CAMPAIGN FINANCE 2

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see main for older

SEE THREE 5 25

mult bak 6 22 capt 5 25

12/17 age of trump capt 719

see also cult of corruption

see dark $

see voter suppression

html plaintiff-appellants

see DISCLOSE

see CU case and org

see Powell and McConnell on ~ ROBERTS

SEE SOTOMAYOR

see HR1 for the ppl act

see citizens united 2010 case

see

public fund election / small donor

really good report 918

https://www.issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Dark-Money-Illuminated-Report.pdf

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10 24 robt R etc all say public financing, bernie?

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Sotomayor corners GOP lawyer on Trump’s 'quid pro quo' in campaign finance argument

AN 12 9 25

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted loosened campaign finance rules during oral arguments in a case that would allow political parties to receive even more donations.

Calling it “the most consequential campaign finance-related dispute” since Citizens United, Axios explained that “the justices will decide whether to eliminate a federal law that limits the amount of money big-money party committees can spend in direct coordination with favored candidates.”

Appearing skeptical that the Court should rule in his favor, Justice Sotomayor walked Noel Francisco, the attorney for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, through some top donors to both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates while warning about the appearance of quid pro quo.

“Your answer is suggesting to me that every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” Justice Sotomayor said. “You’re telling us that Citizens United and McCutcheon ended up, yes, in amplifying the voice of corporations, but diminishing another voice, that of the party.”

“Now, you want to now tinker some more and try to raise the voice of one party,” she explained. “Our tinkering causes more harm than it does good.”

Disagreeing, Francisco replied, “Your Honor, I personally never think free speech makes things worse. I think it virtually always makes it better.”

Without mentioning any donors’ names, Justice Sotomayor then said that “in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton set up a joint victory fund with the DNC, 32 state parties, which allowed a single donor to give up to $356,000.”

“In 2024, Donald Trump’s campaign launched a joint fundraising operation with his own leadership PAC, the RNC, and 40 State Republican Party committees, that saw donations of up to $814,600,” she said, noting, “I’m not picking on Donald Trump.”

“Joe Biden’s victory fund, together with the DNC and the party committees of all 50 states, um, raised up to $1.3 billion,” the justice added.

She warned that “once we take off this coordinated expenditure limit, then what’s left? What’s left is nothing. No control whatsoever.”

Francisco disagreed again.

“You mean to suggest,” Justice Sotomayor replied, “that the fact that one major donor to the current president, the most major donor to the current president, got a very lucrative job immediately upon election from the new administration, does not give the appearance of quid pro quo?”

“Your Honor,” Francisco responded, “I’m not 100% sure about the example that you’re looking at, but if I am familiar, if I think I know what you’re talking about, I have a hard time thinking that his salary that he drew from the federal government was an effective quid pro quo bribery, which may be why nobody has even remotely suggested that.”

Sotomayor warned, “Maybe not the salary, but certainly, the lucrative government contracts might be.”

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BRENNAN CTR

T he Pro-Money Court: How the Roberts Supreme Court Dismantled Campaign Finance Law

The Supreme Court’s McCutcheon v. FEC decision further increases the influence of big money in elections. But McCutcheon is just the latest in a long string of cases weakening campaign finance rules.

• David Earley
• Avram Billig

April 2, 2014

Reform Money in Politics

• • Campaign Finance in the Courts

The Supreme Court’s McCutcheon v. FEC decision further increases the influence of big money in elections. But McCutcheon is just the latest in a long string of cases weakening campaign finance rules. Since Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito joined the Court in 2005 and 2006 respectively, six decisions have significantly reshaped the legal landscape dictating how much big money can flow into political races. Here is some background on what the Court did, how it affected American elections, and what could happen next.

2007: Federal Election Commission (FEC) v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc.

• The SCOTUS Ruling:The Court struck down a law regulating sham issue ads — television advertisements that clearly target specific candidates, but avoid regulation by posing as “issue” ads. For example, an advertisement referring to a candidate by name close to the election, but instead of explicitly advocating voting for or against the candidate, tells the viewer to “call Rep. Smith and tell him to stop corporate polluters.”

• The Majority Opinion:Chief Justice Roberts on the continued regulation of issue ads: “Enough is enough. Issue ads like WRTL’s are by no means equivalent to contributions, and the quid-pro-quocorruption interest cannot justify regulating them.”

• The Dissenting Opinion:Justice Souter: “Neither Congress’s decisions nor our own have understood the corrupting influence of money in politics as being limited to outright bribery or discrete quid pro quo; campaign finance reform has instead consistently focused on the more pervasive distortion of electoral institutions by concentrated wealth, on the special access and guaranteed favor that sap the representative integrity of American government and defy public confidence in its institutions.”

• The Result: By rejecting Congress’s decision to regulate political spending, the Court encouraged the creation of more and more political ads that circumvent campaign finance law by leaving out “magic words” such as “vote for” or “vote against.” As any voter who lives in a battleground state knows, these ads now dominate many elections, often funded by shadowy groups that do not reveal their donors.

2008: Davis v. FEC

• The SCOTUS Ruling:The Court struck down the so-called “Millionaire’s Amendment,” which had permitted congressional candidates facing wealthy opponents who spent more than $350,000 of their own money on the race to raise larger contributions until they achieved parity with their wealthy opponents.

• The Majority Opinion:Justice Alito: “While [the law] does not impose a cap on a candidate’s expenditure of personal funds, it imposes an unprecedented penalty on any candidate who robustly exercises that First Amendment right.”

• The Dissenting Opinion:Justice Stevens: The law “does not impose any burden whatsoever on the self-funding candidate’s freedom to speak, it does not violate the First Amendment, and . . . it does no more than diminish the unequal strength of the self-funding candidate.”

• The Result:Opponents of extremely wealthy candidates are left without an effective way to overcome their significant financial disadvantage. By striking down the “Millionaire’s Amendment,” the Court helped to ensure that Congress would continue to be dominated by the very wealthy, a state of affairs recently described by the Center for Responsive Politics.

2010: Citizens United v. FEC

• The SCOTUS Ruling:The Court opened the door to allow unions and corporations, including for-profit corporations, to spend unlimited amounts on elections, as long as that money is not given directly to or used in coordination with a candidate.

• The Majority Opinion: Justice Kennedy: “Ingratiation and access, in any event, are not corruption. . . .” “The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”

• The Dissenting Opinion: Justice Stevens: “In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.”

• The Result: The Citizens United decision laid the groundwork for the creation of Super PACs, or independent political groups that can take in and spend unlimited sums. These groups, paired with newly unrestrained corporations and unions, have contributed to astronomical growth in independent political spending. Outside groups spent more than $1 billion dollars on the 2012 election, which is more than the total outside spending reported to the Federal Election Commission from 1980 to 2010. Outside spending in Senate races alone went from about $18 million in 2008 to about $260 million in 2012. Much of this money remains untraceable, as groups have taken advantage of loopholes in the election law and tax code to hide the identities of spenders.

2011: Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett

• The SCOTUS Ruling:The Court struck down part of an Arizona program that provided public funds to candidates who agreed to only raise very small contributions from the public and to abide by campaign expenditure limits. Specifically, the program could no longer provide additional money to these candidates if they faced big-spending opponents.

• The Majority Opinion:Chief Justice Roberts: “Laws like Arizona’s matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand.”

• The Dissenting Opinion: Justice Kagan: “Some people might call [it] chutzpah” that those who challenged the law claim that it “violated theirFirst Amendment rights by disbursing funds to otherspeakers, even though they could have received (but chose to spurn) the same financial assistance.”

• The Result:Public funding programs can no longer provide candidates with additional funds if they are vastly outspent by their opponents.

2012: American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock

• SCOTUS Ruling:The Court struck down a Montana ban on corporate political spending and refused to reconsider Citizens Unitedeven as outside spending skyrocketed. The Court rejected the evidence relied upon by the Montana Supreme Court that outside spending can cause corruption and the appearance of corruption.

• The Majority Opinion: Per Curiam: “The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law. There can be no serious doubt that it does.”

• The Dissenting Opinion:Justice Breyer: “Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so.”

• The Result:By doubling down on its conclusion that corporate election spending may not be limited, the Court blocked future efforts to regulate outside money at the state level.

2014: McCutcheon v. FEC

• SCOTUS Ruling: The Court struck down aggregate contribution limits — the amount one contributor can give in federal elections to all candidates, political parties, and PACs, combined. This marks the first time the Supreme Court has ever declared a federal contribution limit unconstitutional. The Court also defended giving access and influence to donors as a key democratic right, and ruled that donors have the same right to influence officials as do the constituents those officials are elected to represent.

• TheControllingOpinion: Chief Justice Roberts: “[G]overnment regulation may not target the general gratitude a candidate may feel toward those who support him or his allies, or the political access such support may afford. ‘Ingratiation and access . . . are not corruption.’ They embody a central feature of democracy—that constituents support candidates who share their beliefs and interests, and candidates who are elected can be expected to be respon­sive to those concerns.”

• The Dissenting Opinion:Justice Breyer: “[This is] a decision that substitutes judges’ understandings of how the political process works for the understanding of Congress; that fails to recognize the difference between influence resting upon public opinion and influence bought by money alone; that overturns key precedent; that creates huge loopholes in the law; and that undermines, perhaps devastates, what remains of campaign finance reform.”

• The Result:The decision allows candidates and parties to collect substantially larger sums from individual donors. A single politician may now use a joint fundraising committee to directly solicit more than $3.6 million from one donor in an election cycle. That’s about 70 times the median annual family income in America. The decision will embolden political spenders to wield their influence more freely and directly. And by striking down a federal contribution limit, the Court has endangered other contribution limits that remain on the books.

NOTE: In a 2006 case,Randall v. Sorrell, the Court struck down Vermont’s contribution limits as “burden[ing] First Amendment interests in a manner that is disproportionate to the public purposes they were enacted to advance.” The Court reasoned that the state’s relatively low limits inhibited electoral competition, a claim that has been rebutted by the Brennan Center. When Randall is included, the Roberts Court has struck down a total of seven campaign finance laws since 2006. Due to the limited reach of the decision, however, it was not included above as one of the cases to significantly reshape the money in politics legal landscape.*

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“As of Today, the FEC Can’t Enforce Campaign Finance Laws — and That’s Only One of Its Problems”

:{:{[May 1, 2025,}:

federal election commissionRick Hasen}:

Dan Weinerfor the Brennan Center:

Starting today, the bipartisan Federal Election Commission won’t be able to do its job. That’s because the independent agency, which oversees money in campaigns for federal office, will no longer have the minimum four required members to do most business.

The loss of quorum is due to the resignation of a Republican appointee, coupled with President Trump’s unprecedented move in February to fire a Democratic appointee. Such a shortfall has only happened three other times in the FEC’s 50-year history, including twice during Trump’s first term.

Ordinarily, the big question would be how fast the president and Congress will move to restore a full complement of commissioners so the agency can function. That is still important. But in light of the firing and the president’s other steps to exert control over the FEC and other independent agencies, there is now a much bigger issue: Will the FEC be able to continue as an independent watchdog at all? Because even worse than a dormant FEC is one that could be weaponized against the president’s opponents….

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master plan 11 4 24

montana amicus brief said 2 claims demo BS bullock Raskin w/ mccain

11-1179-Senators-Whitehouse-and-McCain-Cert-Amicus

sep by other reps

MASTER PLAN, Ep 2: Watergate’s Magic Window Of Corporate Cash

the lever master plan

memo john dean to colson on using corps/trade gps to beat finance reform ep 1

ep 2* Secret Plan for a 60-Day Lawless Window:Read the memo in which Watergate’s burglary mastermind G. Gordon Liddy lays out how anonymous corporate donors can funnel money to Nixon’s campaign before new campaign finance laws go into effect.

• A Nixon Aide Rehearses His Lies and Smears:Listen to Oval Office recordings, courtesy of the Nixon Library, in which Watergate conspirator workshops lines of attack that he’ll use in a television interview hours later to attack campaign finance reformers.

• Watchdogs Storm CREEP:* Republican John Gardner and his watchdog group storm the office of Nixon’s Committee To Reelect The President to demand the release of its secret list of donors.

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10 24 master class scotus? CU did not get --> AFP lawsuit camp finance disclosure?

Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta - Ballotpedia

Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta is a case that was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on April 26, 2021, during the court's October 2020-2021 term. It was consolidated with Thomas More Law Center v. Bonta (formerly Thomas More Law Center v. Becerra).

In a 6-3 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings, holding that the district court was correct in entering judgment in favor of the petitioners and permanently enjoining the California Attorney General from collecting their Schedule B forms, and that the Ninth Circuit erred when it vacated those injunctions and directed the entry of judgment for the attorney general. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion of the court. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice Samuel Alito filed a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.^[1] Click here for more information about the ruling.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The case: Two conservative advocacy groups, the Thomas More Law Center and Americans for Prosperity, challenged a California policy requirement that tax-exempt §501(c)(3) charitable organizations must disclose the names and addresses of major donors. The groups argued that the policy violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of the state. Click here to learn more about the cases' background.

• The issues: The cases concerned governmental disclosure requirements for charitable organizations' donor lists and the Supreme Court's decision in NAACP v. Alabama.

• The questions presented: "Whether the exacting scrutiny this Court has long required of laws that abridge the freedoms of speech and association outside the election context—as called for by NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), and its progeny—can be satisfied absent any showing that a blanket governmental demand for the individual identities and addresses of major donors to private nonprofit organizations is narrowly tailored to an asserted law-enforcement interest."^[2]

• The outcome: The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The case came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. To review the lower court's opinion in the consolidated cases, click here.^[3]

Timeline...

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jeanne shaheen

proposed, dead

117th

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US Congress Senate Joint Resolution 25 (Prior Session Legislation)

US State Legislature page for SJR25

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• Summary
• Sponsors
• Texts
• Votes
• Research
• Comments
• Track

Status

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 39-2)

Status: Introduced on September 20 2021 - 25% progression, died in committee

Action: 2021-09-20 - Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Pending: Senate Judiciary Committee

Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]

Summary

A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections.

Title

A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections.

Sponsors

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4 25 email

Representative Summer Lee has introduced landmark legislation that would place a $5,000 per calendar year limit on contributions to super PACs in federal elections, effectively abolishing them. We worked closely with Representative Lee’s office in drafting this legislation. By passing it, we bring ourselves one step closer to a democracy of, by, and for the people.

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an ah 1123

mAGA Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) has been railing against the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and has been pushing a measure attacking the controversial 2010 decision — which, he argues, conservatives never should have defended. Hawley's measure is a rare example of a pro-Donald Trump Republican attacking a High Court ruling that has drawn more criticism from the left than from the right.

But journalist Jason Linkins, in an article published by the liberal-leaning New Republic on November 4, slams the Missouri Republican's campaign to "overturn Citizens United" is a "complete joke."

"There are many — mainly on the left — who'd like to somehow overturn Citizens United v. FEC, the execrable 2010 decision that unleashed a tidal wave of funny money into our politics and demonstrated that the Supreme Court didn't need to have a 6–3 conservative tilt to cock up the entire country," Linkins argues. "It would be great if we could pass a law and set things right, but here's the rub: Congress can't fix it, sorry!"

Linkins adds, "As MSNBC's Jordan Rubin explained, overturning the decision would require one of two unlikely events: the Supreme Court choosing to reverse itself or the successful enactment of a constitutional amendment…. The fact that Hawley, even with the assent of Congress and the president, literally cannot 'overturn' Citizens United makes this matter done and dusted."

The journalist stresses that despite all of Hawley's "posturing," his Citizens United proposals "would leave unchecked the flood of dark money" in U.S. politics.

"If you're authentically aggrieved by the Citizens United decision," Linkins explains, "this is where the profound misrule lies: Political nonprofits — mainly 501(c)(4)s — can accept unlimited donations and don't have to disclose their donors, even when the nonprofit then sends the money to super PACs, which do have to disclose donors."

