In the News

Americans for Prosperity: Prosperity Podcast #75: Are Democracy Vouchers Good or Bad for Democracy?

Should you be taxed to fund political campaigns? Seattle has experimented with so-called democracy vouchers, or tax financed campaigns, and the results haven’t been good. Property taxes on businesses and individuals in the Emerald City have been hiked by $3 million per year to finance these campaigns, and the money has almost all gone to incumbents. Other cities, including Washington, D.C., are considering joining Seattle in tax financed campaigns. Scott Blackburn, a senior research analyst at the Center for Competitive Politics, joins the podcast to explain why that’s a bad idea.

CCP

Court Strikes Down Attempt to Allow Taxpayer-Funded Campaigns

A Sacramento County Superior Court judge struck down a law passed late last year to allow state and some local governments to enact taxpayer financing of political campaigns.  The Court ruled the Legislature’s attempt to bypass a vote of the people on such legislation violated the California Constitution and the 1974 Political Reform Act as amended.  The decision was issued August 24, but not received by the plaintiffs until yesterday.

The lawsuit was brought by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) and former State Senator and retired Superior Court Judge Quentin Kopp, who was a co-author of Proposition 73, the initiative measure that enacted the taxpayer-financing ban upheld by the court’s decision…

In his ruling, Judge Timothy M. Frawley noted that “the purpose of [Proposition 73] is straightforward: to ban taxpayer financing of political campaigns for elective office. [SB 1107] conflicts with the purposes of the Political Reform Act … because it violates this specific mandate.” Judge Frawley wrote that “the issue in this case is not whether the Legislature’s reversal on the ban on public financing of political campaigns is a good idea, it is only whether the amendment [by the Legislature] furthers the purposes of the Act…. [T]he court concludes it does not.”

CCP Job Opening: Attorney, First Amendment Litigation

The Center for Competitive Politics is expanding its litigation team. We are looking for an experienced attorney to take a leading, independent role in First Amendment cases brought in federal and state courts.

[Please click on the link above for a detailed description of job responsibilities, requirements, and instructions on how to apply.]

Free Speech

San Francisco Chronicle: After melees, Berkeley mayor asks Cal to cancel right-wing Free Speech Week

By Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross

In the aftermath of a right-wing rally Sunday that ended with anarchists chasing attendees from a downtown park, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin urged UC Berkeley on Monday to cancel conservatives’ plans for a Free Speech Week next month to avoid making the city the center of more violent unrest…

“I obviously believe in freedom of speech, but there is a line between freedom of speech and then posing a risk to public safety,” the mayor said. “That is where we have to really be very careful – that while protecting people’s free-speech rights, we are not putting our citizens in a potentially dangerous situation and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing the windows of businesses.”

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the university is working with the Berkeley Patriot to come up with a time and location for Yiannopoulos’ appearance. He emphasized that UC Berkeley wasn’t the one extending the invitation, but that “we have neither the legal right nor ability to interfere with or cancel (students groups’) invitations based on the perspectives and beliefs of the speakers.”

“Where we do have discretion is around everything that has to do with the safety of our communities, and the well-being of those who may feel threatened or harmed by what some of these speakers may espouse,” Mogulof said.

The Courts

New York Times: Sarah Palin’s Defamation Suit Against The New York Times Is Dismissed

By Sydney Ember

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin against The New York Times, saying Ms. Palin’s complaint failed to show that a mistake in an editorial was made maliciously…

“Nowhere is political journalism so free, so robust, or perhaps so rowdy as in the United States,” Judge Rakoff wrote. “But if political journalism is to achieve its constitutionally endorsed role of challenging the powerful, legal redress by a public figure must be limited to those cases where the public figure has a plausible factual basis for complaining that the mistake was made maliciously.”

In a statement, a spokeswoman for The Times said: “Judge Rakoff’s opinion is an important reminder of the country’s deep commitment to a free press and the important role that journalism plays in our democracy. We regret the errors we made in the editorial. But we were pleased to see that the court acknowledged the importance of the prompt correction we made once we learned of the mistakes.”

Congress

ALEC: Beneficial Ownership Disclosure: A Huge Donor Disclosure Threat

By Shelby Emmett

To date, two such bills have been introduced this year in Congress: S. 1454, the “True Incorporation Transparency for Law Enforcement (TITLE) Act, introduced by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA); and the “Corporate Transparency Act” (H.R. 3089 and S. 1717) introduced in the House by Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Peter King (R-NY) and in the Senate by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL)…

The Corporate Transparency Act would exempt most types of already-existing tax-exempt organizations and trusts, but only if they have not been denied tax-exempt status and have already “filed the most recently due annual information return with the Internal Revenue Service.” This clever filing requirement effectively precludes use of the exemption for newly-formed 501(c) entities. The TITLE Act, on the other hand, only carves out tax exempt 527 and 501(c)(3) entities. It does not even purport to provide any exemption for other types of 501(c) entities…

[T]he true motives of some of the sponsors of these bills have become all too clear. They see beneficial owner disclosure as a means to attack so-called “dark money” and the Citizens United decision and to challenge the free speech rights of those who disagree with them on policy issues.

The Media

Washington Post: The Newseum opened as the journalism industry tanked. No wonder it’s in deep trouble.

