Independent Groups
Daily Kos: Vaccine deniers (election edition): only a few great options for Mayday PAC
With some 900 candidates running for House seats alone, only 15 saw fit to respond directly to Mayday’s July 29 challenge. Now, to be fair, numerous Democratic incumbents likely consider themselves to already be immune by virtue of having previously co-sponsored one or another campaign finance reform bill. Still, this showing is probably not what Mayday was hoping for. A little public show of moral support from some of those incumbents would have been nice, but didn’t happen.Republicans Are Distinctly UnimpressedAll of the 15 respondents are Democrats, which is perhaps unsurprising given the widely held impression that Republicans are the primary beneficiaries of Big Dark Money today. Mayday is a young effort with, today, only modest money to throw around; wake the Republicans up when it can go toe-to-toe with the sum of the Kochs, Heritage, Club for Growth, Citizens United, and the like.
Arizona Central: ‘Dark money’ is just an epithet
By Glenn HamerWe’re consistently criticized by the media for failing to fully exert ourselves in order to impact Arizona’s body politic and refocus legislators and elected officials on our state’s highest priorities. Yet, when the Arizona Business Coalition or other similar entities take action using the legal channels available to us, the dark-money denunciations come out like clockwork.Here’s the truth: For as long as we’ve had elections in this country, campaign groups have sought to use every possible mechanism within the law to maximize fundraising and minimize public exposure for donors.The very concept of anonymous political speech dates to our nation’s founding and the Federalist Papers. The rationale for anonymous speech hasn’t changed much in the prevailing 200-plus years — individuals or groups seek to have their ideas judged on merit alone without risking offense of heavy-handed regulators or government bodies.
Washington Post: Super PACs’ spending isn’t always welcomed by candidates they support
By Karen Tumulty“It’s billionaires fighting with billionaires — Tom Steyer fighting with the Koch brothers,” said David Kochel, a veteran Iowa political consultant who has informally advised Ernst. “People cannot relate to what they’re talking about in that ad. It’s drawn up by people who’ve spent their entire lives in Washington and just don’t get what the real experiences and lives of people are. It’s so completely out of touch and so far-fetched that it’ll never work. It’s a huge waste of money.”
Pro Publica: Pro-Troop Charity Misleads Donors While Lining Political Consultants’ Pockets
By Kim BarkerCharity watchdogs have long criticized Move America Forward for spending too much on administrative fees and having little outside oversight. For instance, it earned zero starsout of a potential four from the rating organization Charity Navigator.But experts on campaign finance and taxation say Move America Forward’s practices may trigger more than bad ratings. Its activities could violate tax rules, which prohibit charities from engaging in partisan politics or overly benefiting the people who run them.“They’re playing audit roulette,” said Marcus Owens, a lawyer who once ran the division on tax-exempt organizations in the Internal Revenue Service. Owens said Move America Forward reminded him of the Coalition for Freedom, a charity linked to then-Senator Jesse Helms that lost its tax-exempt status with the IRS normally because of its political activities in the mid-1980s. “They’re betting the IRS won’t find them, or won’t find them in time.”
Tax Financing
Cato Institute: Second Verse, Same as the First
By JIM HARPERIt seems clear from the description to which Lessig pointed me that if your preferred candidate is none of the above, your money will be used to fund political candidates that you don’t support. This is the evil of direct taxpayer funding of campaigns—taking money from a person to support speech of which he or she disapproves. But even when used, the voucher is thinly disguised taxpayer funding of campaigns.With the federal government financing much of its activity through debt, a tax foregone, such as through this proposed voucher program, results directly in greater debt. That debt is a liability of all taxpayers, which must be financed and repaid by all, including the ones who prefer to support no candidate.Progressives refer to this kind of thing as a “tax expenditure” because it’s so like spending. (I don’t use the term because it’s premised on the idea that all of society’s wealth is the property of the government, which, in failing to collect it, spends it.) The “democracy voucher” is a tax break that subsidizes political speech, something about which the Constitution says Congress shall make no law.