READ MORE:Why Josh Hawley's current 'faux populist stunt' is bound to flop: analysis

:{*:{Read Jason Linkins' full article for The New Republic at this link.}:

'Despicable': DHS secretary decimates GOP Senator Josh Hawley ›

• 'Incoming': McConnell warns Senate Republicans not to support Josh Hawley’s campaign donations bill ›
• Republicans are 'increasingly optimistic' about a lawsuit that could 'blow up campaign finance laws': report ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

• Hawley sparks McConnell battle over push to gut Citizens United ... ›
• Josh Hawley's 'Citizens United' stunt isn't what it seems ›
• GOP senator Josh Hawley joins Democrats in opposing Citizens ... ›

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an 10 22

Documents from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show that over the summer, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas received a payment of $555,000 from his campaign. Reporter Bryan Metzger, in an article published by Business Insider on October 18, explains why Cruz “has the U.S. Supreme Court to thank for it.”

Cruz, Metzger notes, challenged part of a 2002 law that “set a $250,000 limit on the amount of money that candidates could raise after the election for the purpose of paying off personal loans to their campaign committee.” The case, Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — and the Court, in a 6-3 ruling, agreed with Cruz. Chief Justice John Roberts used some Citizens United-influenced language in the ruling, writing that Section 304 of the 2002 law “inhibits candidates from loaning money to their campaigns in the first place, burdening core speech."

The 2002 law was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as the McCain/Feingold Act (as in Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin). The High Court’s ruling in Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate struck down Section 304.

READ MORE: Senate Republicans unanimously filibuster bill to get dark money out of politics

“When Cruz first ran for the United States Senate in 2012,” Metzger explains, “he loaned his campaign over $1 million of his own money amid a heated primary campaign against then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst of Texas. Cruz would go on to win a run-off against Dewhurst. However, the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act — championed by the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona — set a $250,000 limit on the amount of money that candidates could raise after the election for the purpose of paying off personal loans to their campaign committee. Thus, Cruz essentially lost $545,000 of his own money after the campaign, with the outstanding portion of the loans converted to an in-kind contribution.”

Metzger continues, “Six years later, facing an unexpectedly competitive reelection campaign against then-Rep. Beto O'Rourke in 2018, Cruz opted to challenge the law. He lent his campaign $260,000 — just $10,000 more than the limit — on November 5, just one day before the election. That allowed Cruz to initiate a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission, which eventually made its way up to the Supreme Court.”

When six of the nine High Court justices found Section 304 of the 2002 law unconstitutional, Roberts’ reference to “burdening core speech” was right out of the Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC — a decision that equated campaign spending with “speech.”

:{:{}:

The three dissenters in Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate were all appointed by Democratic presidents: Justice Elena Kagan, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and then-Justice Stephen Breyer, who has since been replaced by President Joe Biden’s appointee, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.}:

READ MORE: Barack Obama was 'right' about the negative impact Citizens United would have: legal expert

In her dissent, Kagan wrote, “It takes no political genius to see the heightened risk of corruption — the danger of 'I'll make you richer and you'll make me richer' arrangements between donors and officeholders. In discarding the statute, the Court fuels non-public-serving, self-interested governance."

READ MORE: End Citizens United ad hits Mehmet Oz over New Jersey ties

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an comm dr

Proponents of democracy responded with disgust Thursday after Senate Republicans filibustered the popular DISCLOSE Act, which seeks to expose the super-wealthy donors who are spending unlimited amounts of undisclosed money to ensure that the U.S. government advances their interests at the expense of the vast majority.

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), author of the defeated legislation, said in a Wednesday floor speech, the bill's goal is to prevent corporations and billionaires from using dark money loopholes to "spew bile and slime" into the nation's political system.

After all 49 of his GOP colleagues in attendance voted to prevent debate on the legislation endorsed by President Joe Biden, Whitehouse released a statement slamming right-wing lawmakers for fighting to preserve "dark money's poisonous influence over American democracy."

"Today, Senate Republicans stood in lockstep with their megadonors and secretive special interests to protect the most corrupting force in American politics—dark money," said Whitehouse, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The American people are fed up with dark money influence campaigns that rig their government against them and stymie their priorities."

Whitehouse was far from alone in condemning the GOP.

"Once again, Senate Republicans sided with special interests and dark money—and against honest and transparent political debate,"Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) tweeted. "Instead of voting for the DISCLOSE Act and cracking down on the dark money in our democracy, Republicans blocked it. Shameful."

Michael Sozan, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said in a statement that "at a time when the guardrails of our democracy are undergoing a severe stress test, it's lamentable that the Senate minority continues to give corporations, wealthy special interests, and foreign entities the ability to secretly spend vast amounts of money to influence election outcomes."

Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center, added that the failure "to advance, or even allow debate on, the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act... disappoints those of us who have been fighting against the influence of secret spending."

"More importantly," he continued, "it deprives voters of important information about who is attempting to influence their vote and allows corruption to prevail by permitting special interests to continue anonymously rigging the system in their favor."

"It is past time for Congress to enact legislation that bolsters transparency requirements and fulfills voters' right to know who is spending on election influence—a right that has repeatedly been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, even as the court has struck down other campaign finance and election-related laws," said Potter.

The ability of the nation's wealthiest individuals to translate their disproportionate economic power into political clout has increased exponentially since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision eliminated effective limits on campaign contributions.

As Whitehouse's office noted, "Dark money in particular has skyrocketed despite the Supreme Court, by an 8 to 1 margin inCitizens United,upholding disclosure requirements as a means for citizens and shareholders to hold elected officials and corporate spenders accountable."

According to the Rhode Island Democrat, "Dark money political spending went from under $5 million in 2006 to more than $1 billion in 2020. Billionaire political spending increased by a factor of 70, from $17 million for the 2008 election to $1.2 billion for 2020."

Among other things, the DISCLOSE Act would require "organizations spending money in elections—including super PACs and 501(c)(4) dark money groups—to promptly disclose donors who have given $10,000 or more during an election cycle," his office explained. "In addition to election disclosure requirements, the bill requires groups that spend money on ads supporting or opposingjudicial nominees to disclose their donors."

[twt kickass]

"The DISCLOSE Act would shine a light on special interest spending to neutralize its toxic effect, giving Americans' voices a chance to be heard," said Whitehouse. "Republicans heeded the wishes of dark money donors today, but the fight to pass this bill isn't over."

Given the GOP's unified opposition to the legislation, passing it requires that Senate Democrats abolish the upper chamber's 60-vote filibuster rule—a move corporate Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have refused to support.

"Holding a vote on the DISCLOSE Act without pushing to end the filibuster highlights the fundamental flaw with Democrats in Washington: Their rhetoric and warnings about dark money have always been spot-on, but they have failed to take the actions necessary to actually stop the flow of secret cash distorting and corrupting American politics," The Lever reported earlier this week. "Meanwhile, the party has become increasingly reliant on these same dark pools of cash to help elect more Democratic lawmakers."

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2018 9th circuit

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/01/supreme-court-california-disclosure-law-donors-497554

no lnx

Supreme Court nixes California disclosure law in blow to dark-money opponents

The high court ruled a state law requiring not-for-profit organizations that raise money in California to disclose their donors violated the donors' First Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court has ordered California to stop collecting the names and addresses of top donors to charities, siding with a nonprofit group with links to billionaire Charles Koch.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, backed by political megadonors Charles Koch and the late David Koch, brought one of the suits. | David Zalubowski, File/AP Photo

By JOSH GERSTEIN and ZACH MONTELLARO

07/01/2021

The Supreme Court dealt a blow Thursday to efforts to rein in so-called dark money political groups, issuing a ruling striking down California’s policy of demanding donor lists from nonprofit organizations.

The high court split 6-3 along ideological lines in its decision on a pair of cases challenging that California requirement, which forced non-profits raising money in California to give the state copies of federal tax forms containing donor information.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion for the court, ruled that California’s “blanket demand” for that information “is facially unconstitutional.”

“When it comes to the freedom of association, the protections of the First Amendment are triggered not only by actual restrictions on an individual’s ability to join with others to further shared goals. The risk of a chilling effect on association is enough,” Roberts wrote for the court.

The ruling could have a political impact, complicating donor-disclosure requirements for groups that often pour large sums into elections but stop just short of the “express advocacy” for or against candidates that triggers stricter rules on revealing the sources of donations.

The court ruled that the California mandate for groups to turn over donor information to the state, even if kept confidential, was overly broad.

“The point is that a reasonable assessment of the burdens imposed by disclosure should begin with an understanding of the extent to which the burdens are unnecessary, and that requires narrow tailoring,” Roberts wrote.

Roberts’ ruling did not address the federal government’s authority to require the filing of donor information with the Internal Revenue Service. Most charities are still required to file lists of donors giving over $5,000 in a given year, but in 2018 the IRS dropped the requirement for some politically-oriented groups.

The justices’ ruling Thursday addressed lawsuits filed by two politically active, conservative nonprofit organizations in 2015. The Americans for Prosperity Foundation,backed by political megadonors Charles Koch and the late David Koch, brought one of the suits. The other was filed by the Thomas More Law Center, a Michigan-based legal organization active on behalf of Catholic causes that was bankrolled by Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza.

Both organizations argued that California rules requiring filing of donor lists with state officials violate the First Amendment by discouraging individuals from giving and by exposing them to threats and harassment.

In 2016, AFP persuaded a federal judge in Los Angeles to issue a permanent injunction against the requirement. The judge said the state rarely used the information, but often disclosed it accidentally with charities’ public tax filings.

However, two years later, a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously reversed that ruling,holding that the state had a legitimate need for the data and that the Koch-founded group had not shown a significant burden on donors.

It’s unclear how the Supreme Court’s conclusions will impact similar donor-disclosure requirements at the federal level. The Internal Revenue Service has generally done a better job of keeping filings it receives confidential.

Part of Roberts’ opinion does, however, open the door to challenges to other disclosure requirements: “While exacting scrutiny does not require that disclosure regimes be the least restrictive means of achieving their ends, it does require that they be narrowly tailored to the government’s asserted interest,” he wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent and joined by the two other liberal-leaning justices, did however predict that the decision would open the floodgates to weakening disclosure requirements.

“Today’s analysis marks reporting and disclosure requirements with a bull’s-eye,” she wrote. “Regulated entities who wish to avoid their obligations can do so by vaguely waving toward First Amendment ‘privacy concerns.’”

The high court rulings could have a broader impact on efforts by Democrats to broaden and increase disclosure requirements, particularly for groups that run ads that mention federal candidates while stopping short of explicitly endorsing or opposing them.

The For the People Act, congressional Democrats’ massive campaign and ethics reform legislation that is stalled in the Senate amid Democratic infighting and a successful Republican filibuster last week, also contains provisions that would remake campaign finance disclosure law if enacted.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stands with Sens. Raphael Warnock and Amy Klobuchar while speaking with reporters before a vote on the For the People Act.

CONGRESS

[Senate Republicans block Dems’ sweeping elections reform bill

BY MARIANNE LEVINE AND ZACH MONTELLARO]

Amid the hundreds of pages of the bill is a long-fought-over proposal that would dramatically expand which organizations are required to disclose donors and expenditures if they spend a nominal amount on communications that broadly mention federal candidates.

Republicans are now broadly opposed to such measures, a turnabout from two decades ago when prominent GOP leaders backed robust disclosure rules as an alternative to attempts to restrict donations to campaigns and outside groups.

“Republicans are in favor of disclosure,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a 2000 interview. “Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of disclosure?”

McConnell has said that soon after those comments — and the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act despite his opposition in 2002 — he concluded that such rules for groups that don’t engage in express advocacy violate the First Amendment. In the AFP case decided Thursday, he filed an amicus brief saying donor-disclosure requirements should face the “strictest scrutiny” when reviewed in court.

While AFP and the Thomas More Law Center unsurprisingly garnered support for their legal challenges from other conservative organizations, several liberal groups and First Amendment advocates also urged the Supreme Court to rule in favor of donor privacy in the cases.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, the LGBTQ rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign and others argued that the justices should hold that California’s failure to keep the donor information confidential violated the conservative groups’ rights.

However, the liberal organizations’ brief — which drew significant interest from conservative justices at oral arguments — pushed the court toward a narrow decision that would not upset disclosure requirements for political campaigns or address the rights of regulators with a better track record for confidentiality to gather donor information.

FILED UNDER: CAMPAIGN FINANCE, CALIFORNIA, U.S. SUPREME COURT,}}:

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an 6 22

in a decision Monday that liberal Justice Elena Kagan warned will further corrupt the nation's money-dominated political system, the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority struck down a campaign finance regulation limiting federal candidates' ability to use campaign funds to repay personal loans.

Established by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, the rule barred candidates from using more than $250,000 in campaign funds collected after an election to recoup their loans to their own campaign.

The legal challenge to the cap was brought by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who intentionally violated the $250,000 cap during his 2018 reelection bid in order to pursue a repeal of the limit, which he characterized as a violation of free speech.

As CNNexplained:

A day before he was reelected in 2018, Cruz loaned his campaign committee $260,000, $10,000 over the limit—laying the foundation for his legal challenge to the cap... [H]e could have been repaid in full by campaign funds if the repayment occurred 20 days after the election. But Cruz let the 20-day deadline lapse so that he could establish grounds to bring the legal challenge.

The high court's 6-3 decision strikes another blow to the nation's campaign finance restrictions, which were already weak and rife with loopholes that big donors readily and frequently exploit.

"While the direct effects of this decision are limited to the narrow federal provision at issue in the case, it reveals a Supreme Court increasingly out of step with the American people—who overwhelmingly recognize that unchecked campaign giving poses profound risks to the integrity of our democracy," said Trevor Potter, the president of Campaign Legal Center. "More immediately, the ruling could imperil an array of similar restrictions on post-election loan repayments adopted at the state and local level out of legitimate concerns over corruption."

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) added on Twitter that "the right-wing Supreme Court has issued yet another preposterous decision effectively legalizing government corruption at the request of Republicans."

In her dissent, Kagan argued that the court's ruling will make even more common the kinds of "crooked exchanges" that have long sullied the U.S. political system, which is awash in money from corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals.

"Political contributions that will line a candidate's own pockets, given after his election to office, pose a special danger of corruption," Kagan argued, pointing to the issue of recouping personal loans. "The candidate has a more-than-usual interest in obtaining the money (to replenish his personal finances), and is now in a position to give something in return. The donors well understand his situation, and are eager to take advantage of it. In short, everyone's incentives are stacked to enhance the risk of dirty dealing."

Kagan went on to contend that quid pro quos—political favors carried out in exchange for money, in this case post-election donations—could become more rampant thanks to the Supreme Court's new ruling, which was authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, who helped orchestrate the high court's infamous Citizens United ruling and other attacks on campaign finance law.

"Post-election donors can be confident their money will enrich a candidate personally," Kagan wrote. "And those donors have of course learned which candidate won. When they give money to repay the victor's loan, they know—not merely hope—he will be in a position to perform official favors. The recipe for quid pro quo corruption is thus in place: a donation to enhance the candidate's own wealth (the quid), made when he has become able to use the power of public office to the donor's advantage (the quo)."

"The politician is happy; the donors are happy. The only loser is the public. It inevitably suffers from government corruption," she continued. "In allowing those payments to go forward unrestrained, today's decision can only bring this country's political system into further disrepute."

In a statement, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) voiced agreement with Kagan's dissent, calling the high court's ruling "another victory for right-wing donors in their assault on our campaign finance system, and another step toward unlimited special-interest spending in our elections."

"Big Republican donor interests built their supermajority to deliver wins like this one," Whitehouse added, "wins that help special interests skirt our democratic process to achieve what they want."

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an 6 22 kickass

On September 2020, a dark-money group called the Rule of Law Defense Fund convened a meeting in Atlanta of staffers from the fund's corporate sibling, the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). Their purpose was to run "war games," to be ready in the event Donald Trump lost reelection in November. A little over three months later, the same group would help to assemble the mob before the White House on Jan. 6, 2021.

This wasn't an isolated incident. Shadowy preparations like these began long before the violence of Jan. 6. As the House Select Committee investigating those events begins hearings this week, we may learn much more about those preparations and the people behind them.

But it will be difficult to see the full picture, because much of the preparation is shrouded in dark-money secrecy, with funds channeled through front groups that don't have to disclose who controls them.

For now, we're left with mysteries, like Georgia. It was Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger whom Trump personally pressured to "find" the 11,779 votes necessary to flip the state in Trump's favor. Georgia was ground zero for some of Trump's lawyers' most desperate and ridiculous legal claims about the election results — like the "Kraken" suit alleging a role by the deceased Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez in rigging Dominion voting machines. Georgia is where the Rule of Law Defense Fund hatched its scheme. Georgia also saw efforts to create an alternative slate of Trump electors.

