In the News
Reason: Complexity Without Conspiracy: Politics Harder to Produce Than a Pencil
Get in the weeds, not the sensationalism
By Luke WachobBy the time Read goes through the shipping and millwork of the wood, the metal end of the pencil, the graphite core, and the eraser, millions of people all around the globe are involved in the creation of just one pencil. This is incredible, and not just because it’s astounding that an object as simple as a pencil requires labor and resources from millions of people all over the planet. Even more impressive is that all of this activity is coordinated to useful ends without anyone being in charge. We don’t have to fret over shortages or surpluses even though no one is responsible for ensuring the right quantity is produced.The point Read illustrates – that production is a complicated, decentralized, and global process – is one many activists and reporters apparently haven’t learned, judging from this year’s trend of articles “exposing” groups working together towards common policy goals. See, for example, “Inside the Vast Liberal Conspiracy” at Politico, “A National Strategy Funds State Political Monopolies” in the New York Times, or “Koch-backed political network, built to shield donors, raised $400 million in 2012 elections” in the Washington Post, all of which present cooperation between groups and their contributors as evidence of elaborate conspiracies masterminded by shadowy megadonors like the Koch brothers (David Koch sits on the Board of the Reason Foundation) on the Right and George Soros on the Left.If only these reporters read “I, Pencil,” they would understand that high levels of coordination are possible without a conspiracy. Instead, they fall in the trap of “following the money,” without considering the context. A list of contributors is easy to find, but if all you do to understand an organization is identify the richest donor in the room, you won’t understand much at all. Advocacy groups and the relationships between them develop through countless, repeated interactions of people with varying interests, abilities, resources, and priorities. The grey reality of political relationships can’t be mapped onto the black-and-white, paper-thin (or thick, as it may be) world of campaign finance disclosure.
The Forum: Disclosing Disclosure: Lessons from a “Failed” Field Experiment
By CCP Academic Advisor David M. Primo, Dick M. Carpenter II, Pavel Tendetnik, Sandy HoIn a recent issue of The Forum, Fortier and Malbin call for more research into the effects of disclosure requirements for campaign finance. In this paper, we report the results of a field experiment designed to assess whether such rules dissuade potential contributors due to privacy concerns. The paper is unique in that we explain why the field experiment never happened, and what we can learn from its “failure.” Specifically, we show that 2012 Congressional candidates were fearful about letting potential contributors know that their donations would be made available on the Internet, along with their address, employer, and other personal information. In trying to learn directly about whether contributors would be spooked by this knowledge, we ended up learning indirectly, through the actions of candidates, that privacy concerns may in fact limit participation in the political process, including among small donors.
Real Clear Religion: The Holy War on Corporate Politicking
By Robert SiricoAnother report, this one from the Center for Competitive Politics, a Virginia-based First Amendment advocacy group, deftly reveals the activists’ questionable strategies, funding and end game. The Center notes that many of these social justice activists couch their resolutions in language advocating the best interests of the company’s shareholders. Not surprisingly, CCP concludes, these arguments for political disclosure are “in actuality pursuing an ideological agenda unrelated to the profit-maximizing interest of most shareholders.” CCP identifies these gadflies as a “cadre of unions, public pension funds, and activist investors…pursuing actions that would selectively burden American public companies from exercising their First Amendment rights to participate in public dialogue.”The political process only works when all sides are allowed to freely express themselves, a right guaranteed by our Constitution. This is an argument that must be made from secular and spiritual perspectives. Targeting the free speech of political adversaries, under a smoke screen of pious outrage, is not only unjust but immoral.
ICYMI: Washington Times: For FEC, it’s disclosure for thee, but not for me
Agency’s violation of its own rules leaves advocacy groups to guess the law
By Scott BlackburnThe three Democratic appointees on the commission wanted to proceed with an intrusive investigation of the group, pointing to a document by the FEC’s general counsel making the case for proceeding. The three Republican appointees disagreed, pointing to a separate, earlier document from the FEC’s general counsel, which the three Democratic commissioners refused to release to the public.The entire document’s 76 pages were all deemed too sensitive to be seen, and were completely redacted.Any of the sitting Democratic FEC commissioners could have joined with the Republicans and allowed for disclosure of the document, but all three voted to keep the report secret.It’s not hard to imagine why. Defeating your foe in the court of public opinion is a much easier task if your opponent’s argument is literally covered up by FEC lawyers. The plan worked. The ruling produced headlines such as, “Crossroads GPS probably broke election law, FEC lawyers concluded” and “FEC Believes Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS violated campaign-finance laws.”
Amending the First Amendment
Las Vegas Review Journal: Amending the First Amendment
EditorialThe U.S. military is again engaged in Iraq. The humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border is getting worse by the week. And the economy, although recovering, has all the kick of a warm, flat soda.But what does Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid see as the country’s top priority? Rewriting the First Amendment.On Aug. 1, shortly before the Senate shut down for a five-week recess, Sen. Reid scheduled a Sept. 8 procedural vote — the first order of business the upper chamber will tackle when it returns from its break — on a constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to cap the amount of money that can be spent on political speech. Senate Joint Resolution 19 would reverse the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United and 2014 McCutcheon rulings, which overturned hard caps on total direct contributions to candidates in any one election and said the federal government cannot limit issue advocacy spending by nonprofits, super PACs, unions and corporations. The proposed amendment to an amendment, authored by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., would not only give Congress the authority to limit political advocacy spending — core protected expression — but prohibit judges from overturning any other campaign finance laws the legislative branch proposes in the future.
