Campaign Finance
Reuters: Authorities unlikely to stop 2016 election fundraising free-for-all
Michelle Conlin and Emily Flitter
“The fact that the FEC is neutered is not going to motivate the DOJ to go out on a limb and do a bunch of these cases,” said former federal prosecutor Jonathan Biran, who started his 17-year career at the Justice Department in the criminal division’s public integrity section, which traditionally prosecutes campaign finance crimes. Biran is now in private practice.
All of the people interviewed said the department would be reluctant to do anything during election season out of concern it would appear politically motivated.
They also noted that, even after the election, campaign finance cases would be extremely difficult to bring, especially since the department has been spooked by some high-profile failures in recent years.
There’s also the fact that campaign finance is supposed to be policed by the FEC, not the Justice Department.
Washington Post: How Democrats can make voters care about big money in politics
Greg Sargent
“It is hard sometimes as a stand-alone issue. But the way you can motivate people around this is, you go to an issue people care about — the environment, food safety, jobs and infrastructure — and you lead them from there to the fact that money is standing in the way of progress on that issue.
“It’s about how you describe that connection to people. Once you do that, they will carry it with them. You’ve built a narrative around something they care very, very deeply about. We just have to get better in our messaging and in making that connection for people.”
Supreme Court
RealClearPolitics: The Most Important Redistricting Case in 50 Years
Sean Trende
In a pair of cases decided in 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States famously established the “one person, one vote” test. This meant that all congressional districts would be required to have the same number of people, while state legislative districts must have roughly the same number. The consequences of those decisions were both immediate and far-reaching. A wave of mid-decade redistricting swept the country, as virtually every congressional and legislative district had to be, at a minimum, tweaked to account for population discrepancies. Rural districts in particular lost representation, while the depopulation of urban centers helped usher in the rise of the suburbs in Congress.
Last week, the Supreme Court shocked watchers by agreeing to hear a case that could have consequences of a similar magnitude.
FEC
Washington Post: How Democratic or Republican is your job? This tool tells you.
Philip Bump
You can pull reams of data on campaign contributions from the FEC’s website and use it to evaluate how Democratic or Republican certain stated occupations tend to be by looking at the candidates to which they gave.
So we did.
Influence
Washington Post: The murky (and apparently widespread) use of license plates as political favors
Amber Phillips
In his new book, then-New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu (R) credits his distribution of low-digit (i.e. desirable) license plates with helping his ally George H.W. Bush win the state in a competitive 1988 Republican primary…
And Sununu handed these two- and three-digit plates out like promises of Cabinet positions in exchange for Granite State operatives’ support for Bush over his main primary challenger, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas.
“As we rode around the state encouraging the more influential political figures to join us on the Bush team, we quickly discovered that whenever one of the more desirable opinion leaders was having trouble deciding whether to support Bush or Dole, the promise of a low-digit license plate was a very effective tie-breaker.”
IRS
Hearing on the Freedom of information Act
Testimony of Cleta Mitchell
Since we know the pattern of the IRS and Treasury is to spring important matters during holiday weeks and weekends –and since they weren’t issued this past Memorial Day, we will be on the lookout on July 2 –as that is the next holiday weekend.
The IRS has evidenced a pattern of stealth and arrogant disregard for the statutory rights of the American people to know what their government is doing to and about them. The IRS develops these very significant regulations, suddenly releases them during holidays, withdraws them on a holiday weekend…. so it should not come as a surprise to anyone that the IRS –and the Dept of Treasury –would thumb their noses at their FOIA obligations which are for the purpose of transparency, a concept that has long been vanquished from the IRS and Treasury.
Indianapolis Star: First Church of Cannabis wins IRS nonprofit status
John Tuohy
The designation means donors to the church can deduct their gifts on their federal tax returns as charitable and the church would be eligible for a property tax exemption in Indiana. The church has raised $10,905 on a gofundme.com account but has not found a home yet.
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
The Hill: Huckabee bashes campaign finance system
Ben Kamisar
Gov. Mike Huckabee bashed the role of super PACs on Tuesday and called for a campaign finance overhaul that would allow donors to give candidates unlimited sums of money as long as there is complete disclosure.
“Prohibit nothing, disclose everything, and disclose it on the spot and let the voters make up their mind,” he said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Washington Post: With some donors doubting Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio seizes an opening
Matea Gold and Sean Sullivan
“One consensus seemed to be that, ‘Wow, Jeb is really raising lot of money, but he doesn’t seem to be striking a chord with voters,’ ” said one well-connected Republican who participated in the meeting and requested anonymity to detail private conversations.
Bush “has not come on as strong as I would have thought,” said Edwin Phelps, a private-equity investor who is a major GOP donor. “I’m disappointed in how he handled questions on something he knew would come up. Jeb hurt himself, but it’s early enough in the cycle he can right the ship.”
The States
New Jersey Star-Ledger: Former gov candidate Buono violated state campaign finance law, N.J. agency charges
Matt Friedman
At that time, Buono was a state senator exploring a run for governor. And Myers Research that month conducted a poll asking more than 80 questions, including one asking respondents their preferences in a Democratic gubernatorial primary and one asking if they would vote for Buono or Gov. Republican Chris Christie in a general election.
But Buono did not establish her 2013 gubernatorial campaign account until December 2012. According to the ELEC, Buono violated state law by “failing to establish separate candidate committees for the multiple offices sought during the 2013 primary election, and by making an expenditure on behalf of her gubernatorial candidacy through her senatorial account.”
KTVZ: Brown asks lawmakers to consider campaign finance limits
KTVZ
In light of a ruling last week by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Gov. Kate Brown called on lawmakers Wednesday to create a task force chaired by Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins to study campaign finance limits and deliver recommendations by year’s end.
Arizona Republic: Dispute over “dark money” oversight escalates
Mary Jo Pitzl
Secretary of State Michele Reagan will ask a court Thursday to let her intervene in a lawsuit over a complaint resulting from last year’s governor’s race, intensifying a dispute between her office and the Citizens Clean Elections Commission over who has authority over campaign spending.
The commission sounded an alarm Wednesday about the pending filing, saying Reagan was intruding on the authority of the voter-created commission.