Then came the attempt to wield the power of the Justice Department to attack Georgia's election results. For this mission, someone cranked up Jeffrey Clark, a relative unknown who was acting chief of the Department's Civil Division as a result of pre-election DOJ vacancies. Clark prepared a draft letter alleging, falsely, that the department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in Georgia. Of course, we don't know if Clark actually wrote that letter himself; he had no expertise in this area, and evidence suggests the White House communications office was involved. Either way, on New Year's Eve 2020, Trump tried to install Clark as acting attorney general, until then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his deputies threatened mass resignation.

As the Georgia maneuvers foundered, the effort shifted to Washington. The Rule of Law Defense Fund — the same group convened in Atlanta months earlier — made robocalls hours before Jan. 6 urging followers to "march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal." President Trump whipped up insurrectionists at the rally and sent them down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. Violence ensued.

In the aftermath, many of these actors were quick to close ranks. RAGA's leader, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, claims to have had no knowledge of the robocall, but he also refuses — to this day — to admit that Joe Biden is the "duly elected and lawfully serving" president of the United States. At the end of the Trump administration, Clark landed a job at a right-wing dark money group.

Given the anonymity dark money affords, we likely cannot connect all the dots between these dark-money groups, Trump's Georgia obsession and the Jan. 6 riots. We don't know who paid for the planning of the Rule of Law Defense Fund's "war games"; we don't know how Jeffrey Clark nearly vaulted into the attorney general's office to attack Georgia's election results, where his letter came from or who paid his salary when he was gone; we don't know who was behind groups like Women for America First, which footed much of the bill for the Jan. 6 rally.

Successful investigations often "follow the money." But when the money flows through anonymizing channels, investigators hit impenetrable dead ends. The select committee must rely instead on texts, emails, testimony and other documents to make its case. It doesn't have to be this way. Our political system doesn't need to aid and abet the destruction of our democracy.

For starters, we could enforce the rules on the books. Groups like the Rule of Law Defense Fund and Women for America First are 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations. As such, they do not have to disclose their donors, but they are also not allowed to spend more than half their funds on political activity. Is anyone checking compliance with those rules?

Spending reports from 501(c)(4) groups to the IRS can differ markedly from what they report to the Federal Elections Commission. Filing conflicting reports to two federal agencies meets the prima facie definition of a criminal false statement. There is adequate predication for the Treasury Department, the FEC and the Department of Justice to take a look. Have they?

Although dark-money groups can hide their influence apparatus from the IRS and the public, nothing says that grand juries can't get access to that information. In the Watergate investigation, courts decided that even executive privilege had to yield to grand jury investigative subpoenas. But investigators won't get what they don't ask for — or don't subpoena.

The strongest solution is to require disclosure of who spends to influence our politics. My DISCLOSE Act would require groups that spend money in elections — including super PACs and 501(c)(4) dark-money groups — to disclose donors who gave $10,000 or more during an election cycle. Pass this law and the American people might find out who funded the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The dark channels of influence that have corrupted our politics for years were used to plan and execute the Jan. 6 coup attempt. The American people ought to know who the planners are and what they wanted — and we ought to help them find out.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/ted-cruz-2657329267/

no lnx doc twt

Supreme Court hands Ted Cruz lucrative $555,000 win by declaring campaign finance rule violates free speech

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement May 16, 2022

In a 6-3 decision Monday the U.S. Supreme Court handed Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz a lucrative win, declaring a federal rule limiting the amount a candidate who loans money to their own campaign can be repaid violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment.

“With the latest SCOTUS decision to further deregulate campaign finance, the Texas senator will be able pay himself back with fresh donor money,” HuffPost reports, adding that Cruz can now “hit up donors to help pay himself back for the $555,000 he loaned to his campaigns in 2012 and 2018.”

Possibly the most consequential result of the ruling is it “could also enable politicians to personally make money on their campaigns by charging interest on loans later repaid by donors.”

Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, which was joined by all conservatives on the bench. Justice Elena Kagan authored the minority opinion, which was joined by the liberals.

“And as they paid him, so he will pay them,” Justice Kagan, warning of corruption, wrote in her dissent. “In the coming months and years, they receive government benefits ― maybe favorable legislation, maybe prized appointments, maybe lucrative contracts. The politician is happy; the donors are happy. The only loser is the public. It inevitably suffers fromgovernment corruption.”

“Cruz,” HuffPost notes, “will be able to raise $555,000 and put it in his own pocket immediately. For that, he can thank the six conservative justices ― three of whom he voted to confirm.”

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ciarra torres s

Chapter 5 · This Politician Was Brought to You By . . . 101

2009 18 corps had 36% of all wealth 1.5Trill$;  18 corps had 500B$;J Powell sneaky in Bellotti protect speech not spkr,Rehnquist dissent; Memo;

Buckley Valeo (8 magic words)  plus Bellotti--> CU

BCRA Bipart electioneering communications, upheld by McConnell but ~ 7 yrs later in 2010; Acting Solic gen'l Malcolm Stewart messed up saying applied to 500 pg book  hypo; [Kagan walked back 2nd round] what CU did vs did not p 114; key change is allowed  corp $ for indep expenditures [ 501c4?] and electioneering comm  = pol ads; pretended  to empower "disfavored assoc of cits" while rich ppl can spend as much as they want? 115 Justice JP Stevens passionate dissent " 115; later bk same opinion;Lessig 500% increase in Neg ads 117; depress turnout; ~ BO in 1st SOU ~, foreign $,  Alito "not true" [russian $ yes jesse benton at least , rudy pals?]

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/dark-money-groups/

ah

Earlier this year, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives took a stand against voter suppression when they passed House Resolution 1, a.k.a. the For the People Act — a comprehensive voting rights/election reform bill that now faces an uphill climb in the U.S. Senate under the rules of the filibuster, which requires 60 or more votes for most legislation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and many other Senate Republicans are vehemently opposed to HR 1, and according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, "dark money" from "the Koch network" is helping to fuel that opposition.

In an article published on May 28, CREW members Meghan Faulkner and Miru Osuga explain, "There's a whole lot of dark money behind the opponents of democracy reform. The Koch network alone has spent tens of millions backing many of the senators who are opposing the For the People Act, which would overhaul campaign finance rules and enforcement and make it harder for dark money groups, like those in the Koch network, to secretly influence our elections."

Faulkner and Osuga note how much "the Koch network" has spent "backing" GOP opponents of the For the People Act, including $5.6 million spent on Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, $1.3 million on Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, $4.9 million on Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, $4.3 million on Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, $5.7 million on Sen. John Cornyn of Texas and $4.3 million on Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

"All told," Faulkner and Osuga note, "groups associated with the Koch network have spent over $100 million boosting the campaigns of current Republican senators, none of whom are supportive of comprehensive campaign finance reform. That total doesn't even include millions of dollars in additional dark money spending from these groups that was never reported to the Federal Election Commission."

KochPAC is a political action committee funded by employees of Koch Industries and their allies. Billionaire oligarch Charles Koch, the 85-year-old brother of the late David Koch, has been a major supporter of right-wing causes.

According to CREW, one of the things that troubles "the Koch network" is how "popular" the proposals of the For the People Act are. The bill comes at a time when Republicans in state legislatures all over the United States are aggressively pushing voter suppression bills.

"The Koch network and other dark money groups know exactly how popular this democracy reform is and how much it threatens the broken campaign finance system they depend on," Faulkner and Osuga stress. "That's why they're doing their best to defeat it quietly in Congress, aided by the senators whose campaigns they've boosted with millions of dollars of secret money."

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/05/heritage-foundation-dark-money-voter-suppression-laws/

no lnx

Leaked Video: Dark Money Group Brags About Writing GOP Voter Suppression Bills Across the Country

“We did it quickly and we did it quietly,” said the executive director of Heritage Action.

ARI BERMAN

NICK SURGEY

In a private meeting last month with big-money donors, the head of a top conservative group boasted that her outfit had crafted the new voter suppression law in Georgia and was doing the same with similar bills for Republican state legislators across the country. “In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” she said, “or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.”

The Georgia law had “eight key provisions that Heritage recommended,” Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, told the foundation’s donors at an April 22 gathering in Tucson,in a recording obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with Mother Jones. Those included policies severely restricting mail ballot drop boxes, preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters, making it easier for partisan workers to monitor the polls, preventing the collection of mail ballots, and restricting the ability of counties to accept donations from nonprofit groups seeking to aid in election administration.

All of these recommendations came straight from Heritage’s list of “best practices” drafted in February.With Heritage’s help, Anderson said, Georgia became “the example for the rest of the country.”

The leaked video reveals the extent to which Heritage is leading a massive campaign to draft and pass model legislation restricting voting access, which has been swiftly adopted this year in the battleground states of Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and Iowa. It’s no coincidence that so many GOP-controlled states are rushing to pass similar pieces of legislation in such a short period of time.

Republican legislators claim they’re tightening up election procedures to address (unfounded) concerns about fraud in the 2020 election. But what’s really behind this effort is a group of conservative Washington insiders who have been pushing these same kinds of voting restrictions for decades, with the explicit aim of helping Republicans win elections. The difference now is that Trump’s baseless claims about 2020 have given them the ammunition to get the bills passed, and the conservative movement, led by Heritage, is making an unprecedented investment to get them over the finish line.

“We’re working with these state legislators to make sure they have all of the information they need to draft the bills,” Anderson told the Heritage Foundation donors. In addition to drafting the bills in some cases, “we’ve also hired state lobbyists to make sure that in these targeted states we’re meeting with the right people.”

“In some cases, we actually draft [the bills] for them, or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.”

To “create this echo chamber,” as Anderson put it, Heritage is spending $24 million over two years in eight battleground states—Arizona, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Texas, and Wisconsin—to pass and defend restrictive voting legislation. Every Tuesday, the group leads a call with right-wing advocacy groups like the Susan B. Anthony List, Tea Party Patriots, and FreedomWorks to coordinate these efforts at the highest levels of the conservative movement. “We literally give marching orders for the week ahead,” Anderson said. “All so we’re singing from the same song sheet of the goals for that week and where the state bills are across the country.”

Days before the Georgia legislature would pass its sweeping bill rolling back access to the ballot, Anderson said she met with Gov. Brian Kemp and urged him to quickly sign the bill when it reached his desk. “I had one message for him,” said Anderson, a former Trump administration official in the Office of Management and Budget. “Do not wait to sign that bill.If you wait even an hour, you will look weak. This bill needs to be signed immediately.” Kemp followed Anderson’s advice, signing the bill right after its passage. Heritage called it a “historic voting security bill.”

Anderson said she delivered “the same message” to Republican governors in Texas, Arizona, and Florida. Texas is the next big fight for Heritage. Anderson said Heritage Action wrote “19 provisions” in a Texas House bill that would make it a criminal offense for election officials to give a mail ballot request form to a voter who hadn’t explicitly asked for one and would subject poll workers to criminal penalties for removing partisan poll challengers who are accused of voter intimidation. It’s expected to pass in the coming days. 

“Gov. Abbott will sign it quickly,” Anderson said. She warned of corporate opposition to the bill, following actions by Georgia-based companies to distance themselves from the restrictive voting bill there. “American Airlines, Dell, they’re coming after us,” she said. “We need to be ready for the next fight in Texas.” 

In response to a request for comment, Anderson said in a statement, “We are proud of our work at the national level and in states across this country to promote commonsense reforms that make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. We’ve been transparent about our plans and public with our policy recommendations, and we won’t be intimidated by the left’s smear campaign and cancel culture.”

Heritage Foundation fellow Hans von Spakovsky, a former George W. Bush administration official who for two decades has been the driving force behind policies that restrict access to the ballot, spoke alongside Anderson at the donor summit.

“Hans is briefing governors, secretaries of state, state attorney generals, state elected officials,” Anderson said. “Just what three weeks ago, we had a huge call with secretaries of state, right?”

“We’ve now for several years been having a private briefing of the best conservative secretaries of state in the country that has so annoyed the left that they have been doing everything they can to try to find out what happens at that meeting,” von Spakovsky replied.

“So far unsuccessfully,” Anderson said. “No leaks.”

Though the bills shaped by Heritage have been sold as advancing “election integrity,” they appear aimed more at helping GOP candidates take back power. “We are going to take the fierce fire that is in every single one of our bellies,” Anderson told the donors in April, “to right the wrongs of November.”

The Heritage Foundation was co-founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich, a well-connected conservative activist on a mission to create more aggressive conservative infrastructure to rival more liberal think tanks like the Brookings Institution.Weyrich, who was also Heritage’s first president, went on to co-found the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which pairs corporations with conservative state legislators to draft model legislation, and the Moral Majority with Jerry Falwell, which mobilized evangelical voters behind GOP causes and candidates. Heritage received major funding from leading right-wing donors such as Charles and David Koch, Richard Mellon Scaife, and Joseph Coors.

Speaking in 1980 at a meeting of evangelical leaders in Dallas, Weyrich bluntly articulated his radical views on voting rights. “I don’t want everybody to vote,” he said. “Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

In the years since, the Heritage Foundation became the driving force behind much of the Republican Party agenda, writing many of the policy recommendations that were enacted under the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

Heritage is spending $24 million over two years in eight battleground states—Arizona, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Texas, and Wisconsin—to pass and defend restrictive voting legislation.

It remains one of the best-funded organizations in GOP circles. It raised more than $76 million in 2020, according to its most recent annual report. More than $1.6 million of that was raised from corporations, most of which chose to remain anonymous. But according to the annual report from 2019, Google, the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, and the multi-level marketing company Amway all gave at least $100,000, and Citigroup and Hitachi each gave $25,000.

In 2010, as opposition on the right to the Obama administration reached a fever pitch, Heritage launched Heritage Action, a dark money group that does not have to disclose its donors but has received at least $500,000 from the Koch brothers. The goal was to connect the Heritage Foundation to the growing Tea Party movement and to enable the group to undertake more aggressive political activities, such as leading opposition to the Affordable Care Act and promoting a government shutdown in 2013. This right-wing advocacy alienated Republicans on Capitol Hill, with former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn accusing the group of “destroying the Republican Party.”

Former Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint described the relationship between Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action as “the one-two punch.” The foundation writes the policy, and Heritage Action makes it happen. Heritage Action raised more than $11 million in 2019.

The mastermind behind the nationwide voting restrictions operation is von Spakovsky, who’s done more than just about anyone in GOP circles to spread the myth of widespread voter fraud over the past two decades.

During the Bush administration, von Spakovsky was a special counsel at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where he played a key role in the department’s approval of a 2005 voter ID law from Georgia—among the first of its kind—over objections from career department lawyers, who said it was discriminatory. While advocating internally for the law, von Spakovsky published a law review article under the pseudonym “Publius” praising voter ID laws, in a move that experts said violated Justice Department ethics guidelines. (Von Spakovsky said in a statement that he received approval from a Justice Department ethics adviser and his supervisor for the article. He added, “Contrary to the maliciously false claims in the Mother Jones story, I have worked hard for many years to ensure that every eligible citizen is able to vote.”)

“It’s like he goes to bed dreaming about this, and gets up in the morning wondering, ‘What can I do today to make it more difficult for people to vote?’” the late civil rights icon John Lewis once said of von Spakovsky.

“I don’t want everybody to vote,” said Heritage co-founder Paul Weyrich.

In 2017, von Spakovsky joined Donald Trump’s ill-fated Commission on Election Integrity, which was formed after Trump falsely claimed 3 million people voted illegally in California in the 2016 election, with the aim of unearthing evidence of voter fraud in order to justify new ballot restrictions. Von Spakovsky argued the commission should exclude Democrats and “mainstream Republican officials and/or academics” and helped Vice Chair Kris Kobach, then the Kansas secretary of state, draft a letter requesting sensitive voter data from all 50 states. The request was met with massive pushback, and the commission, facing a flurry of lawsuits, abruptly disbanded in January 2018 without finding any evidence of fraud.

