CCP
Analysis of Washington State Initiative 1464
Eric Wang
Permitting government agencies to collect a portion of the penalties that they impose has incentivized excessive enforcement and skewed agency priorities in other contexts and jurisdictions. Providing a private right of action for anyone to sue directly in court over campaign finance violations has incentivized frivolous and vindictive lawsuits in Colorado. CCP is not suggesting that Initiative 1464 will necessarily result in any of these effects and others discussed above. Indeed, CCP hopes Initiative 1464 will not cause any of these problems. Rather, CCP provides this analysis as an informational resource for Washington residents and policymakers to highlight potential problems to be on the lookout for if Initiative 1464 is approved by voters, based on the experiences with similar enforcement-related mechanisms that have been implemented elsewhere.
Free Speech
Reason: Climate Change Subpoenas Versus Free Speech
Ronald Bailey
As this legal battle over who can say what about climate change in public has evolved, several Republican attorneys-general have filed an amicus brief in the federal district court for Northern Texas in support of ExxonMobil’s motions to quash Healey’s civil investigative demand. They note: “The Attorney General of Massachusetts is investigating Plaintiff’s expressed opinions on the issue of climate change and those with whom they communicate about this subject. While vocal assaults from politicians, universities, professional societies, journalists, and others are a natural part of the discourse that accompanies free expression, the action by Defendant herein is of a different ilk. Here, a government official is using their law enforcement power to attack a company for expressing opinions, or asking questions, unpopular within their office or political constituency.”
Minnesota Public Radio: The limits of free speech can be found on your lawn
Bob Collins
Despite what you may have heard, there are limits to free speech.
In Minneapolis, for example, it’s eight square feet. That’s the total square feet allowed for any political lawn sign.
And a similar ordinance — this one in Haverhill, Mass., north of Boston — is at the center of a debate over a person’s free speech on his own property.
Haverhill’s zoning ordinance on the subject is much more lenient than, say, Minneapolis. There, you can have 32 square feet of signs , so Richard Early III has taken all 32 feet of freedom to express his support for Donald Trump. And more.
North Andover Eagle-Tribune: City: Homeowner’s Trump signs illegal
Mike LaBella
Early said he is also questioning the timing of this move by the city.
“If they came to me in January or February, maybe I would have done something,” Early said. “My point is all of a sudden Trump is gaining a little momentum and here we go ….”
Early said he is prepared to attend any hearing the city schedules on the matter and that if he has to go to court to fight it, he will.
“Who is the city to tell me I can’t hang something on my house?” Early said. “What if I wanted to say, ‘Early, making America great’?”
FEC
Fox Business: Conservative media under fire
Lou Dobbs
FEC Commissioner Lee E. Goodman on the fight for free speech.
Government Reporting
More Soft Money Hard Law: The Transparency-Privacy Trade-Off (or Bargain)
Bob Bauer
The current divide over these reporting issues is so sharp that it is unlikely that the Center will immediately win over the usual skeptics. These skeptics’ complaint is that terms like “dark money” or “gray money” are highly charged but hopelessly vague, and that they are being used to justify proposed reforms that would impede the exercise of free speech rights. They are loathe to empower the government to do too much, and behind this is the conviction that government in the control of particular political interests will use disclosure to hound adversaries or subject them to public harassment.
But the skeptics might be surprised that the Brennan Center Report does not minimize the burdens and political risks of disclosure regimes. It argues for reasonable monetary thresholds, to keep the smaller contributions out of the public reports; for reasonable exemptions for especially vulnerable participants; and for “other reasonable accommodations” to allow donors to support organizations for charitable or social welfare purposes without falling within disclosure requirements that apply to the financing of political activities…
If there is to ever be bipartisan accord about strengthened, modernized transparency, the conversation could profitably start there: taking serious steps to answer the growing concerns of donors about their exposure to invasion of privacy, public Internet shaming, or more direct reprisal. These are real concerns in this day and age, and cannot be simply dismissed as sham explanations given to fend off legitimate public disclosure.
IRS
National Review: Impeach the IRS Commissioner
George Will
Impeachments are rare — no appointed official of the executive branch has been impeached in 140 years. But what James Madison called the “indispensable” power to impeach should not be allowed to atrophy, as has Congress’s power to declare war…
The Constitution authorizes impeachment for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Madison favored this language and interpreted it to include “maladministration,” which surely encompasses perjury and obstruction of Congress. The idea that an IRS commissioner is not a high enough official for impeachment ignores, Turley says, “the realities of the modern regulatory state.” Commissioners have authority over 90,000 employees collecting $2.5 trillion in revenues annually.
New York Times: Will Speaker Paul Ryan Stand Up to the Freedom Caucus?
Editorial Board
The leadership of the House speaker, Paul Ryan, is about to be challenged by the latest partisan mischief from ultraconservative Republicans — a meritless and unprecedented attempt to impeach the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen.
