Independent Groups
USA Today: Super PAC donations surge past $1 billion
Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars
Super PAC donations have barreled past the $1 billion mark, driven by a small group of super-wealthy contributors intent on deciding who will occupy the White House and control Congress next year.
Donations to super PACs hit nearly $1.1 billion through the end of August, a USA TODAY analysis of newly filed campaign-finance reports shows. That surpasses the $846.8 million that poured into these groups during the entire 2012 election cycle, the first presidential race in which super PACs operated
CPI: Pro-Trump super PAC mistakenly publishes private donor information
Dave Levinthal
A controversial pro-Donald Trump super PAC mistakenly released the personal email addresses and cell phone numbers of hundreds of Trump-loving donors — and some of them are livid.
The email and phone number disclosure came as part a routine campaign finance filing Great America PAC made Tuesday night to the Federal Election Commission.
A Center for Public Integrity review of the document identified 336 people who were affected by what Great America PAC’s treasurer says was an “error” that occurred while electronically sending donor information to the FEC.
Washington Post: How John McCain and Russ Feingold are riding the big money wave in their campaigns
Paul Kane
John McCain and Russ Feingold used to be synonymous with their crusading overhaul of the campaign finance system that eliminated big money from federal elections.
But after a sea change to campaign finance laws following the Supreme Court “Citizens United” decision, McCain and Feingold are now benefiting from the largesse they once fought so fiercely against.
Supporters of Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), seeking a sixth term after 30 years in the Senate, have boosted his campaign through a super PAC specifically designed to run ads on his behalf, financed almost entirely by six-figure donations from Wall Street titans and other corporate executives. Feingold, the former Senate Democrat trying to reclaim his old seat in Wisconsin, has been boosted by outside groups financed through “dark money” committees that don’t reveal their donors.
Washington Free Beacon: Dem Campaign Finance Reformer’s B-Roll Video Raises Super PAC Questions
Lachlan Markay
The campaign of Zephyr Teachout, a left-wing Democrat running in New York’s 19th congressional district, posted a video on YouTube on Tuesday featuring generic b-roll footage of the candidate.
The video contains no overlaid text or narration. It features an apparent campaign logo and slogan at the end, but no “paid for by” disclaimer…
Posting such clips on public video channels is a commonly used strategy for getting around prohibitions on political campaign coordination with independent groups such as Super PACs, which can spend unlimited sums on candidates’ behalves as long as they do not coordinate with their campaigns.
Once the footage is publicly available, independent political groups can download it and use it for their own purposes.
Buzzfeed News: Joss Whedon Has Launched A Campaign To Get You To Vote — And Not For Trump
Adam B. Vary
The video’s loose, irreverent tone won’t be a feature of the entire Save the Day campaign, but Whedon does appreciate the freedom the super PAC allows him. “We heard from some of the Clinton people, and they have a specific thing that they have to do to stay on message,” he said. “We can go kind of anywhere, we can be a little more anarchic, have a little more fun with it. I think there’s a lot of people who are going to be inured to whatever any candidate says. … It’s very much, like, Let’s save democracy! We can use the old barn!“
Whedon also waded into the 2012 presidential campaign with a tongue-in-cheek YouTube video a week before the election, warning that a vote for GOP nominee Mitt Romney would bring about the zombie apocalypse. The prospect of a Trump presidency, however, strikes Whedon as genuinely catastrophic.
FEC
Washington Examiner: Dem offer: Shed your rights, we’ll keep you safe
Editorial Board
So the actual question is not about national security or foreign propaganda. Nor is the issue whatever precise new FEC rules Ravel or Weintraub might have in mind.
The issue is that this is a conversation we shouldn’t want to start at all.
It is fundamentally wrong that bureaucrats’ first reaction to anything they cannot control, such as the Internet, is to offer the helping fist of government to bring it into line. The freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are too valuable for government to chip away. Indeed that is the point of the first 12 amendments to the Constitution; they are protections against encroachment by government on every citizen’s liberties. The government cannot and should not seek to prevent every possible evil, and certainly not one as overblown as problems with campaign finance. If the Internet is making the FEC or even all campaign finance restrictions on outside voices unenforceable, perhaps that’s the way it has to be.
Bloomberg BNA: FEC Deadlocks on Appeal of PAC Name Ruling
Kenneth P. Doyle
The Federal Election Commission deadlocked on whether to appeal a recent federal court ruling that struck down as unconstitutional FEC restrictions against a super political action committee using a candidate’s name to promote itself.
The FEC impasse means there will be no en banc appeal of the rule to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; however, the Justice Department could decide to file a petition for Supreme Court review…
There was no statement from the FEC as a whole about the deadlocked vote. One of the Republican commissioners, Lee Goodman, said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg BNA that his vote against an appeal reflected his “serious reservations” about the FEC rule restricting a PAC’s use of a candidate’s name.
Wisconsin John Doe
Wisconsin State Journal: Another group files IRS complaint against Wisconsin Club for Growth
Matthew DeFour
Lloyd Mayer, a Notre Dame Law School professor and expert on nonprofit law, said he doesn’t expect the IRS would investigate Wisconsin Club for Growth because of the intense scrutiny the agency has been under since the tea party scandal. Owens, the former IRS administrator, agreed saying, “their ability to conduct audits has been generally degraded and they seem to be shying away from these high-profile political examples.”