Though Anderson called von Spakovsky “the premier election law expert across this country,” his work has not fared well in court. During a trial challenging Kansas’ proof-of-citizenship law for voter registration, Kobach hired von Spakovsky to support his claim that illegal votes by noncitizens had swung US elections. But under questioning, von Spakovsky admitted he couldn’t name a single election where votes by noncitizens had decided the outcome. A federal judge wrote that the court gave “little weight to Mr. von Spakovsky’s opinion,” citing “several misleading and unsupported examples of noncitizen voter registration.”

Nonetheless, von Spakovsky’s sensationalist claims about stolen elections and advocacy for policies that restrict voting have found an increasingly receptive audience among Republicans following Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

“The one good thing that came out of last year’s elections,” von Spakovsky said at the Heritage Action event in April, “is I think finally a lot of members of the public, and particularly state legislators, realized that these vulnerabilities exist, have existed for a long time, and have figured out in many states we really need to do something to fix it.”

Indeed, Heritage has been at the forefront of weaponizing Trump’s Big Lie of widespread voter fraud in order to build support for policies that restrict access to the ballot. “A lot of bad things happened in 2020,” Heritage Foundation senior adviser Genevieve Wood said in April to the donors, who ranked “election integrity” as their top issue in a survey this year. “But you should know a lot of good things are beginning to happen now in 2021. You’re seeing it in Georgia. You’re seeing in the state of Arizona. You’re beginning to see it in Texas and so many more.”

Heritage began its lobbying campaign early in Georgia. In February, a representative from the group delivered a letter signed by 2,000 conservative activists to Republicans in the state legislature, urging them to rewrite the state’s voting laws after GOP defeats in the November presidential election and the January Senate runoffs (where Heritage Action contacted 1.5 million voters on behalf of the losing Republican candidates). The activists wrote that they had “lost faith in the process and the outcome of their elections.” Soon after, bills restricting voting access started moving through the legislature.

“Then we provided testimony, expert witnesses, analysis, and actually how to draft these bills so that they were legally tight,” Anderson said. “So, [Democratic voting rights lawyer] Marc Elias, if you know that name from the progressive left, he’s like their legal pit bull. He goes after all of this with lawsuits, so that Marc Elias can’t find any holes.”

Elias has filed a suit challenging the Georgia law. “The Georgia law violates both the Voting Rights Act and the US Constitution,” Elias told Mother Jones. “Heritage Action claiming that this is legally tight is like hearing from the Titanic shipbuilders about how much confidence they have in its maiden voyage. This law is based on a Big Lie, denies Black, Brown, and young voters of their rights, and will be struck down in court.”

Republican state Rep. Barry Fleming, the author of the bill in the Georgia House, was a guest at Heritage’s donor summit.“I can tell you, back in February, I felt like some days we were alone in Georgia,” Fleming said. “And then the Heritage Foundation stepped in, and that began to bring us a boost to help turn around, get the truth out about what we were really trying to do. And I’m here in part to say thank you and God bless you.”

A number of majority-Black counties that Fleming represents as a lawyer in private practice when he’s not at the legislature fired him in protest after the bill passed. But he credited Heritage for helping Republican legislators resist what Anderson called “economic terrorism.” (The group has launched a $1 million ad campaign to defend the law on CNBC and local Georgia stations, which Anderson said is aimed at “woke CEOs [who] didn’t read the bill.”)

“But for the Heritage Foundation and you stepping up to help us, what are other part-time legislators across this nation going to think when they try to do the right thing and secure our elections if they’re allowed to fire us from our jobs, threaten our livelihoods just because we stood up to try to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat?” Fleming asked.

Other measures Anderson said Heritage drafted included “three provisions” in legislation adopted by Iowa Republicans a few weeks before Georgia’s law, including one placing voters on inactive status if they sit out one election cycle and removing them from the rolls if they fail to take action, a system that could lead hundreds of thousands of voters to be purged.

“Iowa is the first state that we got to work in, and we did it quickly and we did it quietly,” Anderson said. “We worked quietly with the Iowa state legislature. We got the best practices to them. We helped draft the bills. We made sure activists were calling the state legislators, getting support, showing up at their public hearings, giving testimony…Little fanfare.Honestly, nobody even noticed. [chris h trms ~]My team looked at each other and we’re like, ‘It can’t be that easy.’” (Elias has also filed suit against the Iowa law.)

Heritage has been at the forefront of weaponizing Trump’s Big Lie of widespread voter fraud in order to build support for policies that restrict access to the ballot.

Anderson also took credit for a Arizona lawenacted in early April that prohibits election officials from accepting private funding, which was used in 2020 in both red and blue counties for things like opening more polling locations and drop box sites, saying, “We’re kicking Mark Zuckerberg out of all of our state and federal elections.” And she claimed that another bill signed by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday, which could purge more than 100,000 people from the state’s list of voters who automatically receive a mail ballot, was “straight from the Heritage recommendations.”

A Heritage lobbyist met early on with Florida Republicans to draft a bill largely mimicking the Georgia law, which passed the legislature over the unanimous opposition of Florida’s county elections supervisors. While the bill worked its way through the legislature, Anderson urged DeSantis to champion it. “I’ve got a call this afternoon with Gov. DeSantis’ team getting an update,” she said on April 22 to her donors. “Why is that? He needs to do more. He needs to say, get this bill on my desk.” DeSantis signed the bill on May 6 behind closed doors, with only Fox & Friends cameras allowed in for an “exclusive.”

“The scandal is the national pressure coming down on states with an intent to keep people from voting,” says Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of the corporate watchdog group Public Citizen. After record turnout in 2020, “writing these bills, pushing these bills, is a mechanism to attempt to return to those new voters being unable to vote.”

In addition to pushing state-based voting restrictions, Heritage Action is leading the effort to block the passage of HR 1, Democrats’ sweeping democracy reform bill that would preempt many of these voter suppression laws by enacting policies like automatic and Election Day registration, two weeks of early voting, and expanded mail-in voting on a nationwide basis. “HR 1 is basically the dream bill of every left-wing advocacy group we’ve been fighting against for years on election issues,” von Spakovsky said at the donor event.

Von Spakovsky said at the beginning of the year that Heritage put out “a short summary of the worst provisions of a 900-page bill. Now, you all know congressional staffers don’t like reading 900-page bills. That fact sheet we put out is being used by congressional staffers, members of Congress, to go up and fight HR 1.” The group dubbed the bill the “Corrupt Politicians Act,” a label that was soon being used by leading Republicans like Ted Cruz.

“We’ve made sure that every single member of Congress knows just how bad the bill is,” Anderson added. “Then we’ve made sure there’s an echo chamber of support around these senators driven by your Heritage Action activists and sentinels across the country where we’ve driven hundreds of thousands of calls, emails, place letters to the editor, hosted events, and run television and digital ads.”

In March, the group organized a rally in West Virginia to urge centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to oppose the bill and “stand up for WV values,” according to an invitation obtained by Documented, even as it bused in conservative activists from states hundreds of miles away. Heritage Action announced on Wednesday it would run ads this summer pressuring Democratic senators in West Virginia, Arizona, Montana, and New Hampshire to preserve the filibuster in order to block HR 1.

“It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Anderson said in April. “If we don’t win this, we lose our republic, period.”

To Elias, the video from the Heritage summit is proof that Republican state lawmakers are pursuing voting restrictions not in response to real local problems, but at the behest of well-funded Washington insiders. “It’s not being run by a coalition of state legislators,” he says. “It’s not being run by election administrators. It’s being run out of an office in Washington, DC, by people whose sole agenda is to make it harder for Black, Brown, and young voters to participate in the electoral process. Republicans who adopt these model laws should be ashamed of themselves.”

Watch the full video here. This story has been updated to include comment from Hans von Spakovsky.

Nick Surgey is an investigative reporter and the executive director of Documented.

===

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torres-sp

Business interests have also worked to undo campaign finance reforms that voters wanted. In November 2016, North Dakota voters voted for an initiative to provide public financing in elections. But the state legislature repealed the measure and the governor signed the repeal into law by February 2017.  The opponents of this change included American for Prosperity, a group linked to Charles Koch of the Koch Brothers and Koch industries.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/georgia-senate-race/

kennis, really about camp fin ref need

On the eve of the general election, Russ Silva and his family, like many fellow Georgians, watched as the results started slowly pouring across his television set. It was becoming more and more apparent that Georgia was destined to become a focal point for the entire country, not just because it was a contested battleground state between Donald Trump and Joseph Biden, but also because it was setting the stage for an unprecedented situation.

As election night came to an end with many results still uncertain, Silva let out a sigh as he bemoaned to AlterNet what he suspected was inevitable: "Now I pretty much know I'm going to be barraged by endless ads."

By the time incumbent Senator David Perdue's slim advantage over challenger Jon Ossoff dipped to 49.9997 percent of the vote on November 5, it became all but official: a double-header runoff for two Senate seats and ultimately control of the chamber was going to happen in early January.

John Nichols, a veteran journalist,explained to AlterNet that, "We've never had a circumstance like this before with two seats up-in-the air while two seats are also needed for control of the Senate in two runoff elections before an inauguration with these kinds of stakes at play."

Unsurprisingly then, Georgia's unique double-header runoff has rapidly become ground zero for a legion of political consultants, pollsters and a blizzard of television advertising.

"There's a whole industry that does this from Washington and everyone is able to go to their donors and say, 'hey, I need 20 million dollars,' and then that money will then be found," says Nichols.

This unprecedented spending frenzy led Christian-right activist Ralph Reed to dub Georgia "crazytown" to the New York Times. It became that after Democrats suffered rough defeats in North Carolina (a race they lost by a mere 1.8 points), Iowa (where various polls showed the Democratic challenger leading through election night), Kentucky (where tons of money was spent in an unsuccessful effort to unseat Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Majority Leader) and most devastatingly, in Maine (where the New York Timesprofiled the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins, as being a dinosaur out of touch with more polarized times and quite vulnerable to defeat).

Because of this string of defeats, Georgia's old southern-styled campaign system, which was originally fashioned to advantage white Democratic candidates in the Jim Crow era, wound up having greater relevance than ever before. No more than a mere percentage point separated the total Democratic and Republican Party votes in both Senate races, with all sides acknowledging that the Democrats are still facing steep odds of sweeping. By January, the double-header will decide not only party control of the Senate but also the future path to a potential economic recovery for both the U.S. and to a significant extent, the rest of the world.

While the anticipated record-breaking spending in Georgia's twin runoffs has gotten a lot of media coverage, the ramifications of so much hinging on contests that will likely be decided by a relative handful of voters is an under-explored aspect of the story. Leading researchers on politics, campaign finance and the media told AlterNet that the Georgia campaigns exemplify a system that is anti-democratic to its core.

Consulting and Pollster Industry Descends Upon Georgia

The numbers so far have been dizzying, and the campaign has only just gotten underway. According to AdImpact, by Thanksgiving week, $220 million had already been spent between all four campaigns (Ossoff has spent $41.6 million; Loeffler, $40.8; Warnock, $34.2 and Perdue, $30.1) while another $214 million in future buys had been reserved.

With this rate of spending, the campaigns are collectivelyon pace to reach a half a billion dollars in spending by Election Day or perhaps even more,according to Professor Thomas Ferguson, author of The Golden Rule.

"One private equity investor put a couple of million into the Maine senate race which clearly came during a late influx of money," Ferguson said. As a result, when it comes to Georgia, "you very well may not see what the real total spending will amount to until the end December."

You may be wondering what all of this money is even being spent on.

As Nichols explained to AlterNet, "party campaign committees, leadership PACs [political action committees], special interest PACs, political television advertising and hired gun political consultants and pollsters," form the bedrock of what he dubbed, "the media and election industrial complex, which Bob McChesney and I have written about because the truth of the matter is that there really is a huge industry that is solely dedicated to this."

The Atlanta metro area's television market, where three-fourths of Georgia's voters reside, is already approaching near total ad saturation well over a month before Election Day. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who has embraced Trump even more than her fellow Republican incumbent, has already spent 23 million of her own personal funds on television advertising and has already reserved an additional 40 million.

Georgian voters have already registered their fatigue with the advertising onslaught. Echoing the thoughts of many Georgia users in the Twittersphere, one posted, "Here in Georgia, I can't watch anything without being POUNDED with political ads. I get it, but I'm sooooooo tired."

Rich Campaigns, Poor Democracy?

The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that campaign spending is the equivalent of protected political speech. As a result, each election year records for campaign spending set in previous cycles routinely fall, according to Gerald Sullivan, the author of Global Electioneering.

"Overall, more than $14 billion will have been spent on all Federal-level campaigns this year, doubling what was spent in 2016. The amount of money is abhorrent and disgusting," Sullivan told AlterNet, while adding that "the more professionalization of campaigns intervenes into the electoral process, the less democratic it will be."

To a whole generation of young people, it has become a fact of life that elections are synonymous with big spending. But to Sullivan, this is not consistent with a healthy democracy. "In the 1950s, things were done on a retail basis as politicians would have district and ward captains and everything was done locally." In modern times, however, "political consulting firms have centralized the whole process. Now it's just left up to the experts and professionals." Sullivan added that spending doesn't dominate the process in most democracies, which have relatively short campaign seasons. He pointed to the United Kingdom's six-week long election campaigns as a better model.

===

the big bopper gets beat?

Anita Milanovich was a delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention from Montana. All 27 delegates from Montana were bound by state party rules to support Donald Trump at the convention.[2] As of July 13, 2016, Trump had approximately 1,542 delegates. The winner of the Republican nomination needed the support of 1,237 delegates. Trump formally won the nomination on July 19, 2016.

Career

Anita Milanovich is an attorney with the legal offices of The Bopp Law Firm, which is led by James Bopp Jr. Milanovich operates out of the firm's Montana satellite office. She specializes in first amendment law, campaign finance law, election law, constitutional law, civil litigation, and appellate practice.[3][1] She began working with the firm in 2004 when she graduated law school.[1]

2016 Republican National Convention

See also: Republican National Convention, 2016

===

i'm confused: but note these are STATE races

https://mtstandard.com/opinion/editorial/montana-view-campaign-spending-limits-survive/

no lnx

Montana view: Campaign spending limits survive

Jan 17, 2019

Eight years of litigation to abolish Montana’s campaign contribution limits ended Monday with two words from the U.S. Supreme Court: certiorari denied.

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Lair v. Mangan was among dozens of cases that the nation’s highest court declined to review in an order issued Monday.

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The high court order allows the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to stand. The court upheld Montanans’ authority to limit how much money a contributor may donate to a candidate for public office.

Doug Lair was one of three individuals, who along with American Tradition Partnership, Montana Right to Life Association PAC, Sweet Grass Council for Community Integrity, Lake County Republican Central Committee, Beaverhead Republican Central Committee, Jake Oil LLC, JL Oil LLC and Champion Painting Inc., filed a lawsuit in September 2011 in U.S. District Court in Billings.

The lawsuit was one of a series involving American Tradition Partnership (originally named Western Tradition Partnership) that sought to overturn Montana campaign laws, including the state’s century-old voter-approved ban on corporate campaign contributions and newer statutes requiring truth in political advertising among other things.

ATP and its associates succeeded in getting most of the campaign laws thrown out. A week before voting started in the 2012 Montana General Election, U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell ruled in favor of ATP and Lair, nullifying Montana contribution limits, too.

The Republican Governors Association quickly donated $500,000 to the campaign of Rick Hill, the GOP nominee for governor. Lovell’s decision was appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reinstated the Montana campaign limits pending appeal, so the limits were off for just six days.

The Hill campaign asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and allow unlimited donations pending appeal, which the high court declined to do. Eventually, the circuit court upheld the donation limits’ constitutionality and the law's foes appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

What this long legal battle means is that Montana must not take our campaign finance laws for granted. Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan, who has the duty of enforcing those laws, needs adequate staffing and resources to fulfill his vital watchdog role.

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The flurry of court action in the 2012 General Election erased any doubt that even greater sums of cash would flood into our elections if we had no limits.

“Montana’s limits leave candidates with the ability to conduct an effective campaign for office,” Commissioner of Political Practice’s Chief Legal Counsel Jaime MacNaughton said in a news release Monday. “Our limits allow individuals to associate with the candidate of their choice through their own speech, volunteering, discussing their merits with their neighbors, and through making their voice heard at the ballot box. Montana secured a victory today for transparency and accountability in our government and elected officials.”