By Margaret Sullivan

Relocated from a much smaller space in Arlington, Va., the museum opened at a terrible time: 2008 was a year of precipitous advertising decline, and round after round of layoffs at newspapers and the other news organizations that had pledged to support it…

In a statement Monday, the Freedom Forum told the dire news that – even after getting $500 million over the past 20 years from its parent foundation, and trimming its costs – the museum is losing money fast.

“Left unchecked, this deficit spending rate would eventually drain the Freedom Forum’s entire endowment, and the annual cash drain prevents us from allocating any new capital to First Amendment programs that are at the heart of our educational mission,” it said.

It doesn’t require a PhD in comparative literature to see the Newseum’s troubles as a metaphor for the besieged state of the American press.

The First Amendment – whose words are etched impressively on the building’s exterior – is threatened by a media-hating president. The news industry’s financial turmoil continues. And many Americans mistrust the news media, even as many others cherish and support journalists’ watchdog role.

The States

Idaho Statesman: Idaho lawmakers mull possible campaign disclosure changes

By Kimberlee Kruesi, Associated Press

LaBeau and Elizabeth Criner, also a lobbyist who is also the president of the Idaho Legislative Advisers, asked lawmakers to consider expanding the definition of electioneering communications to include social media and emails – currently it is just limited to broadcast and mailer ads. The two also urged lawmakers to remove the 48-hour cutoff on reporting before elections, saying that the public doesn’t know about last minute campaign expenditures until after the election…

Denney, a Republican, presented six different legislative proposals that included the majority of the lobbyists’ LeBeau and Criner’s prior suggestions to the panel. This included a two-page bill requiring candidates to file sunshine reports twice a year during non-election years and months reports during election years…

Lawmakers on Monday agreed that the state’s sunshine laws need improving, but it’s unclear how sweeping the group will push legislative leaders to adopt. Many argued the system should be simplified, while others said more reporting could be too burdensome and detract candidates from running.

House Minority Leader Mat Erpelding said he wants to see harsher penalties for people and groups who violate campaign laws, particularly when PACs coordinate with candidate – a practice already illegal in Idaho but vagueness in the law’s language has caused challenges to pinpointing violations.

Santa Fe New Mexican: Draft rules on campaign disclosures draw over 800 comments

By Andrew Oxford

The draft rules, which would require dark money groups to disclose some donors if their spending reaches certain thresholds, will get one last public hearing from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday, Aug. 30, at the state Capitol.

With the Secretary of State’s Office aiming to implement the rules sometime in October, the public campaign by a coalition of conservative and libertarian groups to stop it faces a final test.

By 4 p.m. Tuesday, an hour before the deadline to submit written comments on the rules, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office said staff had received 828 comments on the latest draft of the rules published about a month ago. The first draft drew 327 written comments.

Santa Fe New Mexican: Secretary of state: Public Election Fund almost gone

By Daniel J. Chacón

The fund could be up to $1.5 million short, assuming that at least two candidates in each of the six offices up for grabs in the 2018 election cycle – three on the PRC and three on the Court of Appeals – apply and qualify for public financing, she said. Only candidates for the PRC, New Mexico Supreme Court and Court of Appeals are eligible for public financing from the state under the Voter Action Act.

“As of now, we’re looking to be very much in the red,” Toulouse Oliver said. “When I get calls from candidates who are considering taking part in the Voter Action Act and the Public Election Fund, and they’re asking me to tell them, ‘If I participate, am I going to get all of the funding that I need?’ – because the reality is if we don’t have it, we have to give them a proportionally smaller amount of money – that’s discouraging potentially to them to participate in public funding.”

South Dakota Public Broadcasting: National State Legislature Observer Says Lowering Campaign Contributions Differs From National Trend

By Lee Strubinger

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the amount of money an individual can give to candidates running for state office is on average $2,000 to $3,000 lower than the national average.

The campaign finance limits in Initiated Measure 22 wanted to lower those amounts even further.

And that goes against the national trend, according to Wendy Underhill. She is director of NCSL’s elections team. Underhill says proponents argue for lifting campaign finance limits, because caps don’t necessarily mean less money in politics. She points to Super PAC’s as an example.

“Contribution limits are contribution limits to campaigns. If you have independent expenditures and other-people might call it soft money or dark money-that is outside of the limits of campaigns, then you could wonder why limit the campaigns to $1,000 or $2,000 when there’s all this other money out there,” Underhill says.

NMPolitics.net: Campaign reporting proposal creates necessary, nation-leading disclosure in NM

By Doug Nickle

Take Back Our Republic is a conservative campaign finance reform organization that advocates for nonpartisan, commonsense disclosure of political contributions. We also believe in the individual’s right to both privacy and free speech. That’s why we support New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver’s proposed rules and regulations addressing campaign finance reporting…

Those groups in opposition to disclosure like to use the catchy phrase “Transparency is for government; privacy is for people.” We couldn’t agree more – which is why we point out that the privacy of any individual or group who gives within the legally prescribed threshold is fully protected; their personal information remains undisclosed. But in order for us as citizens to have any expectation that government will be transparent, we must have transparency into the dark money spending that exceeds current disclosure threshold maximums – the money given to organizations that fund campaigns and attempts to buy influence with our elected officials.