Walks the talk. No PAC. No SuperPac.
Raw Story Debunking the big `Bernie Sanders has a SuperPAC’ lie.
For decades, a watch phrase for journalists and the public was, “Follow the money.” How quaint. It was never all that simple, but at least during the public financing phase of presidential elections and donation limits for federal candidates, it was possible to get a halfway decent sense of where the money came from. Now? Forget it.
As a primer, using a real candidate and real donors, on the twisted money trail paths, The Intercept has just published an excellent four-part article beginning with The Citizens United Playbook
Don’t worry HillFans — the subject candidate is a Republican; just not the one you loathe most today. So, you can read it for the content without fear of getting heart palpitations and/or any impulse to declare that it’s rightwing garbage (or propaganda that Putin created).
Democrats, at least at the ordinary citizen/voter level, don’t support the SCOTUS Citizen’s United decision. But, where were they/we when:
If Congress wanted to do something about foreign money in elections, it could have passed the DISCLOSE Act of 2010, which would have prohibited corporations with greater than 20 percent foreign ownership from putting money into the U.S. political process. But the act failed when first introduced, even with Democrats controlling the House and Senate. And this foreign ownership provision was stripped out of the most recent version of the bill.
The article goes on with: Donald Tobin, dean of the University of Maryland Law School, noted at a June 23 FEC event on the subject of foreign money in elections, that there were easy ways for foreigners to get around the Act. But that only reveals that the Act wasn’t as well drafted as it needs to be.
One component of the 2016 primary cycle that has infuriated Bernie supporters is the complacency, if not the total hypocrisy, of HRC supporters on this issue. Principles not acted on are just words with no value. Once tasted, just like drugs, it’s hard to quit anything that leads to pleasure, power, money, etc. Bernie’s no PAC position was more than symbolic. It reflected who he is and what his priorities would have been when in office.
Sunlight Foundation: David Brock’s PAC operations. (Brock is like Democratic/Clinton Rove on steriods.)
Public Integrity –Inside Hillary Clinton’s big-money cavalry
Clinton is going to squander political capital on a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizen’s United? Yeah, sure. Even if it got through Congress, how many state legislatures are going to ratify it? Would anyone be willing to stake their life on the fact that no foreign money has made its way into any HRC PAC? (Much easier to do and have it remain undetected then when they were busted on such funding in the past.) I wouldn’t wager that none has made its way into one of Trump’s PACs either.
The Brooklyn Nets is an LLC. Wouldn’t be difficult to shuttle money from there to any polical candidate. Not saying that has happened. Wouldn’t know to whom such money would be contributed. It’s just one of a huge number of entities that could. And if it did and the money went to Trump, the howls from the Clinton campaign would be deafening.
US subsidiaries of foreign MNC’s are not independently run.
But they can contribute money.
Really the loophole is enourmous.
The answer to Citizens, though, is to fill the Scalia seat.
Not really a loophole. More like a wide open door with a couple of thumbtacks on one side.
While I would prefer a Constitutional Amendment because that’s less vulnerable to future court decisions and political winds, that corrective remedy has shifted from very difficult to near impossible. It’s now forty-five years since passage of the last amendment that was ratified. Historically, we gone longer than that — sixty-one years between the 12th and 13th, but correcting what festered during those decades is nothing to be proud of.
Filling Scalia’s seat isn’t an instant corrective. A lawsuit must be filed and make its way up to the SC. That generally takes some time. What do you see at a fast track back to the SC on this question?
Citizens will be history before 2020. To your point, a case needs to be filed that will get through the system. The Supreme Court will try to avoid being too transparent.
Equally interesting: how long before the Obamacare Medicaid state option is overturned?
That’s a bold prediction. Setting a date certain is how many prognosticators blow it.