The Montana Attorney General’s Office successfully defended the state contribution law, starting when Democrat Steve Bullock was attorney general and concluding under the leadership of Republican Tim Fox.

"I've never heard any Montanan say we need more money in politics and I'm glad to see the Supreme Court for once agrees," Bullock said Monday. Montanans troubled by recent growth in campaign spending across the political spectrum will agree with the governor.

MONTANA VIEW ICON

The Billings Gazette

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lee f

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/15/dark-money-irs-reporting-501c

DARK MONEY GROUPS backed by foreign corporate donors are supporting the Trump administration’s decision to roll back one of the last remaining ways for authorities to monitor the flow of unlawful campaign cash in American elections.

In recent years, 501(c) nonprofits have become the entities of choice for secret campaign spending. These nonprofit groups, which do not have to report any donor information to the public, can receive unlimited contributions from any source and, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, spend unlimited amounts on elections.

Foreign spending, whether by a foreign national or a foreign-owned corporation, is still illegal under federal law. But the law has been poorly enforced, and the few instances in which penalties have been applied in recent years have come in reaction to publicly reported foreign corporate spending to Super PACs, such as The Intercept’s reporting on Chinese corporate donations in 2016 and the recent federal indictment over a shell company owned by a Russian national that gave to President Donald Trump’s Super PAC in 2018.

The one check on foreign contributions to dark-money groups has been the Schedule B form, which reports 501(c) donor information confidentially to the Internal Revenue Service. Under a new rule proposed last September by the Treasury Department and the IRS, nonprofits will no longer be required to report donor information, even to the government, allowing an unprecedented level of secrecy.

Lobbyists for foreign-funded groups have pushed the administration to move forward with the rule, which is close to being finalized.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobby organization in the world, spent over $10 million to influence the last 2018 midterm election cycle using its general fund. The group, which has foreign corporate donors, has lobbied in support of the IRS rule to repeal the Schedule B requirement, claiming in a letter to officials that the accidental leak of donors could reduce corporate free speech rights.

“Identifying, harassing, and intimidating the organization’s supporters is a chief means of silencing that organization’s speech,” wrote Caroline L. Harris, the Chambers’ chief tax policy counsel, and Ryan P. Meyers, the deputy general counsel of the group, in a regulatory letter to officials overseeing the rule change. “The Chamber applauds the work of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in eliminating onerous reporting requirements.”

The National Association of Manufacturers, which counts several corporations based in foreign countries as members, in a letter to IRS officials, similarly called the Schedule B requirement an “unnecessary administrative filings that raise the potential for misuse in a way that chills protected speech.”

Both NAM and the Chamber of Commerce, which spends more than $160 million a year, are organized as 501(c)(6) trade associations and under no obligation to disclose donor money to the public — only to the government through the annual Schedule B form to its 990 annual filing. After the Citizens United decision, the two groups led an effort to defeat the DISCLOSE Act, legislation that would have forced groups engaged high-dollar election advocacy to reveal donor information. The Chamber also lobbied successfully to stop President Barack Obama from issuing an executive order to force government contractors to disclose grants to 501(c) groups.

Foreign-based firms such as Brazilian petrochemical firm Braskem, Al Zayani Investments in Bahrain, and Turkish conglomerate Tekfen are listed on the Chamber’s website as dues-paying members. Faced with criticism in the past that its foreign funding might bleed into the Chamber’s vast domestic lobbying and campaign spending budget, the group has claimed that any foreign donations are walled off from domestic funds, and that foreign donors make up a small percentage of its overall budget.

But the removal of the Schedule B requirement could make those claims impossible to verify. A large foreign national firm could provide multimillion-dollar donations for use in U.S. elections to the Chamber under the new rule and such giving would never be reported to government officials.

That’s precisely the danger of removing Schedule B forms, campaign finance experts warn. The Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog that has filed the ethics complaints that led to enforcement action on foreign money in the past, cautioned the IRS that the rule would simply open the door to more foreign spending.

“Congress has failed to pass new transparency legislation, and the FEC has failed to enforce the transparency laws that are on the books,” said Brendan Fischer, director of Campaign Legal Center’s federal reform program. “As a result, the only donor disclosure reports that dark-money groups file with any federal agency are the confidential Schedule B reports filed with the IRS. These confidential donor reports are one of the few ways that federal agencies could detect and deter foreign money in U.S. elections.”

It’s not hard to comprehend the many ways in which completely secret legal entities could incentivize illegal election behavior. In 2016, reporters from the Telegraph conducted a sting operation on a Republican campaign operative working in support of Trump. The operative was offered a $2 million check from a Chinese businessman by the reporters. He responded by offering a plan for how to conceal the money, suggesting that it be routed through his consulting firm to a pair of 501(c)4 groups and then to a pro-Trump Ssuper PAC.

The FBI is also investigating the National Rifle Association over allegations that the group, which is organized as a 501(c)4, may have received financial support from Russian sources. McClatchy reported that counterintelligence officials believe that Russian interests may have contributed to the NRA’s $30 million election advertising campaign in 2016.

Foreign firms increasingly finance major American business associations. As The Intercept has previously reported, a major Chinese chemical company joined the American Chemistry Council, a 501(c)6 that routinely lobbies lawmakers and spends money in elections.

The Trump administration had originally tried to remove the Schedule B form last summer in a surprise decision. A federal judge in Montana, however, ruled that the IRS had failed to follow proper regulatory procedure and ordered the agency to conduct a formal rule-making to allow the public and stakeholders to weigh in on the change.

“The rise of ‘dark money’ in U.S. elections has made it easy for foreign entities to contravene these laws by funneling money into U.S. elections through groups that that [sic] do not publicly disclose their donors, such as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and 501(c)(6) trade associations,” wrote the Campaign Legal Center in a letter to the IRS. “This change would further enable foreign entities to donate millions of dollars to such organizations for the purpose of influencing U.S. elections without any risk of scrutiny by federal regulators.”

Republican-aligned think tanks have joined the business-backed push to eliminate the Schedule B. Several nonprofits backed by billionaire Charles Koch, including his marquee group Americans for Prosperity, testified on February 7 in support of the rule change. FreedomWorks, a conservative grassroots group backed by business interests, has also mobilized hundreds of letters to the agency.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member now with the Heritage Foundation, appeared at the hearing alongside other conservative activists in support of the rule change.

Von Spakosvsky, an avowed critic of campaign finance regulations and voting rights laws, testified that “their claim that this will somehow allow foreign money to suddenly flood into American elections is absurd,” according to a transcript of his remarks. Von Spakovsky said the FEC had plenty of authority and expertise in combating foreign money during his tenure, despite the fact that the agency has historically only intervened to investigate foreign money through disclosed political action committees on a few occasions in its 45-year history. He did not cite any examples of the FEC investigating 501(c) groups.

==

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koch v ca

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/01/10/koch-funds-groups-supporting-lawsuit-against-donor-transparency/

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Legal scholar argues the Supreme Court is ‘killing’ the bedrock of campaign finance law — and may soon crush it completely

An Alaska law that caps campaign contributions from individuals to…

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/legal-scholar-argues-the-supreme-court-is-killing-the-bedrock-of-campaign-finance-law-and-may-soon-crush-it-completely/

no lnx

Legal scholar argues the Supreme Court is ‘killing’ the bedrock of campaign finance law — and may soon crush it completely

Written by Cody Fenwick December 31, 2019

An Alaska law that caps campaign contributions from individuals to candidates at $500 is facing a legal challenge that has made its way to the Supreme Court. While the Ninth Circuit upheld the law, the justices have told the lower court to review the decision again while applying a previous precedent from the case Randall v. Sorrell — a ruling that struck down low limits on campaign contributions.

In a recent post on the Harvard Law Review blog, law professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy argued that the Supreme Court appears primed to use the case to severely weaken campaign finance law — and perhaps kill contribution limits altogether.

Reacting to the court’s decision to send the Alaska law back to the Ninth Circuit for review, she wrote: “This likely portends the Ninth Circuit reversing itself, or, if it sticks to its guns, then Thompson v. Hebdon may make a round trip to the Court where the Roberts Court would likely reprise the wrongly decided Randall and strike Alaska’s contribution limits, possibly taking with it all states’ contribution limits.”

This falls in a pattern of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts pushing to deregulate corruption, as Torres-Spelliscy has argued.

And even the standard that existed before the 2006 Randall ruling was unreasonably strict. Previously, the Supreme Court had ruled in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo that while it was constitutional to limit how much individuals could contribute to campaigns, it was not permissible to limit campaigns’ expenditures. Campaign finance reform advocates had been hoping to overturn that precedent, but their hopes were dashed.

Now things could get much worse. And according to Torres-Spelliscy, the Court’s apparent justification for seeking to cut down campaign finance laws is at odds with the empirical evidence.

She explained:

The decision in Randall was based in part on the Supreme Court’s assumption that lower contribution limits would hamper electoral competition and especially hurt challengers. But the Supreme Court made this assumption without the benefit of data that tested this empirical point. Post-Randall, I help co-author a study that looked at precisely this issue. The study examined elections in forty-two states over twenty-six years for lower house legislative races. The study showed that lower contribution limits actually boost electoral competition and assist challengers—likely because incumbents were unable to amass as big war chests to either scare off or out-maneuver would-be challengers. Analysis by the National Institute on Money in Politics in 2018 looking at data from Vermont from 2000 to 2016 confirmed that higher contribution limits hurt electoral competitiveness—the opposite of what the Supreme Court assumed in Randall. But in the area of campaign finance, facts have been relegated to an unexamined dusty shelf.

If the Supreme Court takes the route she’s expecting, she believes other campaign finance laws will quickly face a wave of new lawsuits from opponents hopeful that the justices will favor their cause.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/the-citizens-united-ruling-broke-american-democracy-at-the-start-of-the-decade-it-may-never-recover/

many lnx

The Citizens United ruling broke American democracy at the start of the decade. It may never recover

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon December 29, 2019

The election of President Donald Trump will likely define this decade, but the breakdown in our political system which sowed deeper partisan divisions and ultimately paved the way for his White House victory can be traced back to a single January day almost exactly ten years ago.

On Jan. 21, 2010, then-Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote in the Citizens United case, which was brought by a group chaired by David Bossie, who would later serve as Trump’s deputy campaign manager.

Kennedy wrote in the majority decision that limits on independent expenditures violated the First Amendment rights of corporations and other groups, effectively overturning spending restrictions dating back more than a century.

The decision allowed corporations to spend unlimited money on campaign ads as long as they did not formally coordinate with candidates or political parties. According to Kennedy, there could not be corruption, because “an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.”

Some have argued that the ruling was the “logical next step” after the court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which said election spending limits may violate the First Amendment. But the Supreme Court ruled in favor of corporate limits in 1990 and then upheld limits on corporate and union spending in 2003.

The Citizens United ruling was later compounded by Republican efforts to block transparency rules, Federal Election Commission rulings and further court decisions like McCutcheon v. FEC, paving the way for the creation of super PACs, or committees which can spend unlimited sums of money to promote or oppose candidates while hiding the identities of their donors.

The impact of the Citizens United ruling and subsequent campaign finance changes are undeniable. In 2010, the biggest Republican donor of the election cycle spent $7.6 million to support conservative candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CPR). Just eight years later, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, donated $122 million to support GOP candidates, or more than 15 times as much.

Democrats pumped big money into elections, too. Presidential contender Mike Bloomberg spent $95 million during the last election cycle, while fellow billionaire candidate Tom Steyer spent more than $73 million, according to CPR data. [FOR GUNS AND CliMATE]

There was certainly loads of money pumped into elections prior to Citizens United. The 2008 presidential election, which was the last national contest before the Supreme Court decision, saw about $338 million in outside spending. But the amount of outside cash injected into the presidential race skyrocketed to more than $1 billion in 2012 and $1.4 billion in 2016.

Such massive expenditures are not limited to presidential races. The 2018 midterm election cycle was the first in history to see more than $1 billion in outside spending — up from $69 million just four cycles earlier and $567 million in 2014, according to the CPR.

Super PACs quickly became the biggest outside spenders. In 2018, the House Republican-linked Congressional Leadership Fund spent $136 million, the Senate Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC spent $112 million and the Mitch McConnell-connected Senate Leadership Fund spent $94 million, according to the CPR.

Though both parties have raised and spent hundreds of millions in outside money — and the Citizens United ruling has been criticized by both former President Barack Obama and Trump — researchers at the University of Chicago, Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science found that the rise of dark money has resulted in a huge advantage for Republicans in state legislature races, particularly in “states with weak unions.”

“We find that Citizens United increased the GOP’s average seat share in the state legislature by five percentage points. That is a large effect — large enough that, were it applied to the past twelve Congresses, partisan control of the House would have switched eight times,” the researchers wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “In line with a previous study, we also find that the vote share of Republican candidates increased three to four points on average.” PLUS GERRY VOTE SUPPRESS?!]

The result has been a shift much further to the right in numerous state legislatures and an increase in “ideological extremism,” which was more prevalent among Democrats, according to the study.

In the 2010 election, the first to see a massive upswing in outside money, Republicans captured two dozen state legislative chambers ahead of a game-changing nationwide gerrymandering effort, which made it harder than ever for Democrats to win back the seats they lost.

“Without Citizens United every frontline Congressional race of the last two cycles are TOTALLY different,” Fordham Law Professor Zephyr Teachout tweeted. “A billion in outside spending in 2018. And that is just a tiny fraction of the impact.”

Despite Kennedy’s insistence that there could be no corruption because candidates cannot coordinate with super PACs, the ruling has also led to corruption as candidates flout rules preventing them from coordinating with the PACs. [EITAN_]

“The supposed barrier between candidates and unrestricted super PACs is flimsier than ever,” Roll Call reported just four years after the ruling. “As midterm elections approach, complaints are rolling into the FEC from both parties about super PACs that share vendors, fund-raisers and video footage with the politicians they support.”

GOP leaders like Paul Ryan devised ways to solicit money directly from billionaires like Adelson by using go-betweens. The New York Times reported in 2015 that Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina had “aggressively” exploited loopholes to allow a super PAC to effectively run her campaign.

And the corruption is not merely limited to exploiting loopholes in the law. Obama warned in a State of the Union speech that the Citizens United ruling could lead toforeign interference in U.S. elections. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing the words, “Not true.”

But Obama’s foreshadowing turned out to be remarkably true. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the two associates of Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, were recently indicted on charges that they illegally funneled foreign money to Republican politicians, including a $325,000 contribution to a pro-Trump super PAC.

George Nader, an adviser to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who was linked to efforts to aid Trump’s campaign during the election, was also indicted for allegedly funneling $3.5 million into elections, including a $1 million contribution to a Democratic super PAC.

In 2012, a foreign-owned company made a $1 million contribution to a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC.

Democratic presidential candidates, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have premised their campaigns on driving big money out of politics. Sanders has long called for a constitutional amendment to repeal Citizens United, which was echoed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and others at the party’s December primary debate.

But it may be nearly impossible to meet the high threshold to ratify a constitutional amendment. There has only been one amendment ratified since 1971. While House Democrats voted to approve H.R. 1, which called for the ruling to be repealed, there appears to be little to no support for the legislation from Republicans in the upper chamber.

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have decried these efforts as attempts to “ban political speech.”

“In our view, the answer to that problem is to expand — not limit — the resources available for political advocacy. Thus, the ACLU supports a comprehensive and meaningful system of public financing that would help create a level playing field for every qualified candidate,” the organization said. “We support carefully drawn disclosure rules, we support reasonable limits on campaign contributions and we support stricter enforcement of existing bans on coordination between candidates and super PACs.”

Some local governments have tried to counter the rise of dark money with public financing. Seattle’s “democracy vouchers” give voters $100, which they can donate to any campaign in a local election. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has proposed a similar “Democracy Dollars” program, which would expand this initiative across the country.

But while cities, states and federal lawmakers grapple with the rise of dark money in politics, one thing that is clear is that Citizens United irrevocably changed politics over the course of the last decade — and beyond.

Kennedy himself admitted in 2015 that the disclosure requirement he believed would fix any potential issues of corruption was “not working the way it should.”FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel quit in 2017 over the state of campaign finance, writing in her resignation letter that “our political campaigns have been awash in unlimited, dark money” since the Citizens United decision.

