One wonders what pieces of legislation or policy proposals, if any, some “reformers” would think pose constitutional problems.
Maybe a bill to slap a 500 percent tax on independent expenditures? Nah. Florida Rep. Alan Grayson introduced six bills this week to pre-empt the U.S. Supreme Court’s anticipated ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. The short, silly bills are spread over five different committee jurisdictions and seek to levy ridiculous regulations on independent speech.
Grayson claims that the bills, all with bombastic names like “Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act” and “Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act,” were introduced after consulting with Democratic leadership in the House, The Huffington Post reported.
Funny, as the bills are listed on THOMAS (the web database for pending legislation) with a grand, cumulative total of zero co-sponsors as of Thursday night. As Brad Smith mentioned in a recent blog post, the Congressman hoping to lead the legislative charge after a Citizens United ruling is the same member who sent a letter to the U.S Attorney General Eric Holder demanding an investigation of a political opponent who dared start a website (and PAC) called “Mycongressmanisnuts.com.” Grayson wants his political critic imprisoned for five years, demanding in the ranting letter that Holder investigate his charges with a bluster that would make Cuban dictator Fidel Castro proud.
So, Grayson has a pretty short — but compelling — career of attempting to stifle his political opponents. It’s more than a bit hypocritical for Grayson, who spent $2.6 million of his own money on his 2008 campaign but thinks everyone else should shut up, but it’s not very surprising.
What amazed me is that Lisa Gilbert, a “Democracy Advocate” for U.S. PIRG is deciding to endorse these bozo bills:
“These are all pieces of good policy,” Gilbert told HuffPo. “I hope they draw attention to the potential frightening implications of Citizens United.”
Really? These six bills are what “reformers” consider good public policy?
As ABC News’ Matt Mosk reported on Wednesday, Democratic leaders such as Rep. Chris Van Hollen (who also runs the DCCC) and Sen. Chuck Schumer have begun huddling with Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias and White House officials (presumably including White House Counsel Bob Bauer, who Elias replaced as the head of Perkins Coie political law practice) to craft a potential legislative response to Citizens United. I’m guessing Alan Grayson is not among the working group.
On Thursday, the Brookings Institution featured a panel discussion with the “Four Amigos” of campaign finance reform. Their report, “Reform in an Age of Networked Campaigns,” is a serious treatment of potential public policy changes in campaign finance. The 57-page document provides several policy recommendations, like taxpayer financed campaigns with matching funds to incentivize small donors, removing coordination restrictions and tax credits for small donations.
The Center for Competitive Politics has substantive concerns with taxpayer financed campaigns and other aspects of the report, but at least it acknowledges that “rescue funds” are likely unconstitutional and that “reformers” need to move beyond restricting speech and spending and focus on ways to engage citizens to participate in the political process. CCP sees room for potential agreement on issues like coordination and tax credits for small donors, and reform along those lines would likely garner broad support.
“It’s talking about equalizing by building up, not by squeezing down,” said co-author Michael J. Malbin at the Brookings event.
“Instead of trying to further restrict the wealthy few, we seek to activate the many,” added co-author Thomas Mann.
In short, there are serious policy debates to be had about the future of campaign finance regulation. Rep. Grayson’s flurry of farcical legislation is not a serious contribution to such an effort. Instead of saying his knee-jerk schemes are “pieces of good public policy,” those in the reform community who are serious about advancing plausible legislation should condemn such anti-speech vitriol. We’re not holding our breath.