner support in the corridors of powers for the Iran deal.
Thomas Pickering, one of the country’s most respected diplomats and a and former ambassador to Israel and the United Nations, has been quietly taking money from Boeing while vocally supporting the Iran nuclear deal—testifying before Congress, writing letters to high-level officials, and penning op-eds for outlets like The Washington Post.
Candidates and Campaigns
New York Times: Bernie Sanders Campaign Showed How to Turn Viral Moments Into Money
Nick Corasaniti
Like most modern campaigns, Mr. Sanders and his team relied on widely used digital fund-raising tactics, like sending email solicitations and advertising online. They raised more than $61 million and acquired more than three million email addresses directly from digital ads, according to Revolution Messaging, the company behind the campaign’s efforts.
But the campaign was also able to harness social media networks — which, until recently, most candidates had used primarily for messaging purposes — and turn them into fund-raising engines, allowing Mr. Sanders’s team to raise money almost exclusively online.
Vice: A Brief Guide to Donald Trump’s Deeply Weird Campaign Finance Operation
Mike Pearl
But the baffling, sometimes hilarious, and not-so-secret practices that Trump’s filing revealed, along with the analysis that emerged throughout the week, didn’t just show us how Candidate Trump was doing business. It also gave us a peak behind the Wizard of Oz-style curtain of Trump’s businessman persona, leaving some question as to whether The Donald is really all that great and powerful.
Chicago Tribune: If Trump’s campaign were a business, it would be teetering on bankruptcy
Clarence Page
Maybe Trump thinks he can rewrite the book on presidential campaigning by turning his celebrity into a campaign of stunts and free media.
Or maybe, as some suspect, he never intended to get this far with what started out as a brand-building stunt and happened to strike a long-neglected core of frustrated, displaced middle-class Americans.
Either way, he’s stuck with running now and appears to be headed either to a long-shot victory or a crushing defeat.
RNC leaders are divided between those debating how much they should help Trump and those who feel the party should dump him at next month’s national convention in Cleveland. That’s unlikely to happen. The party with the most disunity tends to lose.
Like it or not, loyal Republicans have little choice left but to support Trump’s campaign — if they can find it.
The States
Austin Statesman: Of ‘dark money,’ temporary toilets and sobriety
Elizabeth Findell
The Austin City Council tightened the rules Thursday on “dark money” organizations that wade into city campaigns.
The city already requires candidates and political action committees to provide reports listing their donors. The rules approved Thursday require other nonprofit organizations, which typically don’t disclose their donors, to list contributors who give at least $500 for spending toward a candidate or ballot measure.
The requirement goes into effect Sept. 1.
Donations guaranteed in writing not to be for political purposes, and not used for political purposes, are exempt, as are investments and commercial transactions.
Lexology: NYS “Ethics Reform” Legislation Overturns Ethics Commission’s Definition of Grassroots Lobbying; Changes Standards for Disclosure of Sources Funding to Lobbying and Advocacy Groups; Adjusts Commission Procedures and Penalties
Greenberg Traurig LLC
In the final hours of the 2016 New York State legislative session, a bill summarized by the Governor and Legislative Leaders as a “5 Point Ethics Reform Plan,” was introduced at the request of the Governor. This legislation that passed at the end of the Legislative Session and is expected to be signed by the Governor, will affect advocacy groups, public relations firms, political consulting firms, and entities that seek to influence New York State policy or elections. Ironically, some of the most notable lobbying law changes may result in reduced disclosure obligations for certain entities and organizations. This Alert focuses on the key provisions of the legislation that will have an impact on individuals and entities that engage in New York advocacy activities.
