As we continue our effort to keep you up-to-date with all the news on how money continues to corrupt American government and politics, BillMoyers.com is pleased to publish this daily digest of money and politics news compiled and edited by Adam Smith, communications director of the non-partisan campaign finance reform group, Every Voice.
Campaign Finance/Elections
The Hill: Feds face new pressure on corporate giving –> Some state treasurers, the head of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce and others send letters to the SEC: “A coalition of investors and state officials is launching a new push for regulations requiring publicly traded companies to disclose their campaign spending to shareholders.” AP.
HuffPost: The Chamber Of Commerce Is Fighting Fiercely To Stop The Scourge Of Corporate Transparency –> Related: “Over the past two years, three of the usual suspects — the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers — have joined together to try to discredit the purpose of disclosure policies and the advocates calling for them.”
ELB: Federal District Court Rejects Challenge to Federal Contribution Limits –> Good: “After full consideration of the entire record and all arguments, the Court finds that Plaintiffs’ challenge to FECA’s temporal per-election restrictions on individual contributions to federal candidates constitutes a veiled attack on the contribution limit set by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court as a legitimate means to combat corruption.”
JPR: Oregon Voters Could Consider Caps on Campaign Contributions –> “State lawmakers are considering a measure that would ask voters in 2016 to approve limits on a campaign contributions.” Gov. Kate Brown: “No one should be able to buy a megaphone so big that it drowns out every other voice. The First Amendment was intended to protect political discourse for all Oregonians, not just those with the deepest pockets.”
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin: Big money gets bigger: McCutcheon turns 1 –> Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) and ILPIRG’s Abe Scarr: “As long as the voices of everyday Americans are drowned out by big money and special interests, the public’s trust in government will continue to crumble. We need a government that is focused on answering to the people, not corporations and super PACs.”
Congress/Admin/2016
CRP: Five Years Later: BP Spending Again, Targets Natural Resources Committee –> Happy Earth Day: The House Committee on Natural Resources will meet today to talk about safety standards following the BP oil spill. In the last cycle, committee members “took in $44,000 from BP, and the number of lawmakers getting checks had rebounded to 134.”
In Day Two of the Kochs walking back their unqualified support for Scott Walker, Charles Koch tells the USA Today’s Fredreka Schouten in a front-page interview that they like, in addition to Walker, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Who’ll get the rose? Also, a third of the network’s money — about $300 million — will be spent on electoral politics, he says. (whatever that means for a network of nonprofits).
Jonathan Chait, on yesterday’s story about Bush being able to “audition” for the Koch network “So for anybody concerned that the democratic process might be short-circuited by the Kochs precipitously anointing a front man, rest assured. All the candidates will have the chance to curry their favor.” LAT’s Doyle McManus.
NYT: The Next Era of Campaign-Finance Craziness Is Already Underway –> In this weekend’s magazine: “This year’s exodus to super PACs suggests that the real action is moving further away from the traditional campaigns — and further outside the decades-old regulatory system devised to insulate politics from the potentially corrosive influence of moneyed interests.” Bloomberg View.
The Atlantic: GOP Candidates Discover the Problems With Money in Politics –> “It’s not just Democrats who are critical of the current state of campaign finance. Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie and Ted Cruz have their own complaints.”
The Hill: Clinton: ‘Disclosure is not enough’ to limit money in politics –> She is correct: “Hillary Clinton elaborated Tuesday on her previous comments calling for campaign finance reform, saying that ‘disclosure is not enough’ to limit the influence of very wealthy individuals in politics.”
CNN: Source: Clinton finance chair says campaign needs ‘$100 million in the primary’ –> “That point was reiterated at the [Vernon] Jordans’ home on Tuesday, with Dennis Cheng, Clinton’s finance director, briefing the group that they needed ‘at least $100 million in the primary.'”
Examiner: When battling Hillary, it’s the cronyism, stupid –> Tim Carney’s suggestion for candidates taking on Hillary: “Republicans who want to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 need a similarly single-minded focus: It’s the cronyism, stupid.”
POLITICO: Hillary Clinton memo details attack plan on new book –> “The Clinton campaign circulated a memo to its surrogates and allies on Tuesday night that details talking points and responses to the soon-to-be-published book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, by conservative author Peter Schweizer.”
