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Political Committees & 527s
MoveOn.org “reformers” mask legal requirement as virtue
Published on August 10, 2010 11:50 AM
Category: Contributions & Limits, Political Committees & 527s, Taxpayer Financed Campaigns
Today I learned via e-mail that there will be a "rally" in Albany, New York to urge Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to "Fight Corporate Corruption of Washington" (curious italicization choices in the original). The message appears to be part of a nationwide campaign led by MoveOn (formerly MoveOn.org, of course) to push for a handful of campaign finance and ethics "reform" measures. Other organizations supporting today's "rallies" (you'll see why I'm using quotation marks around
BINGO! PACs and expenditures in the news
Published on June 21, 2010 10:40 AM
Category: Disclosure, Political Committees & 527s
The Washington Post reports that the Philip A. Hart Democratic Club takes in about $2 million a year in receipts, but donated just $500 to a candidate. Instead, the committee seems to be mostly devoted to the great game of bingo. One wonders what their tax returns look like. In any case, the larger issue of how PACs can be used for the profit of insiders is something I wrote about in a chapter of this terrific book, which you should all go out and purchase immediately and make Jack Citrin
FEC: Rep. Alan Grayson's complaint is nuts
Published on June 18, 2010 04:31 PM
Category: Enforcement, Political Committees & 527s
Okay... so that's not really what the six wise men and women of the Federal Election Commission said in dismissing a complaint filed by the bombastic Florida Rep. Alan Grayson. In any event, the FEC made public a finding that the Commission has "no reason to believe" that any aspect of Grayson's frivolous complaint about a political opponent had any bearing in fact or law.
Expenditures, Rachel Maddow and the Anti-Saloon League!
Published on June 16, 2010 11:08 AM
Category: First Amendment, Independent Speech, Issue Advocacy, Political Committees & 527s
Anybody acquainted at all with my work mus know how gleefully I responded to this segment from the Rachel Maddow show. While I haven't yet read Last Call, the book touted in the segment, I've read a number of other works on the Anti-Saloon League and their relentless advocacy of Prohibition at the state and national levels. We should all remember one factor that made their fight especially powerful. The Anti-Saloon League touted itself as a public education organization. It fought against attem
Nobody in dem shadows except political committees
Published on June 15, 2010 10:02 AM
Category: Disclosure, First Amendment, Independent Speech, Political Committees & 527s
We've hears that the justification for the Shotgun Sellout negotiated by the NRA is that the DISCLOSE Act should require grater disclosure of small "shadowy" fly-by-night groups than those with a proven track record and national reputation. (Like the NRA. Or BP.) But why stop there? We might want to regulate a group formed for the purpose of intervening in a campaign, once it raises or spends $1,000 for that purpose. Wow. That's pretty tough, huh? It also happens to be
Van Hollen-Schumer waiting game continues
Published on April 15, 2010
Category: Contributions & Limits, Independent Speech, Jurisprudence & Litigation, Political Committees & 527s, Stand By Your Ad
Campaign finance watchers continue to pore over the scattered signals emanating from anonymous congressional leadership aides as the legislative drafting process of Van Hollen-Schumer continues behind closed doors. Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Sen. Charles Schumer, the chair and former chair of their respective chambers' campaign committees, announced their framework for a Citizens United response in February—Feb. 11 to be specific. Over two months later, the world hasn't ended, corpor
March of freedom continues in SpeechNow.org v. FEC
Published on March 26, 2010 04:00 PM
Category: Independent Speech, Jurisprudence & Litigation, Political Committees & 527s
A federal appeals court knocked out another wall in the regulatory maze of campaign finance restrictions today. The unanimous opinion, authored by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, held that the government may not limit unincorporated associations of citizens from banding together to spend money advocating for or against candidates. The ruling is another blow in a hail of punches against a government effort to regulate independent political speech. In SpeechNow.org, the Court extended t
Unity '08 Lives!
Published on March 18, 2010
Category: Contributions & Limits, Independent Speech, Political Committees & 527s, Political Parties
We're a bit late in finding some time to comment on Unity08, the non-party political party that scored a surprising victory over the Federal Election Commission in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia earlier this month. It is an important case, because, as the Unity08 organizers had found, under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 ("McCain-Feingold") it had been made de facto illegal to start a new national political party in the U.S. Unity08 v. FEC
Video of last weeks ACS panel on Citizens United
Published on February 28, 2010
Category: Coordination, Disclosure, Enforcement, Expenditure, Independent Speech, Jurisprudence & Litigation, Political Committees & 527s, Political Parties, Stand By Your Ad
The Center for Competitive Politics covered the panel in two posts last week: "Lawyers offer mixed reviews of post-Citizens United leg. at ACS event" and "ACS panel features strong supporters of free political speech."
ACS panel features strong supporters of free political speech
Published on February 24, 2010 05:03 PM
Category: Coordination, Expenditure, Independent Speech, Jurisprudence & Litigation, Political Committees & 527s, Political Parties
The American Constitution Society, the leading liberal legal organization, hosted a remarkable and informative panel on the impact of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Notably, the panel included four defenders of the Court's majority opinion (in whole or in part) who spoke from a real-word perspective: experience as campaign finance lawyers, FEC staffers and congressional committee aides. The First Amendment Four - Jan Baran of W