Mayer said while the agency might investigate an egregious violation, this case doesn’t necessarily rise to that level because the group will argue it wasn’t engaging in express advocacy. Mayer also said the group might counter the private benefit argument by noting it hasn’t always aligned with Republicans.
IRS
Wall Street Journal: IRS Commissioner Pushes Back on Impeachment Attempt
Richard Rubin
Although he expressed regret for the agency’s shortcomings in protecting evidence and the fact that some of his statements later proved mistaken, Mr. Koskinen said he wouldn’t quit and said he hadn’t done anything to deserve impeachment.
“There is no evidence anywhere that I knew something I didn’t tell people about, that I falsified or misrepresented or lied,” he told reporters after the hearing, adding that it would set a “terrible precedent” if he were pressured out of office.
Wednesday’s hearing was a step—though far from the final one—toward making Mr. Koskinen the first official other than judges or presidents to be impeached since 1876. Removing Mr. Koskinen from office would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate, and thus a bipartisan vote.
Influence
The Verge: Joss Whedon wrangles a zillion celebrities for meta anti-Trump PSA
Kaitlyn Tiffany
To mark the occasion of his new Super PAC, Save the Day, Joss Whedon enlisted about a zillion of his celebrity buddies to help him make a pro-voter registration / anti-Trump PSA.
Unlike most celebrity PSAs, this one involves all of the celebrities acknowledging the cliche of celebrity PSAs. They promise that if you go out and vote, Mark Ruffalo will do a nude scene in his next movie. They also point out that the most famous person gets to be on screen last (it’s Robert Downey Jr)…
Whedon has to walk a very fine line here — the ad is serious but not too serious, meta but not exactly self-aware. It’s funny, but in a Superbowl ads of 2004 kind of way. The message has to be “by no means should anyone vote for Trump” while simultaneously whispering “but lol we’re just famous people, many of us detached from the everyperson reality that will be forever maimed by a Trump presidency.”
Politico: ‘West Wing’ cast members to stump for Clinton
Brent Griffiths
Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler), Allison Janney (C.J. Cregg), Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman), Dulé Hill (Charlie Young), Joshua Malina (Will Bailey), and Mary McCormack (Kate Harper). The cast reunion and campaign events will include appearances in Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Columbus and elsewhere.
West Wing, a fictionalized accounting of the White House under President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen), has been off the air for a decade. The show was created by Aaron Sorkin and netted 26 primetime Emmy Awards during its run.
USA Today: Donald Trump’s campaign still pays Corey Lewandowski
Fredreka Schouten
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump paid his former campaign manager $20,000 in August, nearly two months after Corey Lewandowski left the Trump campaign and joined CNN as a contributor, newly filed campaign-finance reports show.
Lewandowski’s New Hampshire firm, Green Monster Consulting, received $20,000 for “strategy consulting” on Aug. 11, the same monthly amount he received during much of his tenure inside the campaign, according to Trump’s filings with the Federal Election Commission. Green Monster also received $20,000 in July.
Lewandowski left the campaign in June and joined the cable network a few days later as an on-air political contributor. The continued Trump payments to him have raised questions about potential conflicts of interest.
Candidates and Campaigns
CNBC: The big hedge funds are betting big on Hillary Clinton
Kate Kelly
Overnight federal campaign finance filings show that with additional seven-figure contributions from the likes of George Soros, S. Donald Sussman, and Henry Laufer, Hillary Clinton remains by far the favored candidate among hedge-fund managers…
August’s hedge-fund contributions typify an election cycle in which industry donors have consistently leaned toward Clinton, despite Wall Street’s historic preference for more conservative candidates. Year to date, Clinton and groups supporting her have taken in nearly $33 million in donations from individuals at hedge funds and private-equity firms, according to data sorted by the Center for Responsive Politics through Sept. 12, compared with the relatively paltry $188,000 collected from that contingent by Trump.
Reuters: Trump scores with small money, lags with big donors
Michelle Conlin and Grant Smith
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been a hit with small donors, raking in two-thirds of his individual campaign contributions in sums of $200 or less, according to financial disclosures filed on Tuesday.
But with the big-money donor class, the players Trump blasted during the primary season as greedy influence peddlers, the celebrity businessman has fallen short of expectations, the disclosures filed with the federal government showed.
Trump took in 65 percent of his total $75 million in individual campaign contributions from people who pitched in $200 or less, but Super PAC contributions fell short of expectations.
CBS News: Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson sets fundraising milestone among third-party candidates
Julia Boccagno
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson set a new milestone in August among third-party candidates, becoming the first to raise $5 million in a single month dating back to at least 1996, the Wall Street Journal reported. Digital campaign finance records aren’t accessible before that year…
Campaign efforts to position the Johnson ticket as a viable third option among those who are unsatisfied by the mainstream candidates gained new momentum in August, as shown by its successful fundraising push. In the first two weeks of August alone, the Johnson campaign raised more than half of the $5 million that was collected for that month.
The States
Portland Tribune: Fans of campaign limits push for legal fight
Nick Budnick
The measure has drawn the most organized support of any of the five proposed by the charter committee. The goal is to pass a law that is challenged all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Not only do we expect it, we welcome that challenge,” says one of several residents promoting the measure, Juan Carlos Ordóñez. “It will hopefully give an opportunity to the courts to do the right thing to revisit those actions that have been detrimental to our political system.”
Ordonez, who works for the left-leaning Oregon Center for Public Policy, says he was chairing a subcommittee of the charter review panel when the idea was brought to them. It fit right into his beliefs about the corrosive impact of money in politics.
