During a debate over film incentives, Florida State Senator Nancy Detert (R-Venice) told a lobbyist for the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity: “You’re all on the Koch brothers’ payroll. Good for you. I’m glad you’re all employed … Obviously you’re for prosperity for yourself and not anyone else … You people serve absolutely no purpose.”
Campaign Finance/Elections
NYT: Robert Menendez Indictment Points to Corrupting Potential of Super PACs –> On Menendez, Citizens United, and outside groups: “The constitutional reason, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the Supreme Court’s opinion in Citizens United, is that independent expenditures ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’ But federal lawyers do not seem to agree.” Time, Vox, The New Republic. The New York Times editorial page has called for Menendez to resign. WaPo doesn’t go quite that far.
Bloomberg: Menendez Seen Casting Charges as Favors Between Old Buddies. “Senator Robert Menendez’s best defense against charges he wielded influence in exchange for campaign cash and personal perks may be that he was doing it all for a friend.” Politico on his PR offensive.
NJ.com: Was it friendship or bribery? Menendez case may be hard to prove –> A real stirring defense of our democracy here: “If everyone who took money in return for promising to do something if they were re-elected, we wouldn’t have anyone left in Congress.” So, what happens next?
Salon: America’s “Menendez” problem: How big money poisons politics — and how it can be fixed –> Common Cause’s Steve Spaulding: “While Sen. Menendez is entitled to the presumption of innocence, the New Jersey Democrat’s indictment paints a picture of how easy it is to appear corrupt in a system so awash in cash.”
Reps. John Sarbanes, Paul Tonko, Ed Perlmutter, Annie Kuster, Donna Edwards,Kurt Schrader, and Rosa DeLauro all tweeted about the McCutcheon v. FEC anniversary yesterday.
Free Speech Radio News: Transparency activists want to shine a light on ‘dark money’ –> On yesterday’s presser at the White House delivering 500,000 signatures in support of an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their political spending. Some pictures here, here, and here. Op-ed from Represent.Us’s Charlotte Hill.
Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, Bernie Sanders, Tom Udall, Al Franken and Elizabeth Warren have asked President Obama to sign the executive order.
AP: AZ House rejects bill asking voters to kill Clean Elections –> Good: The Arizona legislature has rejected a plan to offer up a ballot initiative killing the Clean Elections system. Instead of trying to kill it, it’s time to make it work again.
Yesterday, I linked to the wrong story about the NYC Campaign Finance Board legal win. Here is the correct one.
Congress/Admin/2016
National Journal: Jeb Bush’s Team Is Taping His Private Events ‘As Much As Possible’ –> Gotta keep those donors in check: “Bush’s team has been quietly taping his private appearances in hopes of pushing back on false narratives dished by donors to reporters and to have a record to disprove any misinformation wafting from closed-door events.”
WaPo: Ted Cruz takes 2016 campaign to the air with Easter-weekend TV buys: “Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign has purchased television advertising time this weekend on local affiliates and national cable networks, his campaign said Thursday, making him the first White House contender to hit the airwaves this cycle.” IT BEGINS.
HuffPost: Super PAC Fires Fundraiser Involved In Menendez Corruption Case. Senate Majority PAC: “The super PAC caught in the middle of the corruption scandal involving Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) has severed ties to an unnamed fundraiser who features prominently in the Department of Justice’s indictment of the senator.”
The Hill: Second Dem gives up Menendez donations –> I imagine there will be more of this to come: “Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) will donate campaign contributions he received from Sen. Robert Menendez’s PAC during the 2010 cycle. Dan McNally, Bennet’s campaign manager, said the money from Menendez will be donated to charities in Colorado.”
WaPo: Menendez backers stand by him — some maybe closer than others. “Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), indicted Wednesday on 14 counts of political corruption, has fired back with a Web site –IStandWithBob.com — decrying a campaign of ‘innuendo and smears’ that are ‘completely false,’ asking for donations and listing 11 people who are standing with him.”
On that AmEx points thing in the indictment –> “Well, there are two sensible options for a rich man trying to use credit card reward points to bribe a US senator with a free hotel stay in Paris.”
NYT: In a Short Time, Ted Cruz Has Raised Big Money From Small Donors –> If Ted Cruz really raised that much from small donors, “it means that Mr. Cruz has raised nearly as much money from small-dollar donors in eight days… as he did for his Senate political action committee during the previous four years.”
Politico: Fire sale: Ready For Hillary winds down –> “But there was no firm arrangement for what to do with everything else — the website, the lawn signs, the social media feeds, the leftover swag, the beloved Hillary Bus — until this week.”
NYT: Iowa Operative Will Run Mike Huckabee ‘Super PAC’ –> Mike Huckabee gets a super PAC, Pursuing America’s Greatness. Its leader “has effectively run other outside groups, including the American Future Fund, which he started in 2007 and which has brought in $100 million.” My Twitter poem about super PAC names.
NJ.com: Christie PAC plans May fundraiser in DC area –> Gov. Chris Christie’s leadership political action committee will raise money in the Washington suburb of McLean, Va., in May, according to an invitation obtained by NJ Advance Media.”
The Hill: Ed Gillespie resurfaces on K Street –> “GOP strategist Ed Gillespie is resurfacing on K Street following his narrow defeat last year in a battle for a Senate seat.”
National Journal: Right Rebuffs Senate Bid for Climate Funding Info –> “Several of the Beltway’s most prominent conservative groups have a message for Senate liberals investigating whether they’re funding research that disputes human-induced climate change: Go away.”
WaPo: Harry Reid: I’d rather be whipped than be a lobbyist –> A follow up on Harry Reid’s comments about becoming a lobbyist with a note that he sure did take their campaign cash.
CPI: A super PAC for journalists? –> OK: “But dogma isn’t dogging Michael J. Hollis, a freelance writer and adjunct journalism professor from Texas who on Wednesday registered a federal super PAC aimed at representing the interests of work-a-day scribes, particularly contract writers.”
C&E: Tyler Harber and the politics of a scam –> Remember that guy convicted of illegal coordination? For some observers, “it suggests a cultural deficiency in the consulting industry—a reluctance on the part of some professionals to sound alarm bells about bad actors.”
Politico: Aaron Schock hires two more lawyers –> “Embattled former Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock has hired two more lawyers from two different law firms, as he gets ready to combat allegations he improperly spent campaign and taxpayer dollars, according to several sources familiar with his case.”
Other/States
IBTimes: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, While Leading In Re-election Runoff Poll, Blocks Release Of Emails To Top Donor –> “That’s because Emanuel’s administration has for weeks blocked the release of correspondence between his administration and one of the Democratic mayor’s top donors, Michael Sacks.”
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