Influence
New York Times: Researchers or Corporate Allies? Think Tanks Blur the Line
Eric Lipton and Brooke Williams
Think tanks, which position themselves as “universities without students,” have power in government policy debates because they are seen as researchers independent of moneyed interests. But in the chase for funds, think tanks are pushing agendas important to corporate donors, at times blurring the line between researchers and lobbyists. And they are doing so while reaping the benefits of their tax-exempt status, sometimes without disclosing their connections to corporate interests.
Thousands of pages of internal memos and confidential correspondence between Brookings and other donors — like JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank; K.K.R., the global investment firm; Microsoft, the software giant; and Hitachi, the Japanese conglomerate — show that financial support often came with assurances from Brookings that it would provide “donation benefits,” including setting up events featuring corporate executives with government officials, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.
The Nation: The Super-Rich Have Found a New Way to Wield Political Power: Philanthropy
David Callahan
There is nothing new, of course, about the wealthy writing checks for nonprofits and political candidates alike. Top contributors to the Democratic and Republican parties have long been turning up on donor rolls of groups like the Sierra Club, the Heritage Foundation, the ACLU, NARAL, and so on.
One difference now, though, is that America’s donor class is far wealthier than ever before—so they have more cash to pull every possible lever of influence.
Independent Groups
Inc.com: How to Persuade Your Political Opponents With Social Media
Salvador Rodriguez
And, of course, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn aren’t going to keep you from dialing up their revenue streams. Making an ad on Twitter and LinkedIn is extremely frictionless–just head to their ads’ websites. Facebook is a tad more complicated, as it requires that you create a page, rather than use your existing profile, but buying an ad on Facebook–and Instagram–is fairly straightforward after that.
The only speed bump in this process is that the FEC requires that you report your expenditures should you spend more than $10,000 on this activity or more than $1,000 if it happens within 20 days of November 8, election day.
RealClearPolitics: The Unlearned Lessons of Watergate
Jim Gerlach
Today, money and access to it not only disproportionately determine who is likely to win re-election, but who runs for office in the first place. In fact, our campaign finance system of super PACs and “dark money” groups is far more destructive to a healthy democracy than I ever expected. Rather than learning from the mistakes and excesses of the 1970s, Washington and its political system raced in the opposite direction: In the 2014 midterm elections, campaigns and outside groups spent more than $3.77 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Each party spent more than $1.7 billion to gain control of each chamber in Congress.
Reuters: Icahn declines to join Trump economic team, mulls second Super PAC
Jennifer Ablan
This would be his second Super PAC. Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, Super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to advocate for or against political candidates.
The first Super PAC Icahn formed had an initial commitment of $150 million and was targeted at “tax inversions,” which occur when a company moves its headquarters outside the United States to take advantage of lower tax rates elsewhere.
IRS
Washington Times: Court says IRS must prove it stopped tea party targeting
Stephen Dinan
But Judge David B. Sentelle, writing for the appeals court, said that was clearly not the case because some organizations were still awaiting approval years after they applied. And he flatly rejected the IRS’s explanation that those groups couldn’t be processed because they were suing the IRS, calling that a classic catch-22.
One group, the Albuquerque Tea Party, is still awaiting approval nearly seven years after it filed its first application.
“The IRS is telling the applicants in these cases that ‘we have been violating your rights and not properly processing your applications. You are entitled to have your applications processed. But if you ask for that processing by way of a lawsuit, then you can’t have it,’” Judge Sentelle wrote. “We would advise the IRS: if you haven’t ceased to violate the rights of the taxpayers, then there is no cessation. You have not carried your burden, be it heavy or light.
Free Speech
Best of New Orleans: Suppressing free speech on the bayou
Clancy DuBos
“First Amendment freedoms, including free speech, freedom of the press, open meetings and public records, don’t get eroded in large cities where big news organizations can fight back,” he said. “They die in small towns, where entrenched politicians control virtually everything and most people are too afraid or too poor to fight back.”
I thought about Jack’s lesson when I read about Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter’s deputies executing a search warrant on the home of Houma police officer Wayne Anderson in hopes of learning the identity of an anonymous blogger who had the audacity to criticize Larpenter and other Terrebonne bigwigs.
Deputies took two computers and five cellphones from Anderson’s home. Worst of all, the warrant was obtained under a dubious legal pretext called “criminal defamation” — a law that, as applied in this case, is patently unconstitutional.
