In the News
USA Today: Campaign finance enforcement chills speech: Column
Scott Blackburn
While laws that prevent coordination between campaigns are frequently presented as high-minded safeguards against corruption in the political process, those laws can and do become partisan tools to harass and attack political opponents Over-broad investigatory power, as wielded in Wisconsin, is itself a form of speech suppression. That is, if your political participation brings police to your doorstep, you are much less likely to participate — even if you are certain you have committed no crime.
SCOTUSblog: Friday round-up
Amy Howe
At Cato at Liberty, Ilya Shapiro and Randal Meyer discuss the amicus brief that Cato filed in support of certiorari in a case arising out of the California attorney general’s request that “the Center for Competitive Politics (CCP), an educational foundation and public-interest law firm specializing in the First Amendment and political law, disclose its principal donors to the state.”
Candidates and Campaigns
Washington Post: Clinton proposes new caps on political donations
Anne Gearan and Matea Gold
Clinton proposes to lower the federal contribution limits for political donations to congressional and presidential candidates who agree to participate in the low-dollar-matching program. That limit is $2,700 for the presidential primaries. Clinton is requesting that amount from supporters now.
Her campaign did not say where she would cap individual donations or what the new federal match for contributions would be. Both changes would require approval by Congress.
Her campaign said she supports “a reasonable limit on the total amount of public matching funds available to each candidate, but no limit on the number of small donations candidates can receive from their supporters up to the individual donor contribution limit.”
Huffington Post: Hillary Clinton Releases Broad Campaign Finance Reform Plan
Paul Blumenthal
Clinton’s proposals include a handful of actions she could influence immediately if she won the White House. She promised to issue an executive order requiring all government contractors to disclose their campaign contributions, including to outside groups that currently do not disclose donors. She said she also would advocate for the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a rule requiring all publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending, including undisclosed outside spending, to their shareholders.
Proposals requiring congressional approval include support for enacting a small donor matching system of public financing for presidential and congressional elections along the lines of legislation sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and David Price (D-N.C.). Clinton would also press for the passage of disclosure legislation in Congress that would require nonprofits spending money on elections to reveal their donors.
Omaha World-Herald: Bernie Sanders talks income gap, Citizens United at Iowa campaign stop
Robynn Tysver
The decision allows corporations and private unions to give an unlimited amount of money to super PACs to support or oppose political candidates.
“I have not made many campaign promises so far, but let me repeat one I have made to you. No nominee of mine to the Supreme Court will get that nomination … unless they are loud and clear in saying they will vote to overturn this disastrous Citizens United decision,” Sanders said.
Lawrence Lessig
Politico: Lessig: I’m running for president
Theodoric Meyer
The Democrats have a sixth presidential candidate: Lawrence Lessig.
The outspoken Harvard Law School professor who’s been an advocate of campaign finance reform, told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday that he’s formally running for president.
And he said he’s running on comprehensive campaign finance and redistricting reform.
Center for Public Integrity: 9 things to know about Lawrence Lessig
Dave Levinthal
While Lessig enjoys a passionate following, he faces both the political juggernaut that is Hillary Clinton and another populist campaign finance reformer in Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont who, of late, has watched his campaign crowds grow and poll numbers rise.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, former Sen. Jim Webb are also running, while Vice President Joe Biden continues to think about it.
Here are nine things to know about Lessig’s financial and political background:
Cato: Lessig Strains to Compare His Campaign to Eugene McCarthy’s
Caleb Brown
It seems clear that Lessig intends to set up a parallel between Vietnam and America’s insufficiently regimented electoral system. There’s just one problem with pointing to McCarthy in this case: Eugene McCarthy was able to make that historic primary campaign about Vietnam because a few rich anti-war guys gave his campaign massive direct contributions, something Lessig strongly opposes.
Independent Groups
Sunlight Foundation: The perplexing case of the Ted Cruz super PACs
Melissa Yeager
Keep the Promise I sending money to CARLY for America is a reminder that these super PACs are capable of spending their money in any way they see fit. It begs the question: What was the strategy behind setting up super PACs for specific donors? Why shouldn’t those donors have just gone the way of the Koch brothers and start their own super PACs to support multiple candidates? Perhaps the strategy will crystalize as the campaign plays out and we see more of their expenditures.