“Most of the funding comes from a tiny, highly unrepresentative segment of the population,” she wrote. “Disclosure laws need to be strengthened, the broken jurisprudence of Citizens United re-examined, public financing of candidates ought to be expanded to reduce reliance on the wealthy and commissioners who will carry out the mandates of the law should be appointed.”

A Brennan Center report pointed out that a small wealthy group of Americans now wields “more power than at any time since Watergate, while many of the rest seem to be disengaging from politics.”

“This is perhaps the most troubling result of Citizens United: in a time of historic wealth inequality,” report author Daniel Weiner wrote, “the decision has helped reinforce the growing sense that our democracy primarily serves the interests of the wealthy few and that democratic participation for the vast majority of citizens is of relatively little value.”

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Dark Money tracks the influence of corporate money in contemporary American politics. Using the state of Montana as a primary case study, the film engages with the complex history that Montana state politics has with corporate influence in politics. Starting with the story of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, Dark Money shows how the influence of mining corporations caused state legislators to relax mining regulations, which resulted in an environmental catastrophe in Butte, Montana, with problems that persist today. As a result, Montana banned corporate campaign financing of state politics in 1912.^[4] However, since the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision, corporate interests and big money have made their way back on the scene in Montana and have become a growing national concern. The film traces the steps taken by Montana Attorney General (and now Governor) Steve Bullock to seek relief from campaign finance abuses at a time when the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was ground to a halt by the appointment of three new Republican members, headed by Don McGahn, who systemically blocked all enforcement of FEC regulations. 

In 2015, Montana reasserted its campaign finance sovereignty with passage of the Montana Disclose Act, which, by requiring full disclosure of contributors' names, removed the "dark" aspect of the Big Money influence on their campaigns.^[5] John S. Adams of the Montana Free Press plays a central role in the film as an investigative journalist who has been tracking state politics and "following the money" for several years. Adams has reported on everything from the role of the American Tradition Partnership (formerly known as Western Tradition Partnership) funds in the shaping of state election laws^[6] to the illegal political activities of a "right to work" PAC in Montana as well.^[7] The film follows Adams's work as a reporter, but it also includes interviews from other prominent figures in Montana state politics and those involved in the movement to examine and limit the influence of dark money in politics.

Director Kimberly Reed explains that she was motivated to make the film because the way to understand any public issue is to understand what guides it. “The first thing you have to look at is the money that’s fueling that issue,” she explains. “Just by following that money, you can tell a lot about the powers-that-be behind it.”^[8]

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https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/07/montana-pols-launch-fight-against-nonprofit

Two Montana politicians on Tuesday launched separate fights against the Trump administration’s decision to relax disclosure requirements on certain politically active nonprofit groups.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) introduced legislation that would overturn the decision and increase nonprofit transparency requirements. Gov. Steve Bullock (D-Mont.) filed a lawsuit in a Montana Federal District Court that would prevent the administration from implementing the new rules.

The Treasury Department announced last week that it would no longer require certain nonprofit organizations, such as 501(c)(4) groups, to disclose identifying information about their donors to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The move, which the department said will save resources and prevent the accidental release of confidential information, could allow groups like the National Rifle Association and Planned Parenthood to pour “dark money” into nationwide elections with less government oversight than before.

Tester’s legislation, dubbed the Spotlight Act, would effectively reverse the department’s new rules. The Spotlight Act would also require 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5) and 501(c)(6) groups to disclose to the IRS and the public the names of donors who contribute more than $5,000. Those groups do not have to release the names of any donors under current laws, which is why many politically active nonprofits are called “dark money” groups.

Bullock’s lawsuit, first reported by The New York Times, claims the IRS and Treasury Department unlawfully interfered with Montana’s ability to gather the data it needs to manage its tax laws. The suit also claims the Trump administration did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires agencies such as the Treasury Department to provide opportunities for public comment before changing policies.

Bullock’s litigation is seeking to nullify the new IRS rules, according to court documents.

Tester and Bullock have both been champions of campaign finance reform that increases election transparency. Tester has introduced multiple campaign finance reform plans, including a proposed constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and a bill that would require senators to file campaign finance disclosures electronically.

Bullock helped push legislation in Montana that requires independent groups to disclose their donors if they spend money in state elections, regardless of the group’s tax status. He also signed an executive order requiring recipients of government contracts to disclose dark money spending in Montana elections.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/ted-cruzs-lawyer-actually-compared-him-to-rosa-parks-in-the-fight-against-campaign-finance-law/

Ted Cruz is currently involved in a campaign finance battle, and attorneys for the far-right Texas senator are being lambasted for comparing their lawsuit to the actions of civil rights icon Rosa Parks.[same week hunter 5 affairs as legit biz expense]

At issue in Cruz’ lawsuit is a $260,000 contribution for his 2018 campaign. The day before he narrowly defeated Democrat Beto O’Rourke in Texas’ U.S. Senate race, Cruz contributed $260,000 of his own money to his campaign — which was a violation of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Under that law, candidates can only reimburse themselves for up to $250,000 with funds raised after an election.

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619

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/bipartisan-push-to-crack-down-on-money-laundering-and-dark-money-shell-companies

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to require obscure corporations and limited-liability companies to disclose their true owners to law enforcement to snuff out laundered cash and political “dark money” flowing into the U.S. from foreign-influenced shell companies.

Members of Congress have introduced a number of bills mandating disclosure of companies’ beneficial owners — the person or persons who enjoy the benefits of ownership and control the company — to federal investigators. Lawmakers are mostly attempting to crack down on money laundering and the financing of other illegal activities. But the proposed legislation could also impact foreign interference in U.S. politics.

Foreign nationals and governments are prohibited from directly or indirectly engaging in activity to influence U.S. elections. But opaque LLCs, which are not required to disclose their beneficial owners to the public or law enforcement, frequently contribute to politically-active outside groups. This untraceable process has prompted concerns that they are anonymously injecting foreign money into the U.S. political process.

More than 4,000 LLCs contributed to groups in 2016, nearly quadruple the number in 2012. In the 2016 election cycle alone, nearly $46 million came from LLCs at the federal level, nearly double the $24 million from LLCs in the 2012 presidential election cycle.

Overall, direct spending in U.S. federal elections by groups that do not disclose their donors has exceeded $1 billion since OpenSecrets began tracking dark money in 2006.

Opaque foreign money has also found its way to political committees. Jho Low, a fugitive Malaysian financier accused of stealing billions, allegedly used a shell company to funnel more than $1 million to a pro-Barack Obama super PAC ahead of the 2012 presidential election. Low has not only been charged in relation to his alleged illegal foreign contributions in support of Obama, but has also been tied to suspicious money transfers funneling money into President Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee.

These anonymous shell companies also show up in Foreign Agents Registration Act filings, masking the source of money behind influence campaigns and undermining the intent of the law to provide transparency on foreign influence activities.

Lax corporate disclosure laws have turned the U.S. into a top destination for shell companies. Last year, the U.S. surpassed the Cayman Islands to become the second largest haven for secretive offshore accounts and shell companies, according to a report from London-based Tax Justice Network.

“We’re becoming second only to Switzerland in the place people pick to put their money,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said during Wednesday’s hearing on shell companies. “Being second in a lot of things is good … not here.”

Lawmakers have introduced a number of bills to address the flow of untraceable money. Senate Judiciary Committee members Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation Tuesday that would require corporations to turn over beneficial ownership information to law enforcement in the event of a subpoena or summons.

A bipartisan group of senators in early June proposed their own bill to combat abuse of shell companies, requiring that corporations and LLCs disclose their beneficial owners to the Treasury Department. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) introduced similar legislation in May.

Whitehouse and Grassley, along with Graham and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have also introduced legislation to specifically address political contributions from shell companies. The bill, first introduced last year, would make it a felony for individuals to use or help set up a shell company to conceal illegal political activity such as foreign political contributions.

The Treasury Department’s financial crimes enforcement unit finalized a rule last year that requires financial institutions to collect beneficial ownership information for customers opening accounts. But experts say the rule won’t stop the flow of money from foreign shell companies, making Congressional action necessary.

“This was a step in the right direction. But the primary responsibility for identifying the owners of a company cannot lie with banks. It should lie with the companies themselves, at the time of incorporation or when their ownership changes,” former Acting Treasury Secretary Adam Szubin toldthe Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday. “And FinCEN’s rule does nothing to illuminate the ownership of shell companies incorporated in the U.S. that exclusively open bank accounts abroad, a route that many dirty companies have followed.”

The House passed the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Rewards Act, which would reward whistleblowers who notify the U.S. of assets linked to corrupt foreign individuals, in May. The legislation is currently being considered by the Senate Banking Committee, which will hold a hearing Thursday on the topic of beneficial ownership collection. Among the organizations testifying are the Bank Policy Instituteand Financial Accountability and Corporate :{Transparency :(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:Coalition, both groups pushing for disclosure of beneficial ownership to law enforcement.

These kinds of measures find support from a number of powerful trade associations, public interest groups and think tanks, ranging from the American Banking Association to Public Citizen to the American Enterprise Institute.

Center for Responsive Politics Executive Director Sheila Krumholz testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, detailing how shell companies inject money into U.S. politics and advocating for greater transparency of beneficial ownership.

A few organizations have come out against the proposed measures. The National Federation of Independent Business has voiced opposition to some of the disclosure measures, expressing concern over the regulatory burden it would place on small businesses. The American Bar Association also expressed concerns about privacy.

None of the beneficial ownership proposals would propose creating a public registry of beneficial ownership information for businesses. Although some foreign countries keep their own running registries of these owners, U.S. lawmakers have not shown interest in expanding disclosure to that level, citing privacy concerns.

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fein freee sp 4 ppl

we filed our opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Lieu v. FEC. 

This was an important step on the path to getting the court to review the notorious SpeechNow v. FEC decision for the first time since 2010 -- and potentially overturn it.

Here’s the back story: SpeechNow.org v. FEC was the case that originally unleashed super PACs on our democracy. For nearly a decade, the SpeechNowruling has allowed big money donors to evade federal campaign contribution limits and further corrupt our political process. 

Many scholars and constitutional law experts said that the ruling was legally erroneous at the time, and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts has even given signals that suggest he would be willing to sustain limits on contributions to super PACs. 

Lieu v. FEC is our opportunity. Filed in federal district court on behalf of a bipartisan coalition of Members of Congress and 2016 congressional candidates, the case seeks the reversal of the SpeechNow.org v. FEC ruling. And yesterday’s opening brief pushes it along on its journey!

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On Fifth Anniversary of Citizens United, Eshoo Co-Introduces Constitutional Amendment to Rid Politics of Dark MoneyThe Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon have cast a dark shadow over our democracy by bringing us dangerously closer to an electoral system where the voices of average Americans are easily drowned out by special interests, shadowy front groups, and a handful of billionaires," said Eshoo. "At a time when Americans of every political persuasion want big money out of our elections, the Democracy for All Amendment will restore their authority to pass laws protecting the integrity of our electoral process. By reversing Citizens United and related cases, this amendment will advance the basic principle of "one voice-one vote' that is integral to our democracy

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Statement

By: Anna Eshoo 

Date: Jan. 22, 2015 

Location: Washington, DC 

Keyword Search : Corporation

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Yesterday, on the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) co-introduced the Democracy for All Amendment. This proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would reverse highly controversial Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC, which have given corporations and America's wealthiest donors a right to buy unlimited influence in our nation's elections. Eshoo joined original co-sponsors of the bill Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Donna F. Edwards (D-Md.), and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).

"The Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon have cast a dark shadow over our democracy by bringing us dangerously closer to an electoral system where the voices of average Americans are easily drowned out by special interests, shadowy front groups, and a handful of billionaires," said Eshoo. "At a time when Americans of every political persuasion want big money out of our elections, the Democracy for All Amendment will restore their authority to pass laws protecting the integrity of our electoral process. By reversing Citizens United and related cases, this amendment will advance the basic principle of "one voice-one vote' that is integral to our democracy."

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The most important thing we must do to save our democracy is get big money out of politics. It’s a prerequisite to accomplishing everything else.

Today, big money continues to corrupt American politics – creating a vicious cycle that funnels more wealth and power to those at the top and eroding our democracy.

In the 2018 midterm elections, wealthy donors and Super-PACs poured millions into the campaigns of the same lawmakers who voted to pass the 2017 tax cuts, which gave them huge windfalls.

Consider conservative donors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, whose casino business received an estimated $700 million windfall, thanks to Trump and Republicans’ tax cuts. The couple then used some of this extra cash to plow more than $113 million dollars into the 2018 election, breaking the record for political contributions by a single household.[vid]

That’s not a bad return on investment – for them.  All told, almost 40 percent of total contributions in the 2018 midterms came from people who donated $10,000 or more. Yet these mega-donors comprise a tiny 0.01 percent of the U.S. population.

It’s a worsening vicious cycle: Lawmakers cut taxes and slash regulations for their wealthy campaign donors. Mega-donors and corporations funnel some of that money back into our political system to keep their lackeys in power. Politicians then propose another round of tax cuts, subsidies or bailouts to secure even more donations.

If this isn’t corruption, I don’t know what is. It also breeds cynicism in our democracy. The game seems rigged because it is.  A 2015 poll found that the majority of Americans say lawmakers are corrupt, out of touch with their constituents, and beholden to special interests.

In the 2018 midterms, Americans demanded an end to the corruption. And there are signs lawmakers are finally getting message. House Democrats’ first piece of legislation aims to end the big-money takeover.

We must end this vicious cycle in order to reclaim our democracy. We must get big money out of politics. Now.

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yay but why do the right thing?

https://www.alternet.org/stunning-supreme-court-decision-dark-money-were-about-know-lot-more-about-who-funding-our-elections

In  a win for increased transparency and those demanding an end to the so-called "dark money" eating away at U.S. democracy, the Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a previous stay on a lower court ruling by rejecting the argument by right-wing advocacy groups who said they should not have to reveal the identity of big-dollar donors who fund their issue-based campaign ads.

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Crucially, the ruling means that groups that in the past have been able to hide the source of their funding before, during, and after campaigns will have now have to make that information available before voters go to the polls—in this case, that means before the upcoming mid-term elections. Effective immediately, any group or individual making more than $250 in express advocacy ads — ads that tell viewers who to vote for or against — must now disclose the identities of all contributors who gave more than $200 in a year.

As the Huffington Post reports:

The decision came about after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group, fought for the past six years to get the Federal Election Commission to enforce campaign finance laws against Crossroads GPS, a conservative nonprofit group founded by Karl Rove, a senior adviser to George W. Bush when he was president. CREW finally won its battle on Tuesday.

As of Sept. 18, any group that runs an independent expenditure ― election ads that expressly call for the election or defeat of a candidate ― in excess of $250 will have to disclose all political donors above $200.

Norm Eisen, the chairperson of CREW, celebrated the decision on Twitter: "We are about to drive a lot of dark money donors into the light—it's gonna look like the climax of a Harry Potter movie where the creatures shrivel in the sun."

Writing for the Center for Public Integrity, Dave Levinthal and Sarah Kleiner report that "secret money in politics will soon be a lot less secret."

And while Levinthal and Kleiner quoted Federal Election Commission Vice Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, who said it won't be surprising to see some groups "come up with clever ways of getting around the rules," champions of disclosure said the ruling is a major crack in the armor of the forces of those using shadowing groups and their vast fortunes to undermine democracy.

"This is a great day for transparency and democracy," said Noah Bookbinder, CREW's executive director. "Three courts, including the Supreme Court, have now rejected Crossroads' arguments for a stay, meaning we're about to know a lot more about who is funding our elections."

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$1 contributions scam to hide the big ones wolff 8/3/18, claim avg #, grassroots support?

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/11/democrats-reintroduce-disclose-act-combat-dark-money-poison/

On June 27, Democrats in both chambers of Congress reintroduced the DISCLOSE Act to provide what the lead Senate sponsor, Sheldon Whitehouse (RI-D), calls “a commonsense solution to restore transparency and accountability in our political system.”

The DISCLOSE Act of 2018 is the most recent iteration of a bill that Democrats have pushed since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which eliminated a century-old federal ban on political spending by corporations.

The “Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act” (DISCLOSE) was first introduced in 2010 by Representative Chris Van Hollen and Senator Chuck Schumer. DISCLOSE passed in the House that year but a Republican filibuster threat doomed it in the Senate, despite support from 59 senators.