Town Hall: Campaign Finance Curbs and Bipartisan Censorship
By Steve ChapmanGOP senators staunchly oppose the amendment on principle. “Free speech creates a marketplace of ideas in which citizens can learn, debate and persuade fellow citizens on the issues of the day,” Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said. The supporters of the amendment, however, “want to punish, intimidate and silence those with whom they disagree.”Texas Sen. John Cornyn tweeted mournfully: “Words I never expected to write: the Senate Judiciary Committee is voting now on amending the Bill of Rights.” Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama has praised the Citizens United ruling, in which, he said, “the court’s traditional wing protected the right to freedom of speech, and the progressive wing voted to protect government power.”
SCOTUS/Judiciary
Bloomberg: Republicans Sue to End SEC Limit on State Donations
By Andrew ZajacThe Securities and Exchange Commission rule limiting some campaign contributions from investment firms violates free speech, two state Republican parties said in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the regulation.The rule, which governs donations to political candidates with influence over state government business, forces investment advisers to make “an impermissible choice” between “exercising a First Amendment right and retaining the ability to engage in professional activities,” the New York and Tennessee Republican parties wrote, according to a complaint filed today in Washington federal court.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Records: Top Walker aide at odds with DA as first Doe launched
By Daniel Bice, Dave Umhoefer and Bill GlauberThree months before Scott Walker was elected governor in 2010, his top Milwaukee County aide wrote a confrontational note to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm demanding an explanation as to why a secret probe had been launched.“Again, John, why is this a secret John Doe?” wrote Tom Nardelli, former chief of staff to Walker, in a letter to Chisholm. “Why are you going this route? What is the motive?”
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
NY Times: Eric Cantor’s Big Payoff
EditorialResidents of Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District won’t be able to meet their representative at a town hall during the August recess because they won’t have one as ofAug. 18. Their congressman, Eric Cantor, announced his resignation a few days ago after losing the Republican primary in June to someone further to the right. Ostensibly, he did so to give his successor slightly higher seniority (which might mean nothing more than a better office), but the real reasons are more venal.Mr. Cantor, who was the House majority leader and clearly didn’t want to spend four months as a backbencher, is about to embark on the next phase of his life, which inevitably involves making a lot of money. His aides and colleagues told Politico that he is already looking for a job in the private sector, ideally with a hedge fund, a private equity firm, or a big bank. So let the favor-trading begin.
Washington Examiner: Look who’s been getting millions in secret foreign cash!
EditorialIn turn, Sea Change Foundation, a $124 million organization whose one-page website contains no helpful information about the group, shifts this money around so that it ends up (directly or indirectly) in the hands of groups involved in political and policy activities – groups like the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, and the Blue-Green Alliance. The report remarks: “This is clearly a deceitful way to hide the source of millions of dollars that are active in our system, attempting to effect political change. … It appears that Klein exists on paper only. …”Americans’ donations for advocacy and politics should be both legal and encouraged. That’s not the problem. What is stunning in this situation is the raw hypocrisy required to operate a movement this way while calling for laws that curtail others’ First Amendment rights. In the ongoing IRS scandal, for example, conservative groups with comparatively tiny annual budgets faced a Spanish Inquisition when they dared to seek official nonprofit status from the IRS. Democrats in Congress have excused the actions of senior IRS bureaucrats, arguing that these Tea Party groups threaten to flood the political system with money from undisclosed sources.Yet at the same time, Democrat politicians benefit from millions in Big Green cash that goes toward groups with similarly political and policy-based goals, and some of that money comes from at least one shadowy foreign source. There’s a lesson in here somewhere.
NY Times: Hawaiian Governor Loses Primary by Wide Margin; Senate Race Is Undecided
By Ian LovettMr. Ige seemed to hardly believe how easily he won, after overcoming enormous disadvantages in fund-raising and name recognition. Through July 25, Mr. Abercrombie had spent nearly $5 million in his re-election bid; Mr. Ige spent less than $500,000, according to the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission.But the money did not matter. As the election became a referendum on an unpopular governor, voters who knew little about Mr. Ige were willing to support him.“When we started this 13 months ago, I had people tell me I was crazy,” he said. “No one thought we would be anywhere close to where we are today.”
State and Local
Virginia –– NY Times: Eighth Day of Virginia Ex-Governor’s Trial Focuses on Role of His Wife’s Chief of Staff
By THEODORE SCHLEIFERDefense lawyers for the former first lady, who had a close friendship with Mr. Williams and received expensive gifts from him, sought to show that Ms. Sutherland used her position on Mr. Williams’s behalf in order to lock in the job offer. In Ms. Sutherland’s final months as chief of staff, she helped set up a luncheon at the governor’s mansion that brought Mr. Williams side by side with the influential researchers he needed to show that his dietary supplement, Anatabloc, was effective.“I was doing my job,” Ms. Sutherland said when pressed during four hours of testimony on Wednesday. “Setting up the mansion event was part of my job.”
