Expenditure

In the nearly two years since the Citizens United decision, the progressive movement has used every avenue it can find to adapt anti-corruption regulation into a force for intimidating corporations out of engaging in independent expenditures.

One of the outcomes of this tactic has been a rise in activist investing.  Taking advantage of SEC regulation, activist shareholders buy the requisite value of stock needed to introduce shareholder proposals and propose burdensome disclosure rules targeting political expenditures.

Reform groups can hem and haw all day about the merits of various disclosure regimes, but at the end of the day, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that these proposals are in the service of cultivating political power and control.

Professor Hasen, argues in response to this post on the Montana Supreme Court’s gross misinterpretation, or worse, conscious decision to ignore Citizens United in Western Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General, that the Supreme Court’s decision in Citzens United is “disingenuous.” Brad Smith says no – Citizens United. like its forerunner Buckley v. Valeo, is a straightforward application of the First Amendment, establishing categorical principles to try to define when the state may regulate political speech.

CCP’s amicus brief in Western Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General was cited in the first of the two filed dissenting opinions.

The Montana Supreme Court on December 30 launched a headlong frontal assault on the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Citizens United v. FEC. We predict that the U.S. Supreme Court will make quick work of this frivolous and misguided opinion.

CCP Chairman – and the man who as FEC Commissioner first introduced “content standards” into the regulations on coordinated and independent expenditures – explains the current kerfuffle on Crossroads America and the Federal Election Commission.

LLC. If you’ve missed it, the campaign finance scandal du jour is reported in the Washington Post:

a now-extinct corporation called W Spann LLC, … gave $1 million in April to Restore Our Future, a “super PAC” created to help Mitt Romney’s presidential run, according to Federal Election Commission records.

We’ve got a few thoughts you won’t see in the standard press story line. Read the whole thing.

In the landmark case McCullough v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” This maxim hasn’t escaped the notice of state Rep. Chuck Isenhart (D-Dubuque), an advocate of tax funded campaigns.

A state cannot simply ban all private contributions to candidates or causes. Such a law would certainly violate the associational and speech rights recognized in the First Amendment. Isenhart, no doubt mindful of how private donors supposedly undermine his goal of requiring the government to subsidize political campaigns, has suggested a novel idea.

He’s simply proposing to tax every contribution over $250 to any campaign or political action committee at a rate of five percent. His bill, House File 140, would also tax independent ads by political groups at five percent.

It’s been barely a year since the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission resulted in a dramatic liberalization of the law regarding independent expenditures in political campaigns, but that hasn’t stopped the unending chorus of dire warnings from “reform” jannisaries who see themselves as the ancient protectors of the old regulatory regime.  In fact, though, the early anecdotal evidence and numbers are almost all good.  Citizens United and SpeechNow have coincided so far with an explosion in the number of competitive races, more political speech, and campaigns with a greater focus on big issues of national direction rather than trivia, faffe, and personality.

The latest bit of data supporting the wisdom of the courts’ deregulatory, pro-First Amendment jurisprudence is a short report by Michael Beckel for the Center for Responsive Politics (no relation).