DISCLOSE ACT WOULD SHINE A LIGHT ON DARK MONEY

The 2018 Senate bill comes out of the gate with all Senate Democrats and both Independents supporting it. The companion legislation in the House, introduced by Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI), already has 159 cosponsors.

As things stand today, corporations and wealthy donors can make unlimited expenditures to support or oppose political candidates through super PACs, independent expenditures, and dark money groups, with much of it hidden from the public. The result is a system where billionaires and large corporations dominate the political landscape with little or no accountability. As two Princeton political scientists put it in a recent study of influence in American politics, “economic elites and organized interest groups play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.”

The Brennan Center for Justice released a report in 2016 that found that “dark money sources often hold direct economic interests in the election outcome.” In the absence of effective disclosure laws, special interests are able to launch campaigns on policy issues and influence how people vote while hiding their stake in the outcome. “When viewers learn more about an ad’s sponsor — for instance, that it’s an out-of-state group or a group that does not report its donors — they may become not only more skeptical about the ad’s message but also more critical of the ad’s intended beneficiary,” the report concluded.

In a recent interview, Rep. Cicilline and Sen. Whitehouse spoke about the importance of the DISCLOSE Act in restoring the integrity of our democracy. “Eight out of ten” Americans do not have faith in our democratic institutions due to the influence of money-in-politics, Whitehouse said. He emphasized that Americans want to have a government that “works for the benefit of the many.”

According to Sen. Whitehouse, dark money “has been poisonous to the American democracy we cherish.” Whitehouse believes that increased transparency would encourage congressional debate about the “merits of clearing dark money out of our political system.”

“The cockroaches are everywhere. I say let’s turn on the lights,” Whitehouse said.

Common Cause, a leading nonpartisan group fighting for campaign reform, praised the proposed law as “grounded in the principle expressed by the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis that ‘sunshine is the best disinfectant.'”

The DISCLOSE Act of 2018 would mandate that organizations spending money in elections — including super PACs and tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups — must promptly disclose their donors who have given $10,000 or more during an election cycle, and report expenditures of $10,000 or more on election ads within 24 hours. In addition, the bill includes provisions to prevent complex money webs from shielding the identities of donors.

Like the 2017 version of the bill, the 2018 DISCLOSE Act would also “ban campaign contributions and expenditures by corporations that are controlled, influenced, or owned by foreign nationals.”

In a new provision, the bill would repeal controversial riders the Republicans forced through on spending bills that prevent the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) from requiring public companies to disclose their political spending to shareholders, bar the IRS from developing post-Citizens United regulations on political spending by 501(c)(4) organizations, and block the government from requiring federal contractors to disclose their political donations.

Lastly, the bill contains a “Stand by Your Ad” provision, authored by Sen. Wyden (D-OR), requiring corporations, unions, and other organizations paying for political ads to disclose their top five funders. A similar proposal earned the support of 59 senators in 2010 but was filibustered by the Republicans.

The 2018 DISCLOSE Act is supported by numerous reform groups, including Americans for Campaign Reform, Brennan Center for Justice, Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Demos, League of Women Voters, People For the American Way, Public Citizen, and the Sunlight Foundation.

VIGOROUS OPPOSITION FROM THE RIGHT

Opponents of the DISCLOSE Act include the Institute for Free Speech (formerly known as the Center for Competitive Politics), The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, The American Conservative Union, CatholicVote.org, and Citizens Against Government Waste.

These groups argue that the act violates the First Amendment, but a Brennan Center analysis found that “there can be no credible doubt” that a similar 2012 version of the DISCLOSE Act was fully constitutional. As Common Cause points out, “the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected any arguments that disclosure requirements silence speech” and has continually upheld their constitutionality on the grounds that the public has a right to know who is influencing an election. Even the late Justice Antonin Scalia supported disclosure, writing in Doe v. Reed that “[r]equiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren said in an April speech that the DISCLOSE Act would expose the “billionaires [who] have been pouring unlimited, secret money into the hands of carefully picked candidates who will do their bidding.”

Those billionaires fund many of the organizations that oppose the DISCLOSE Act. The Institute for Free Speech (IFS), for example, is funded by conservative donors — such as Richard Uihlein and the Koch brothers — who support Republican candidates and may not want their donations made public.

In 2016, The Bradley Foundation gave IFS $125,000 to fight those calling for greater disclosure rules, something the Bradley Foundation claims will “chill speech,” according to documents acquired by the Center for Media and Democracy.

Rep. Cicilline argues that the lack of disclosure after Citizens United has led to more business-friendly legislation and that dark money in politics leads to “bad public policy.” “The DISCLOSE Act will bring a new level of transparency to our elections. It will ensure the American people know who is really fighting for them. It will restore public faith in our government. It will mark a major step towards fixing what’s broken in Washington,” Cicilline said.

The DISCLOSE Act is part of the Democrats’ broader plan, called “A Better Deal for Our Democracy,” aimed at fixing the federal campaign finance system, improving elections, and strengthening ethics laws.

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open secrets

grant-to-trump-how-court-cases-influenced-campaign-finance

When Ulysses S. Grant ran for president in 1868, he benefited from large contributions from wealthy entrepreneurs, such as railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt. “Never before was a candidate placed under such great obligation to men of wealth as was Grant,” one historian said of Grant’s donors’ largesse.

But if Grant was among the first presidents to receive large sums of campaign funds from rich businessmen, he was far from the last.

Money and politics in the United States have become increasingly intertwined, a relationship which reached new heights when the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money independently in support of or in opposition to a candidate. The effects of Citizens United have been pivotal, and calls to overturn the ruling continue to this day.

However, Citizens United didn’t appear out of nowhere. The ruling was only the latest in a series of important court cases that have loosened campaign finance restrictions.

‘Magic Words’

In the U.S., political contributions are considered an exercise of First Amendment rights. The reasoning behind this was that communicating ideas required spending money.

The 1976 Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo was the first case to establish this idea.

In 1975, Sen. James Buckley of New York and others filed suit in U.S. district court against the FEC and Senate secretary Francis Valeo claiming that the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act — the primary federal law regulating campaign finance — was unlawful. According to Buckley, the law’s limitations on campaign contributions and expenditures violated the First Amendment. When the law was upheld, the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court.

In Buckley, the judges ruled that contribution limits were necessary to deter corruption as candidates would feel indebted to big donors. Expenditure limitations, on the other hand, violated freedom of speech since there was no clear connection between expenditure amounts and corruption. In short, candidates could spend unrestricted amounts to advance their campaign.

The Court also deemed independent expenditures – or outside spending by groups in support of or opposition to candidates – constitutionally protected in the Buckley case so long as these expenditures were not formally coordinated with the candidate.

The idea of “express advocacy” was first formulated in the case, too. The Court defined express advocacy as communications that “advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified federal candidate” and are identifiable by eight so-called “magic words.” The words (and phrases) include “vote for,” “elect,” “cast your ballot for” and “reject.” Any ad using any one of these words would be considered “express advocacy,” according to the Court, and subject to federal campaign regulations.:

Corporations have rights, too

Two years after Buckley, several corporations including the First National Bank of Boston were barred from contributing to a Massachusetts referendum on tax policy. The corporations took issue with the Massachusetts law and appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti that corporations could contribute money to ballot proposals.  Corporations’ right to participate in campaigns as a legal person, which was popularized in Citizens United,is not a new concept. Lesser-known cases after Buckleypaved the way for the involvement of corporations.

Justice Lewis Powell, who delivered the opinion of the Court, argued that corporations, along with associations and unions, have the same rights as individuals to express political views.

Attempts to reign it in

In the 1980s, court cases challenged the definition of “express advocacy” put forward by Buckley.

In FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the Supreme Court held that a communication does not have to use the so-called “magic words” to be considered express advocacy. Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCL) had used treasury funds to create flyers encouraging people to vote “pro-life” and included the names of pro-life candidates running for office. Although MCL had not used any “magic words,” the judges ruled the ads were clearly an attempt to influence an election.

Also in the 1980s, the FEC took land developer Harvey Furgatch to court after he purchased a full-page ad in The New York Times and Boston Globe to encourage voters to prevent “four more years of incoherences, ineptness and illusion” under then-President Jimmy Carter. The case came to be known as FEC v. Furgatch. Furgatch’s defense was that the ad used none of the “magic words” listed in Buckley and remained vague enough to get a legal pass.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that speech could be express advocacy when it is “susceptible of no other reasonable interpretation” – as in this case. They ruled that implied meanings can be considered express advocacy, and therefore Furgatch’s advertisement expressly advocated the defeat of President Carter.

Despite these new limitations on independent expenditure, the ambiguous wording of these laws meant that they were ineffective regulatory tools. The lack of expenditure limits and loose regulations for outside spending created massive inflows of money into campaigns.

In response, Congress passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) in 2002 to eliminate soft money donations and more tightly regulate independently funded ads. Soft money encompasses the money donated to parties that support general political activities, such as voter registration drives.

The Act also prohibited corporations from funding electioneering communications, or broadcast advertisements mentioning a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. It thereby ignored the ambiguities of the Buckley and Furgatch cases.

A year later, the Supreme Court upheld BCRA in McConnell v. FEC, determining most of BCRA’s provisions constitutional and noting the “substantial evidence to support Congress’ determination that large soft-money contributions to national political parties give rise to corruption…”

All this changed four years later in a case that a number of legal scholars believe was the stepping stone to Citizens United.

The rise of dark money

:{Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL), a politically active nonprofit, ran ads encouraging viewers to contact two U.S. senators during the 2004 presidential election. By running the ads, the group broke the BCRA’s rules restricting political ads funded by corporations in the 60-day period before an election. WRTL ended up suing the FEC, claiming that BCRA was unconstitutional.}:

In FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, the Court deemed BCRA’s prohibition on corporate electioneering communications as unconstitutional. Their reasoning was that ads crafted to focus on policy issues and implicitly advocating for or against candidates should not be considered express advocacy, and therefore cannot be regulated as such – essentially the opposite of the conclusions made in Furgatch.

:{As long as the ads left out the “magic words” then, a group could easily spend limitless amounts without needing to disclose their donors or report political spending to the FEC.}:

Wisconsin gave rise to massive spending by dark money groups like political nonprofits that are not legally obligated to disclose their contributions.

:{During the 2008 election cycle, the first presidential race after Wisconsin, dark money spending on presidential candidates increased from virtually zero to about$25 million. In the 2012 cycle, the amount soared to $141 million.}:

The Wisconsin Right to Life case is noteworthy not only for helping enable dark money spending but for demonstrating how much the composition of the Supreme Court matters, Brendan Fischer, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center, said.

:{In 2006, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retired and was replaced by Samuel Alito, a conservative-leaning justice, which shifted the dynamic on the court.}:

“Between the McConnell case and the Wisconsin Right to Life ruling, really nothing changed in terms of the statistics or practices of campaign finance,” Fischer said. “All that changed was the makeup of the court.

“[This case] is a reminder that the ideology of the court makes a significant impact.”

Citizens United

When Citizens United v. FECwas decided in 2010, its impact did not shock people closely monitoring campaign finance.

Citizens United wasn’t surprising, Fischer said, given the court’s previous rulings, including its findings in Wisconsin Right to Life.

Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation for the watchdog group Common Cause said that theWisconsincase did a lot of the damage often attributed to Citizens United as well as much of the damage to campaign finance laws attributed to the Supreme Court.

“Wisconsin Right to Life made permissible corporate funding and created the vague legal standard that acted as a major step toward Citizens United,” Ryan said.

In Citizens United, judges used the ideas stated in previous cases to make their conclusion: As long as money is not given directly to or used in coordination with a candidate, it is not corruptive, and corporations too have the right to freedom of speech.

:{Given that the Court had already deemed independent expenditure from an individual as not corruptive, it was only logical to expand this argument in Citizens United to conclude that independent expenditure from a group – including a corporation that has First Amendment rights – is also not corrupt, and therefore sanctioned. Now, corporations, as well as associations and unions, were granted legal rights to use unlimited sums of money from their treasury funds to fund independent expenditure.}:

This line of reasoning also led to the federal Court of Appeals’ 2010 decision in SpeechNow.org v. FEC,which reinforced Citizens Unitedand removed all contribution limits to independent expenditure-only groups. The SpeechNow.org ruling created super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited money to advocate for or against a political candidate, including donations from corporations.

The Supreme Court’s most recent major case on campaign finance, McCutcheon v. FEC, addressed direct contributions rather than outside spending. In this case, Alabama resident Shaun McCutcheon objected to the aggregate contribution limit of $123,200, the amount that individuals were allowed to donate to all federal candidates and parties combined in a single election cycle. He sued the FEC, claiming that the aggregate limit on contributions violated his First Amendment rights.

The majority of the Court agreed with McCutcheon, concluding that one individual donating to many groups does not necessarily give rise to “influence over or access to” elected officials or parties the same way that a single large contribution might. While base limits (the amount allowed to be donated to each candidate) were deemed constitutional, aggregate limits were ruled a violation of a person’s freedom of speech.

Because of these rulings, over the last half century or so, federal campaign finance has become an extremely complex system, balancing transparency and avoiding corruption with freedom of speech and political participation.

Freedom of speech is certainly winning: In 1868, Ulysses Grant’s election effort cost $150,000 – or $2.7 million in today’s money. In 2016, Donald Trump’s campaign committee and outside groups supporting him spent nearly 150 times more. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, combined with outside groups, spent nearly 300 times more.

RELATED TOPICS

• Citizens United
• dark money
• FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life
• FEC v. Wisconsin Right to LIfe
• mccutcheon
• scotus
• speechnow
• SpeechNow v. FEC
• super PACs
• Supreme Court
• trump

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618

Over the past two years, political operative Dylan Beesley paid his firm more than $100,000 from the campaign account of Rep. Mark Takai (D-Hawai'i) for "consulting services." Seems like an entirely appropriate expense for a public officeholder who must run for re-election every two years, right? There's just one problem. Rep. Takai was dead that entire time.¹

While this may be the most offensive and egregious use of campaign funds long after the campaign is over, it is far from the only one. FEC filings show disbursements from campaign accounts years after candidates last held or ran for office, for everything from limo rides to sports tickets to lavish hotels and dinners.²

Tell the FEC: Kill zombie campaigns. Stop former candidates from using campaign accounts as their personal slush funds.

Federal Election Commission rules forbid the use of campaign funds for personal expenses, but the rules are vague and poorly enforced. In 2013, the FEC issued an advisory opinion that former candidates should wind down all campaign-related expenses within six months. But candidates routinely flout this rule.

An investigation by the Tampa Bay Times found roughly 100 zombie campaigns that were still spending cash long after candidacies have ended.³

Nearly 40 campaigns kept staff on the payroll, including 12 that made payments to family members. About half the former candidates became lobbyists, and many used the extra cash to curry favor with future clients and other candidates.

Perhaps the oldest zombie campaign of all belongs to former Rep. Robin Tallon, Jr. He left office in 1993 with $400,000 in his campaign account. Through investing, he turned that $400,000 into $1 million. Beginning in 2005, Tallon has used the account for everything from new computers, an iPad, $20,000 to his son who was listed as campaign treasurer, and dues to a country club near his home in South Carolina.

The FEC requires candidates who are no longer running for office to either give the money to charity, other candidates, or refund it to donors.

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/03/29/alec-legislator-fast-tracks-bill-block-local-campaign-finance-ordinances-arizona/

A state bill that would ban cities and counties from requiring dark money groups to disclose their donors is moving rapidly through the Arizona state legislature. HB 2153 would make it illegal for localities to require tax exempt organizations to disclose donors and register as political action committees. The bill introduced by Rep. Vince Leach (R-11) was approved by the House and is waiting a final roll-call vote in the Senate.

This state interference in local democracy initiatives is a response to a Tempe ballot measure that passed earlier this month by a 9-to-1 margin which creates an ordinance that requires groups that make more than $1,000 in independent expenditures in municipal elections to disclose its financial supporters and details of the organization. The city of Phoenix is considering revising its charter to curb dark money in a similar fashion.

HB 2153 is based on an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) resolution that was adopted last year which spins campaign finance disclosure as an attack on “donor privacy.” ALEC is a corporate-funded organization that brings lobbyists and state politicians together behind closed doors to rewrite state laws.

