DATELINE: Monday, May 21, 2012 CONTACT: Sarah Lee, Communications Director, Center for Competitive Politics, 770.598.7961 Edwards Jury Instructions Defy Supreme Court Ruling The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP) today harshly criticized the final juror instructions, issued Friday, in the trial of former president candidate John Edwards. “If Edwards goes to prison, we will have an Alice in [...]
Edwards Jury Instructions Defy Supreme Court Ruling
Published on May 21, 2012
Filed Under: Blog, Faulty Assumptions, Featured Content, Press Releases, John Edwards, Jury instructions, Mellon, North Carolina
The Changing Rhetoric of Campaign Finance — Illinois Democrats Offer Innovative Campaign Freedom Measure
Published on May 17, 2012
Illinois Democrats have an interesting proposal to “level the playing field” with independent expenditure committees. A Federal Court recently applied the SpeechNow.org logic to allow independent expenditure committees to speak out in Illinois statewide and legislative campaigns. This has caused a reaction in the Illinois General Assembly. From the Chicago Tribune: House Majority Leader Barbara [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Contributions & Limits, Featured Content, In the News, Super PACs, campaign finance reform, Chicago, Contribution limits, Illinois
Federal Court Strikes Down Three Montana “Clean” Election Laws
Published on May 17, 2012
United States District Court for the District of Montana Judge Charles Lovell yesterday struck down three state laws that violated First Amendment rights to political speech: a ban on corporate donations to independent expenditure PACs; a political-civil libel statute; and a vote reporting disclaimer requirement. “This ruling is a solid win for the First Amendment,” [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content, First Amendment, Independent Speech, Super PACs, corporate contributions, free speech, Montana, District Of Columbia, Montana
The Bizarre Common Cause Lawsuit
Published on May 17, 2012
Common Cause has filed a lawsuit in a bizarre attempt to end the Senate practice of filibustering. The pro-regulation group partnered with Democratic Representatives John Lewis and Hank Johnson of Georgia, Michael Michaud of Maine and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, as well as three DREAM Act students as plaintiffs in the case. Common Cause is [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Disclosure, Featured Content, Uncategorized, District Of Columbia, Georgia, Maine, Minnesota
Shareholders can continue to speak for themselves
Published on May 16, 2012
There have been a number of stories hitting the news cycle concerning an activist group called Change to Win — who most recently, according to this Wall Street Journal piece, actively sang about successfully bullying of businesses into dropping their support of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Now, according to the WSJ, they are [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Citizens United, Disclosure, Featured Content, Uncategorized, free speech, ISS, proxy season, shareholder votes, WellPoint, District Of Columbia
The Ubiquitous Corporations Targeted by The People’s Rights Amendment
Published on May 9, 2012
The stupid idea de jour is brought to us today in the form of the People’s Rights Amendment, courtesy of Congressman Jim McGovern. Catering to the wacky paranoia of the Occupy movement and (less likely) his Massachusetts constituents, McGovern seeks to deny constitutional rights to any corporation, for profit, nonprofit, tribal, foreign, sole proprietorship – you [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Citizens United, Featured Content, First Amendment, corporations, free speech, McGovern, People's Rights Amendment, District Of Columbia
John Edwards guilty of worse things than campaign finance violations
Published on May 4, 2012
Center for Competitive Politics’ Legal Director Allen Dickerson has authored another fine piece for Campaigns and Elections Magazine on why charging John Edwards with a campaign finance violation may have been a mistake with negative consequences for free campaign speech going forward. I understand the desire to make an example of Edwards. The fact that [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content, First Amendment, bribery, campaign finance, John Edwards, District Of Columbia, North Carolina
Connecticut Clean Elections running out of cash
Published on May 1, 2012
Watchdogs up in Connecticut are apparently worried that the state’s “Clean Elections” fund may run dry by the next election cycle in 2014 due to budget cutbacks and several fiscal “raids” on the fund, totaling nearly $59 million, as the state struggles to manage its finances. According to this report by CT Mirror: “The combination [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content, Taxpayer Financed Campaigns, campaigns, clean elections, Connecticut Report, public funding, Arizona, Connecticut, Maine
The Next Free Speech Frontier: The Internet
Published on April 20, 2012
An interesting piece from yesterday’s LA Times blog seems to coalesce all recent calls for disclosure of political funding for campaign ads onto the new frontier for all things media: the internet. According to the Times blog piece, the California “State Ethics Czar” Ann Ravel is initially calling for voluntary disclosure of funding to bloggers [...]
Filed Under: Blog, Featured Content, First Amendment, Internet Regulation, bloggers, California, Disclosure, internet, political funding, California