The Record: Will influence of big money be a big issue in 2016? –> Smart piece by Paul Waldman: “But even if most voters don’t put campaign finance at the top of their priority list, there’s an opening for a candidate who can connect disgust over the political situation in Washington (which has become almost universal) with displeasure over the funding of campaigns to devise a broad reform agenda.”
Des Moines Register: Walker says he was ‘surprised’ by Koch’s hint he’s the favorite –> Area Politician Appreciates Support of Billionaire.
Sen. Lindsey Graham: “If I put together a finance team that will make me financially competitive enough to stay in this thing… I may have the first all-Jewish cabinet in America because of the pro-Israel funding.”
WSJ: RNC and GOP House Campaign Arm Out-Raise Democratic Counterparts –> Everyday Americans* continue to take advantage of the new political party contribution limits passed as part of the omnibus in December. *billionaires.
Buzzfeed: Google Is Fifth-Biggest Spender In US Lobbying, Says Report –> “Google ranked fifth in the amount spent on lobbying in the first quarter of 2015 among all organizations that lobbied Congress and federal agencies, according to an analysis by MapLight.” MapLight’s full analysis. CRP’s analysis of Q1 lobbying.
POLITICO: Progressives ready big ad buy targeting trade deal –> “A coalition of labor, environmental and progressive interests is launching a seven-figure ad campaign aimed at pressuring congressional Democrats to block legislation that would expedite an Obama administration-backed trade deal with the United States’ Pacific allies.”
Yahoo: The NRA’s brazen shell game with donations –> Fascinating investigation into the NRA and the election laws it may be breaking: “The issue is not just that my donations ended up in a political fund account, but the way the NRA solicited them — and presumably those of thousands of others.”
The Intercept: Lobby firm behind major super PACs accused of illegal kickback scheme –> “Clark Hill, a legal and lobbying firm that manages many of the largest Super PACs in the country, including the Jeb Bush group known as Right to Rise, is accused of engaging in an illegal kickback scheme with one of its clients, according to a recently filed lawsuit.”
WaPo: Rick Perry’s super PAC lands a seasoned GOP pollster –> “The super PAC supporting former Texas governor Rick Perry’s expected presidential candidacy has hired Glen Bolger, one of the Republican Party’s leading pollsters, as a senior strategist and pollster.”
Look at all the politicians going to Sheldon Adelson’s hotel in Las Vegas this weekend for the Republican Jewish Coalition meeting.
National Journal: Patrick Murphy Rakes in Cash From Banking PACs –> In the Florida Senate race: “Also listed in his first quarter fundraising report: a host of Wall Street banks and financial services leaders, whose money liberal groups want Murphy to reject going forward in the campaign.”
Philly.com: Sestak far behind Toomey in campaign funds raised –> “Democrat Joe Sestak raised about $312,000 in the first three months of 2015 for his Senate campaign, barely one-tenth of the amount raised by the Republican incumbent he hopes to unseat, Sen. Pat Toomey.”
Roll Call: Cárdenas: FBI Has Not Contacted Me — ‘That Is the Truth’ –> “After the FBI subpoenaed his district director, reportedly to look into whether she or other staffers are working on political campaigns while on the federal payroll, the [Rep. Tony Cardenas] was evasive in an impromptu hallway conversation with CQ Roll Call Tuesday night.”
TPM: GOP Congressman Fundraising Off Police Investigation Into His Photo With AR-15 –> Natch: “Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) is turning a reported police investigation into a fundraising opportunity.”
Post-Dispatch: St. Louis-area members of Congress depended heavily on PACs for early ’16 fundraising –> “Six St. Louis-area members of the House of Representatives fattened their campaign coffers in the first three months of the year by collectively raising more than $1 million in donations from Political Action Committees (PACs), according to their latest Federal Election Commission reports.”
Another money-in-politics cartoon from Tom Toles.
Other/States
AP: Sorrell rejects call for independent investigation of him –> In Vermont, “Attorney General William Sorrell on Monday rejected a request by a Republican Party official that Sorrell appoint an independent counsel to investigate his political practices and whether he violated campaign finance laws.”
To read more go to everyvoice.org.
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