Rep. Leach is a GOP legislative member of ALEC, and 22 other Arizona representatives and 8 senators have ties to the group.

ALEC and its sister organization, the State Policy Network (SPN), have made fighting campaign finance disclosure a central goal. ALEC founded the misnamed “Center to Protect Free Speech,” which produced a Donor Disclosure Toolkit for legislatures that details how lawmakers should respond to donor disclosure laws.

ALEC’s toolkit lifts whole sections from an SPN Donor Privacy Toolkit published on its United for Privacy campaign website. Both toolkits are partially written by Jon Riches, Director of National Litigation and General Counsel for the Goldwater Institute, Arizona’s SPN affiliate. Goldwater is lobbying for the passage of HB 2153 and sent its vice president for litigation to testify in support of the bill in front of a House committee.

If the preemption bill passes by roll-call vote in the Senate, it will head to Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk. Ducey has written for ALEC and at ALEC meetings, so the measure trampling local democracy is likely to get his signature.

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/03/29/alec-legislator-fast-tracks-bill-block-local-campaign-finance-ordinances-arizona/

A state bill that would ban cities and counties from requiring dark money groups to disclose their donors is moving rapidly through the Arizona state legislature. HB 2153 would make it illegal for localities to require tax exempt organizations to disclose donors and register as political action committees. The bill introduced by Rep. Vince Leach (R-11) was approved by the House and is waiting a final roll-call vote in the Senate.

This state interference in local democracy initiatives is a response to a Tempe ballot measure that passed earlier this month by a 9-to-1 margin which creates an ordinance that requires groups that make more than $1,000 in independent expenditures in municipal elections to disclose its financial supporters and details of the organization. The city of Phoenix is considering revising its charter to curb dark money in a similar fashion.

HB 2153 is based on an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) resolution that was adopted last year which spins campaign finance disclosure as an attack on “donor privacy.” ALEC is a corporate-funded organization that brings lobbyists and state politicians together behind closed doors to rewrite state laws.

Rep. Leach is a GOP legislative member of ALEC, and 22 other Arizona representatives and 8 senators have ties to the group.

ALEC and its sister organization, the State Policy Network (SPN), have made fighting campaign finance disclosure a central goal. ALEC founded the misnamed “Center to Protect Free Speech,” which produced a Donor Disclosure Toolkit for legislatures that details how lawmakers should respond to donor disclosure laws.

ALEC’s toolkit lifts whole sections from an SPN Donor Privacy Toolkit published on its United for Privacy campaign website. Both toolkits are partially written by Jon Riches, Director of National Litigation and General Counsel for the Goldwater Institute, Arizona’s SPN affiliate. Goldwater is lobbying for the passage of HB 2153 and sent its vice president for litigation to testify in support of the bill in front of a House committee.

If the preemption bill passes by roll-call vote in the Senate, it will head to Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk. Ducey has written for ALEC and at ALEC meetings, so the measure trampling local democracy is likely to get his signature.

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judge elections:

https://freespeechforpeople.org/williams-yulee-three-years-later/

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city ord

https://freespeechforpeople.org/st-petersburg-city-council-votes-abolish-super-pacs-limit-foreign-corporate-money-local-elections/

==

thom

As the school shooting in Parkland, Florida has shown, what was considered insanely corrupt political behavior 40 years ago is now normal. And you can thank right-wingers on the Supreme Court.

Back in 1982, the late novelist Robert B. Parker was hard at work on one of his Spencer novels, titled The Widening Gyre. In the book, a local businessman owns a local politician; the politician then makes tax decisions and real estate zoning decisions that help the businessman. Both the politician and the businessman are working as hard as they can to cover it all up.

In 1982 this sort of thing was a major, career-ending scandal for both the politician and the businessman.  A wealthy man owning a politician, who, in turn, changed the tax code and altered regulations to increase the businessman’s profits, was considered a symptom of intolerable corruption.

But what Parker and most Americans didn’t realize was that, in 1982, the die had already been cast and the oligarchs had already begun seizing the levers of power in America; a seizure that would lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.

The billionaires doing the seizing of our nation just didn’t come out about it until the presidency of Barack Obama, when the Koch Network, Adelson, the Mercers and the Waltons all became openly, and in some cases braggadociosly political in their “giving.”

As I noted in my book The Crash of 2016, The American Legislative Exchange Council was founded in 1973, right after Lewis Powell’s memo –  suggesting a propaganda program to promote the interests of big business and the rich – began circulating through top corporate and high-net-worth circles. That year, too, the Heritage Foundation was created. And in 1977, Charles Koch and friends founded the CATO Institute.

While the efforts of these groups have been multifaceted, their most obvious and deadly impact has been on the ongoing proliferation of weapons of war in America, and the denial of healthcare to millions in so-called red states. With the installation of Reagan, big business and billionaires were finally to get the tax breaks and other goodies that they wanted from Congress and the Executive Branch, while waging war on unions and working people.

But to Lewis Powell, a lawyer by training and the author of the infamous blueprint for billionaires to take over America (now known as The Powell Memo), nothing was more important than targeting the courts.

In his memo, Powell wrote, “Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.”

He noted, “This is a vast area of opportunity for the Chamber, if it is willing to undertake the role of spokesman for American business and if, in turn, business is willing to provide the funds.”

Laying out specifics, Powell added, “The Chamber would need a highly competent staff of lawyers. In special situations it should be authorized to engage, to appear as counsel amicus in the Supreme Court, lawyers of national standing and reputation. The greatest care should be exercised in selecting the cases in which to participate, or the suits to institute. But the opportunity merits the necessary effort.”

In the 1970s, as the US Chamber of Commerce focused on the courts, employing high-priced, savvy lawyers, and flooding the Supreme Court chamber with amicus briefs, a string of explosive decisions throughout the decade gave the #MorbidlyRich what they needed to eventually overthrow FDR’s New Deal and to radically reinterpret the 2nd Amendment.

In 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court (which Nixon appointed Lewis Powell to in 1972, the year after Powell wrote his infamous memo) ruled that political money is constitutionally protected free speech, changing American law so that those who have the most money would have the most “First Amendment free speech” in our political system. And if there was anything that the NRA was getting good at, it was raising money from weapons manufacturers and others.

And in Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, the Supreme Court ruled that corporate advertising (including promoting M15 weapons of war to our kids) is a protected form of free speech.  (Ironically, William Rehnquist was the sole dissenter; he argued that corporate “speech” [advertising] was often deceptive. But the deed was done; Caveat emptor became the new American normal.)That same year, in United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., corporations – as persons – were given Fifth Amendment protections against double jeopardy, limiting the ability of citizens to go after gun manufacturers, among others. 

A year later, in 1977, in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the Supreme Court overturned state restrictions on corporate political spending, saying such restrictions violate the First Amendment rights of corporations, and giving the NRA and other interest groups an added lever to use to extract legislation.

In their dissents in that case, Justices White, Brennan, and Marshall argued, “The special status of corporations has placed them in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only our economy but the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process.”

But their warnings were ignored.

Then came the Federalist Society, founded in 1982 with millions of dollars in funding by the Koch-connected Bradley Foundation.

They built a nationwide network of jurists, attorneys, legal scholars, and politicians to indoctrinate a new generation’s legal system with billionaire-friendly interpretations: Corporate personhood is real, money is speech, democracy is not sacred, and organized money should always have privilege over organized people.

They also helped lay the case for the Heller decision, which, for the first time in nearly 230 years, found a “right to individual gun ownership” in the 2nd Amendment.

In 2010 the Supreme Court wrapped its gift to corporations and gun manufacturers all up in a neat little bundle with their 5-4 Citizen’s United ruling.  With that decision, America was nearly completely turned over to the wealthy and corporations.

Thereafter, oligarchs like Adenson and the Kochs began openly bragging about how much they were spending to buy politicians, legislation, tax breaks, and the deregulation of consumer protections.

President Obama called this out in his 2010 State Of The Union speech:

“It’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or with Congress. It’s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office.

“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that, I believe, will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.

"I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests or, worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people.”

Hard-right corporatist judge Sam Alito silently (and disrespectfully) mouthed, “Not true!” at Obama, but history shows that Alito was the one in error, not Obama.  Right on down to the ability of foreign entities to influence our elections and lawmaking by, for example, the possible laundering of campaign money through the NRA.

And so, a few days after Paul Ryan shepherded through Congress a law that confers potentially billions of dollars in tax benefits to them, the Kochs and their friends put a half-million dollars into Ryan’s fundraising committee, while the NRA continues to shower him and Mitch McConnell with support.

In Robert B. Parker’s 1982, this would have been the end of Ryan’s career, and the Kochs and the NRA would be vilified as corrupters of the political process.

In 1971, only 175 companies had registered lobbyists. By 1982, there were nearly 2,500, and today there are over 12,000 lobbyists just registered in DC. Oligarchs were dumping huge amounts of money lobbying for favorable legislation, although it still isn’t really visible to most Americans until tragedies like mass shootings give us an insight into how it all works.

As the Reagan administration rolled into power in 1981, so, too, did the #MorbidlyRich oligarchs, who were seeding brand-new right-wing think tanks devoted to espousing the same free-market, Andrew Mellon/Warren Harding ideologies that led to the 1929 Great Crash: massive tax cuts, deregulation, and privatization.

Back during the era of Nixon, Americans understood the power and dangers of corruption.

As Lamar Waldron and I point out in our book Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination, when the milk producers association wanted the Nixon administration to increase milk price supports (to increase their profitability by over $3 billion), they hid/laundered their “campaign donations” through local GOP groups and a briefcase with $3 million in cash, which were later determined to be illegal, an event that became a major part of the Watergate-era Nixon scandals.

But that was all so pre-1976, the year when the Supreme Court’s Buckleydecision ruled that rich people (or rich corporations) owning their own personal politicians wasn’t corruption; it was free speech.

While it’s taken us over 40 years to fully integrate the 1976 Buckley decision and its spawn into our body politic, the corruption of this entirely new interpretation of the First Amendment is systematically taking apart our nation. And has made it easier and easier for maladjusted people among us to stockpile weapons of war.

For example, can you imagine Richard Nixon lying about how environmentally destructive some industrial poisons are? Nixon couldn’t imagine it; he put into place the Environmental Protection Agency.  And he was fine with the fairly strong gun control laws that several states, from California to New York, had in place.

But today’s Republican Party (with a few very, very rare exceptions) is so in debt to – so owned by – a few petrobillionaires and coal multimillionaires and oil companies that they’re perfectly willing to look the world in the face and lie through their teeth about the science of global warming.

They’re so fully-owned by the gun lobby/NRA that they’ve made it illegal for the US government to do any meaningful research into gun deaths; they’ve banned doctors, in a number of states including Florida, from even asking kids if there’s a gun in their home; and McConnell and Ryan have successfully prevented any sort of meaningful legislation to restrict guns from getting a vote even when they know it would pass.

As a result, we’re the laughingstock of the world, and we lose over 30,000 people a year to guns and another 40,000 a year to a lack of access to health care.  That’s a lot of blood on GOP hands.

Good government was perceived, prior to the Buckley decision and its embrace by the Reagan administration, as the singular hallmark of American democracy.  Today it’s a joke.

In the wake of the most recent Florida school shooting, we find politicians who’ve taken literally millions of dollars through their careers from groups like the NRA refusing to engage in any meaningful discussion about gun control.  Forget legislation; they won’t even allow a debate.

This echoes the legislators who’ve taken Koch or ExxonMobil money and refuse to discuss climate change.

Or those indebted to Big Pharma who won’t talk about reforming Medicare Part D so the government can negotiate discounted drug prices.

Or those taking money from agricultural chemical and seed companies who ignore evidence of cancer and other problems with GMOs and the herbicides and pesticides associated with them.

The young people of Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida see this situation with new and clear eyes. They see it for what it is: Corruption.

And they’re mad as hell about how that corruption has led to the deaths of 17 of their friends and teachers.

Every new assault – be it from an “active shooter” or a corporate raider – shows us how the radical shift in the Supreme Court starting with the 1976 Buckleydecision has turned America from a democracy into an oligarchy.  Even former President Jimmy Carter came onto my radio/TV program in 2015 to proclaim it:

HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, “unlimited money in politics.” It seems like a violation of principles of democracy. Your thoughts on that?

CARTER: It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger.

The most effective way to solve this problem is to pass a constitutional amendment that will proclaim, clearly and unambiguously, that corporations are not persons and that money is not “free speech.”  Groups like MoveToAmend.organd Public Citizen have been working on these campaigns for years, and they’re bearing fruit.

Once the power of money is stripped from our political system, the power of gun manufacturers through the NRA will largely evaporate.

During the years I lived and worked in DC, several Republican politicians confided in me – off the record – that they would love to be out of the clutches of their wealthy donors.  And that they’d quickly vote with Democrats to get free of the need to fundraise for hours every day.  This could easily become bipartisan quickly, with the right leadership.

The NRA’s essentially outright purchase of senators like Richard Burr ($6.3 million in 2016), Marco Rubio ($3.2 million in 2016), Roy Blunt ($3 million), and Rob Portman ($2.2 million) – and Donald Trump ($30 million in the presidential race) – is so obviously corrupt to many of the students in Parkland that they’re furious.

We should all share their anger, and use it to fight to amend our Constitution to undo the damage these oligarchs and their toadies on the Supreme Court have done to our republic.

==

http://freespeechforpeople.org/

superpacs

https://freespeechforpeople.org/speechnow-v-fec-case-created-super-pacs-challenge/

SpeechNow v. FEC – The Case that Created Super PACs, and Our Challenge

Posted on January 27 2018 by Ron Fein

January 27 marks the eighth anniversary of oral argument in the case that created super PACs. Contrary to popular belief, super PACs were not created by the Supreme Court in Citizens United,but rather by a subsequent lower court decision called SpeechNow v. FEC,argued on January 27, 2010 (just six days after the Citizens Uniteddecision).

As we explained in 2015, there are significant cracks in the legal foundation that created super PACs, and several converging developments in election law, constitutional law and even criminal law suggest the end may be in sight.

As a matter of practical reality, empirical research shows that top donors to super PACs are generally the same people as top donors to candidates and political parties, with ample opportunities to exchange super PAC contributions for political favors in a quid pro quo corruption scheme, whether or not the super PAC “coordinates” its media purchases with the campaign. In fact, a federal judge recently went out of his way to reaffirm in a criminal bribery case that contributions to super PACs can be part of bribes, notwithstanding Citizens United, although he found that the particular facts of that case didn’t support a bribery charge.

As a matter of legal doctrine, as explained in a forthcoming article by a group of pre-eminent constitutional scholars, SpeechNowsimply misapplied Citizens United: “In Citizens United the Supreme Court struck down limits on a political group’s expenditureswhile the issue in SpeechNow was the validity of limiting contributions to a political group.” That distinction between limits on expenditures versus limits on contributions is critical because since Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court has recognized different standards of scrutiny for limits on contributions and limits on expenditures. Unfortunately, then-Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to appeal SpeechNowto the Supreme Court, on the (clearly mistaken in retrospect) theory that the SpeechNowdecision would “affect only a small subset of federally regulated contributions.” Now, there’s good reason to think that Chief Justice Roberts and/or Justice Kennedy would be willing to overrule SpeechNoweven if they are not prepared to retreat on Citizens United.

So how do we do it? Learn more about *Lieu v.*FEC, our federal lawsuit challenging SpeechNow (covered here in the Washington Post), and about our legislative efforts in St. Petersburg, Florida, Massachusetts, and elsewhere to challenge super PACs.

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==

WISC WILL

Support for Act 10

In February 2013, WILL helped 3 teachers file an amicus curiae brief defending Governor Scott Walker's union-busting reforms.^[6]

WILL also filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) for allegedly violating Act 10 by approving a labor agreement. The plaintiff in the lawsuit has been teaching at MATC since 1984. She said, "I'm appalled that my union would flout the law and negotiate an illegal contract." ^[7]

McCutcheon, et al. v. FEC

Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit challenging the Federal Election Commission's biennial limit on individual contributions contending the limit is unconstitutionally low and not supported by a sufficient governmental interest.^[8] WILL filed an *amicus curiae* brief in support of the plaintiff-appellants. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari and will hear the case during the Fall 2013 session.^[9]

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