New York Times: Talk in G.O.P. Turns to a Stop Donald Trump Campaign
Nicholas Confessore
In phone calls, private dinners and occasional consultations among otherwise rivalrous outside groups, many have concluded that Mr. Trump’s harsh manner and continued attacks on immigrants and women were endangering the party’s efforts to compete in the general election. Yet after committing hundreds of millions of dollars to shape the Republican primary contest and groom a candidate who can retake the White House, the conservative donor class is finding that money — even in an era of super PACs and billion-dollar presidential campaigns — is a devalued currency in the blustery, post-policy campaign fashioned by Mr. Trump, driven not by seven-figure advertising campaigns but by Twitter feuds and unending free publicity.
Miami Herald: Scamsters, jokers: this PAC’s for you
Glenn Garvin
But the FEC does have one hidden superpower: The ability to scare the bejeezus out of practical jokers. Once a super PAC is registered, it has to file financial reports twice a year (and much more often during election years). Super PAC treasurers and super overlords who fail to get their paperwork in on time get sinister-sounding government letters warning they can be fined thousands of dollars, as Shippensburg (Pa.) University political science professor Alison Dagnes discovered to her horror after assigning her students to set up super PACs as part of a simulated election.
“The kids came to me and they were just stricken,” recalls Dagnes of her brush with federal fugitivehood earlier this year. “They were waving these letters and saying, ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’”
Campaign Finance
Election Law Blog Podcast: Episode 4. Bruce Cain: Author Meets Critics
Rick Hasen
Have efforts to reform the American political system backfired? Do changes in rules for campaign financing, redistricting, government transparency and election administration have unintended and undesirable consequences? On this special Episode 4 of the ELB Podcast, we hear from Bruce Cain, author of the terrific new book, Democracy, More or Less, and four scholars offering critiques of Cain’s book. Listen to a September 2015 panel on Cain’s new book at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco.
Dallas Morning News: No, Democrats, the American system isn’t rigged
Cass R. Sunstein
Within the past year, a new catchphrase has come to dominate political discussion, certainly on the left: “The system is rigged.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren says it to make her claim that wealthy private interests have usurped democratic institutions, ensuring that “the system” protects them rather than ordinary people. In calling for a “political revolution,” Sen. Bernie Sanders has been saying essentially the same thing in his campaign for president.
Harvard law professor Larry Lessig has adopted Warren’s phrase, summarizing why he, too, is interested in a presidential run. Hillary Clinton has used a mild variation, contending that “the deck is stacked.”
Here’s the paradox: The U.S. is in a period of extraordinary reform, and many recent changes have been made to help those against whom the system is supposedly rigged.
Des Moines Register: Reform campaign finance laws, lift individual limits
David Niffenegger
Reforming McCain-Feingold limits would place emphasis back on candidates and their campaigns. It’s up to us to hold our candidates and political parties accountable for the negativity by helping drive the process through the candidates and not the Super PACs. Special interest money doesn’t always serve the best interests of Iowans. The truth is we don’t know who’s funding our members of Congress. This must change. I believe in
transparency, disclosure and accountability through streamlining bureaucracy. After speaking with Democrats and Republicans, I believe these are issues we can fight together for and do what is best for everyday Iowans.
The States
Huffington Post: Maine Voters Hope To Restore Their Revolutionary Election System
Paul Blumenthal
The referendum proposes three types of reform to the current system. It would replace the now-nullified matching fund system, for when a self-funding candidate or an outside group spends big in a race, with a program to allow candidates to continue to collect $5 checks and to qualify for another grant of public funds if such circumstances arise.
The referendum would further increase disclosure by requiring all express political advertising by outside groups — be they unions, super PACs or nonprofits — to display a disclaimer showing the group’s name and its top three donors. It would also require gubernatorial transition committees and inauguration committees to disclose their own donors. Lastly, the referendum would increase penalties for campaign finance violations.
Bangor Daily News: Maine public campaign financing push bucks national tide
Christopher Cousins
The initiative is likely to find opposition, especially among Republicans. Since the election of Gov. Paul LePage and 2nd District U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, among others at the national and state level, some in the Republican Party have embraced libertarian ideals that include less government involvement in many facets of life, including elections.
“They don’t want this government money to run their campaign,” Republican House Minority Leader Ken Fredette said to the BDN last year. “It’s the philosophy that government shouldn’t provide money for me to run for office. I should raise that money myself if I want to be a candidate.”
Montana Public Radio: Montana Rules Need Rewriting, Interest Groups Say
Steve Jess
The ACLU and the National Rifle Association might not agree on much, but they found common ground on this subject. The NRA submitted written comments saying the rules gave Motl and his staff too much latitude to interpret the state’s campaign laws. Motl’s chief counsel, Jaime MacNaughton, read the letter:
“The Commissioner is an unelected official. In addition to contributing to the uncertainty over what a provision means, this may lead to uneven interpretations or applications of the law.”