Members of the House’s Freedom Caucus, still angry over an I.R.S. investigation of possible political activity by conservative nonprofit groups in 2013, are demanding that the House impeach Mr. Koskinen even though he was not in charge of the agency when the nonprofits were investigated…
No executive official below president has been impeached since the secretary of war in 1876. Constitutional scholars have told Congress there is no basis here for impeachment. The Constitution specifies “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” not partisan dissatisfaction with an agency head.
USA Today: Impeachment won’t reform IRS
Editorial Board
Certainly, the public deserves to know exactly what happened, see the relevant records, and be convinced that it won’t happen again. Instead, Koskinen’s “cleanup” has raised more suspicions. It has been marred by disappearing emails and bungled searches for backups. Federal court rulings excoriated the agency for secrecy.
A few months ago, the agency was still stonewalling. In March, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blasted the IRS for resisting “at every turn” a judge’s orders to disclose a list of the groups targeted. And just last month, a federal appeals court in the nation’s capital revived a lawsuit against the IRS by conservative groups that had been targeted. A three-judge panel cited the agency’s own admission that two groups still had not gotten their tax exemption, years after seeking it. The IRS’ excuse? Because the groups had sued the agency.
Republicans have good reason to want the IRS to come clean and release any documents that shed light on what happened. But impeachment of a man who wasn’t even there when the scandal occurred? No.
The Courts
Bloomberg BNA: Judge Hints Could Remand Disclosure Case to FEC
Kenneth P. Doyle
In a nearly two-hour court hearing, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia questioned whether Republican FEC commissioners voting to dismiss the enforcement cases against the conservative groups, American Action Network (AAN) and Americans for Job Security (AJS), carefully considered the ads the groups sponsored.
Cooper quizzed lawyers for the FEC and conservative groups about whether the ads in question could be considered “genuine issue ads,” rather than campaign ads intended to elect or defeat candidates. The question is crucial for determining whether the groups had a “major purpose” of influencing elections and thus were required to register with the FEC as political action committees and report their donors.
Influence
Politico: New York attorney general opens ‘inquiry’ into Trump Foundation
Louis Nelson
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation into the Donald J. Trump Foundation “to make sure it’s complying with the laws governing charities in New York,” he said Tuesday…
Although Schneiderman, a Democrat who supports Hillary Clinton, has said that his suit against Trump University is not politically motivated, the New York attorney general has not shied away from publicly discussing the case. In a June interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Schneiderman said the real estate seminar was “really a fraud from beginning to end” and “just a scam.” He indicated that if elected, Trump could be called in to testify as president or president-elect.
Reason: Drafter of U.S. Dietary Goals Was Bribed by Big Sugar to Demonize Fat
Elizabeth Nolan Brown
“Even though the influence-peddling revealed in the documents dates back nearly 50 years, more recent reports show that the food industry has continued to influence nutrition science,” the Times notes. That’s also true. What the Times doesn’t say, however, is how much the food industry continues to influence federal food policy and advice even independent of any shady research.
At the 2015 National Food Policy Conference, a two-day affair I attended in downtown D.C., food-industry associates gave talks alongside federal officials and their logos— Nestlé, Dannon, Cargill—were splashed everywhere. The food industry has and continues to influence nutrition “knowledge” because federal agencies encourage it.
Candidates and Campaigns
Washington Post: How these powerful women learned to love fundraising
Elise Viebeck
There are a handful of figures on Capitol Hill who actually enjoy the process of asking for donations. One is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Democrats’ most prolific fundraiser, who has raised about $522 million since 2002, including about $93 million this election cycle alone. She said it’s not just about raising money — it’s about “attracting” it.
“I consider people an intellectual resource,” Pelosi said. “I need the benefit of their thinking. It is invigorating in terms of how they see priorities. I’ve never considered anybody just a financial donor. That’s why our universe of people continues to grow.”
The States
The Federalist: Tom Steyer Wants To Nullify The Bill Of Rights To Get Other People’s Money Out Of Politics
Lachlan Markay
Tom Steyer wants to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow the government to regulate religious sermons, tap the phones of the American Civil Liberties Union, seize phone record and Internet search histories on a whim, and give bureaucrats veto power over the content of The New York Times.
If that sounds like hyperbole, you need only read the text of Proposition 59, the California ballot measure Steyer endorsed last week. Billed as an attempt to roll back the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the measure is actually far broader and more dangerous: it seeks to eliminate all constitutional rights for incorporated entities—for-profit companies, but also nonprofit groups, labor unions, charities, churches, and any other association given an official government imprimatur.
Steyer has focused of late on the ostensibly pernicious effects of money in politics as he pours more money than any other individual into federal elections.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Court: Missouri voters can decide if they want to bring back limits on campaign contributions
Kurt Erickson
A state appeals court has given the green light to put a question on the November ballot asking if Missouri voters want to bring back limits on campaign contributions…
Attorney Chuck Hatfield, who represents individuals and groups opposed to the proposed referendum, has vowed to pursue the matter to the state’s Supreme Court, hoping to get the measure barred from the ballot.
Opponents say the campaign limits initiative financed by Clayton businessman Fred Sauer unfairly limits some classes of businesses and associations from giving money to campaigns.