Candidates and Campaigns
The Intercept: More than 100 Americans Are Rich Enough to Buy the Presidential Election Outright
Mattathias Schwartz
Two billion dollars, the estimated cost of this year’s presidential election, is big money, but it is not huge money. Two billion is one-tenth of NASA’s annual budget, one-twentieth of the Harvard endowment, one-thirtieth of the personal wealth of Warren Buffett. Buffett is number two on the 2015 Forbes list of 106 Americans who hold personal fortunes of $5 billion or more, the Club of 106. These billionaires are rich enough to pay for the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and still have $3 billion left over…
Seven members (Bezos, Zuckerberg, Page, Brin, Murdoch, the Newhouses, Bloomberg) own large media and internet companies — Amazon, the Washington Post, Facebook, Google, Fox News, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, Condé Nast, Bloomberg — with the power to shape public opinion. (By way of disclosure, an eighth member, Pierre Omidyar, founded The Intercept’s parent company, First Look Media.)
San Jose Mercury News: Clinton drawing record cash from Silicon Valley despite techies’ cool embrace
Matthew Artz
Thanks in part to relaxed campaign finance rules, Clinton is dominating the Silicon Valley money chase. Through June, she had raised more than $31 million from San Jose to San Francisco — far more than Obama’s haul in 2012 or 2008, according to the Crowdpac, a San Francisco firm that tracks political contributions and helps citizens participate in politics. Clinton will return to the Bay Area on Aug. 24 for a fundraiser hosted by Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Trump, meanwhile, raised less than $165,000 across Silicon Valley since jumping into the race more than a year ago.
The New York billionaire’s opposition to free trade and his calls to curtail legal immigration made him a pariah in the Bay Area even before his behavior became increasingly erratic. His lone major technology backer, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, still hasn’t donated to his campaign, according to campaign finance reports.
Los Angeles Times: Bernie Sanders: I support Hillary Clinton. So should everyone who voted for me
Bernie Sanders
Clinton understands that Citizens United has undermined our democracy. She will nominate justices who are prepared to overturn that Supreme Court decision, which made it possible for billionaires to buy elections. Her court appointees also would protect a woman’s right to choose, workers’ rights, the rights of the LGBT community, the needs of minorities and immigrants and the government’s ability to protect the environment.
Trump, on the other hand, has made it clear that his Supreme Court appointees would preserve the court’s right-wing majority.
The States
Los Angeles Times: A little more light on campaign spending, please
Editorial Board
Most voters don’t have the time or energy or knowledge to do that kind of homework, especially given how quickly these ads come and go. If disclosure should be required anyway — and it should, for the reasons articulated by the high court in Citizens United — it makes sense to cut through the obfuscation and shed a little light on dark money with a disclosure that reads more like this: “Paid for by Yes on Prop 80, Citizens for a Better World. This committee has major funding from Mortimer Moneybags.” Now you know who is really funding the message and you can consider it in that context.
Hartford Courant: Connecticut Watchdog Agencies For Ethics, Elections, Public Information Clash with Malloy Over Funding
Christopher Keating
Because of state budget problems, more than $180,000 is being withheld from the State Elections Enforcement Commission, Freedom of Information Commission and Office of State Ethics — three agencies that recently regained their independence as separate entities after approval by the state legislature.
The governor and his critics are locked in a clash over an interpretation of state law in the battle to release the money. Malloy’s budget director, Ben Barnes, says Malloy has the right to withhold the money in order to help balance the budget in the current fiscal year. The watchdog agencies, Common Cause, and state Rep. Toni Walker all say that Malloy lacks that authority.
Montana Daily Inter Lake: Are you willing to give up your freedoms to big government?
Jerry O’Neil
George Soros, Gov. Bullock, Sen. Tester, Common Cause and the Montana Public Interest Research Group are associated with Stand with Montanans, A Project of Common Cause Montana, and they are taking actions to repeal the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution…
If this group is successful in their attempt to amend the Constitution, I believe our freedoms of speech, press and association will become:
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech of the individual, or of the government approved press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble as long as they do not use their collective resources for political purposes, and to individually petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
AL.com: How the University of Alabama System funneled $1.4 million through a ‘dark money’ web
Connor Sheets
Between April 2014 and December 2015, the Alabama Association For Higher Education, or AAFHE, poured more than half a million dollars into state political action committees with close ties to the UA System’s leadership, state campaign finance records show.
Those committees, known as PACs, have gone on to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, dividing the funds between dozens of state political candidates, including Gov. Robert Bentley, Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh and then-House Speaker Mike Hubbard.