Cato Institute: #Escape2010
By JIM HARPERWhat is most interesting is his utter certainty that an intricate scheme to mask government subsidy for political speech is good enough to slide over the First Amendment’s bar on “abridging the freedom of speech.” I thought I did a pretty good job on the subsidy questionthe first time, but I’ll do it again: Under Lessig’s plan, if you give money to a politician, you pay less in taxes. If you don’t give money to a politician, you pay more in taxes. Government tax policy would funnel money to politicians for their campaigns. That’s subsidy.Lessig is right that his proposal doesn’t “abridg[e]” “speech.” But the First Amendment bars something more: “abridging the freedom of speech.”As used in the phrase, “speech” is a mass, or non-count, noun. Modifying “freedom” from its prepositional perch, it makes “freedom of speech” non-count as well. “The freedom of speech” is a mass of freedoms—”this mass of freedoms right here,” the Framers said by putting a definite article (“the”) ahead of it. This should incline us to look at freedom of speech as practiced at the time of the Framing. Political campaigns were not government subsidized. (Incidentally? Sure. But Lessig says, “The whole purpose of the Post Office, originally, was to subsidize political speech.” Come now. Political speech follows commerce and communications, of course.)
Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Politico: GOP launches new big money effort
By Byron TauRepublicans are launching a fundraising effort that will let donors cut six-figure checks to support GOP Senate candidates this fall — a move that capitalizes on the Supreme Court’s landmark McCutcheon v. FEC decision.Senate Republicans have filed paperwork to form the Targeted State Victory Committee — a joint fundraising effort between the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Republican state parties in 13 Senate battleground states.
NY Times: Challengers From the Right Struggle in G.O.P. Senate Primaries in 2 States
By JONATHAN MARTINWASHINGTON — Like most incumbent Republican senators this year who are facing a primary challenge from the right, Pat Roberts of Kansas refused a one-on-one debate against his hard-line opponent.With the clock ticking, Mr. Roberts’s opponent, Milton Wolf, felt an urgent need to shake up the race before Tuesday’s primary. So he confronted the incumbent with TV cameras rolling as the three-term senator walked in downtown Emporia, Kan., last week. It did not seem to help: Mr. Roberts brushed off Mr. Wolf, an aide to the senator criticized the challenger’s “stunts,” and as Mr. Roberts spoke inside a business, Mr. Wolf’s campaign bus honked before eventually driving off.
State and Local
Mississippi –– AP: State appeals campaign finance law ruling
OXFORD — The state of Mississippi is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a lower court ruling that part of its campaign finance law creates an unconstitutional burden for people or groups that spend at least $200 to support or oppose a ballot initiative.The case will be argued Sept. 3 before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.Opponents to the law argue the $200 threshold is so low that it would be impossible for a group of people to run a quarter-page ad in their local newspaper without having to become a political committee.The law was challenged in 2011 by a group of Oxford residents backing an initiative that ultimately was approved by voters that year, limiting the government’s use of eminent domain to take private land. They were represented by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian group based in Virginia.
New York –– NY Post: Subpoenas issued in alleged WFP campaign finance abuse probe
By Aaron ShortAdler is looking into allegations that City Council member Debi Rose, who was backed by the WFP, received improper support from the party’s for-profit campaign arm, Data and Field Services, during the 2009 election that made her the council’s first black lawmaker from Staten Island.According to a lawsuit filed by voters against the party, the WFP’s campaign arm provided discounted consulting and get-out-the-vote services to Rose’s campaign that were never disclosed, a violation of campaign-finance laws.
Virginia –– NY Times: In Virginia Graft Case, Cognac and Golf Trips Aren’t Smoking Guns
By TRIP GABRIELThe evidence has been a parade of embarrassments. A grinning Mr. McDonnell at the wheel of a white Ferrari belonging to a Virginia businessman who is the government’s key witness. Oscar de la Renta dresses for Ms. McDonnell, golf outings at $400 a round and a $5,000 Cognac poured for the governor.But under Virginia’s ethics laws at the time, which placed no limits on gifts an official could accept, there was nothing illegal about the normalss. So, as the trial moves through its second week, the challenge for prosecutors is to show that the $160,000 in cash and gifts from the businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., were given and accepted not out of friendship, but in an illegal scheme in which the governor did official favors for Mr. Williams’s company.
California –– KPBS: Probe Of Illegal Campaign Contributions To San Diego Politicians Taking Shape
Car dealer co-owner Marc Chase admitted serving as a straw donor for Azano. He’s agreed to pay $80,000 in fines to the San Diego Ethics Commission for laundering money through committees supporting Filner and Dumanis. Also, last month eight people affiliated with Chase have agreed to pay $60,000 in fines to the commission for taking cash from Chase and contributing in their own names.And retired San Diego detective Ernie Encinas, whom prosecutors said helped hide the foreign campaign donations, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and filing a false tax return.“We took a look at the evidence, and there were wiretaps and there were recorded conversations between him and cooperating individuals,” Encinas’s lawyer Jeremy Warren said. “He said things in there that made it very untenable to defend in court. It was a very easy call for him to go in and admit that he did something wrong.”