Seems to me that it’s going to be incredibly difficult to get a challenge suit to the SC through the same means that Citizens got there. In part because the SC constructed the Citizens lawsuit. A Democratic Congress and POTUS (not looking likely for 2017-2019) could conceivably pass legislation that cleverly challenges Citizens just enough that the GOP files a lawsuit and the court has to take it up. But that could still result in a narrow ruling on that suit and not reconsider Citizens as a whole.
Also begs the question of whether or not there is sufficient will among DC Democrats to overturn Citizens. While Citizens is the most notorious recent SC on campaign financing, McCutcheon is no less toxic. At the most basic level it easily quadruples what a single large donor can contribute to various campaign committees subject to hard dollar donation limits in one election cycle. The two major parties have only just begun to work this one. It also increases the impetus for permanent fundraising operations — pulling in the big bucks in non-federal elections years will be of equal importance to getting them in election years.
The ACA Medicaid state option would seem to fail the equal protection clause. But the ACA may crash before a lawsuit on that question makes it to the SC.
There are lawyers working out the procedural details now. Get into District Court by mid 2017. Ready for appeal maybe by Spring term 2018.
Basis for standing?
Given the one instance that The Intercept was able to nail down as a possible violation on a foreign donor, if the FEC doesn’t act on it, who else can? Who has a credible claim that he/she was harmed by dollars from a foreign donor to Jeb? Trump winning seems to reinforce that CU got it right.
With the exposure of the DNC emails (tip of the iceberg but that may be all that’s ever publicly seen), Sanders could challenge McCutcheon.
That is a problem with Garland, too. Not eager to give standing to citizens in court on MONOPOLY cases???
Seems to me that the current SC is tough on “standing.” And as a layperson, standing to challenge CU looks like a tough nut to me. CU wouldn’t be half as bad if the FEC enforced the law. Congress could, if the will to do so existed, impose huge penalties for violations by campaign committees and the failure of the FEC board to do their freaking jobs. Hard and fast rules on coordination. For example, a SuperPac can in no way function like an exploratory committee. Thus, Jeb’s little ploy would be deemed illegal. And that Fiorina and HRC have obviously been in violation.
The consulting company that I used to work for had a contract with Matsushita USA to develop embedded software. I didn’t work on that project but knew people who did. They were disgusted that every last little line of code had to be micro-managed by Japan. The locals couldn’t blow their nose without permission from home. They paid good money and it was by the hour so they were paying for the crew to twiddle their thumbs waiting for decisions that the first line supervisor should have been able to make. Indeed, the consultants should have been able to decide as professionals.
http://billmoyers.com/story/democrats-ignore-lobbyist-room/
It hardly matters which candidates get elected if they are openly for sale once they take office.
Also:
Obama Officials who have spun through the Revolving Door
http://www.opensecrets.org/obama/rev.php
” But the act failed when first introduced, even with Democrats controlling the House and Senate. “
Tells you all you need to know.
Only to that small slice of the left that pays attention and isn’t into rationalizing the failures of Democratic officials. Otherwise it’s “Republicans obstruct all the good intentions of Democrats.”
I was baffled by Hillary Clinton’s remarks about a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. As you point out, very unlikely. I’m not a lawyer and I’ll leave it to them to game out a strategy for bringing a case to the Supremes that could challenge the status quo.
Technically, the only way to directly and fully over-ride a sweeping SC decision is with a Constitutional Amendment. The trifecta of Buckley, Citizens United, and McCutcheon has left very little wiggle room for legislation. All that remains are dollar limits for hard money contributions.
So, I don’t have a quarrel with HRC’s statement. However, it’s politically cynical because unlike Sanders, she’s taking full advantage of the big money that CU and McCutcheon have made available to candidates. Why would she not only want to give that up but also use her political capital to advance such an amendment?
Answer to your last question: because Hillary was the subject of the Citizens United attack film. Because she has been continually slimed by extremely well-financed propaganda for over 25 years. Because the conservative movement will always have a money advantage over Clinton and her movement, and would love to use big bags of money to stymie her in her first term and defeat her with even bigger bags of money in 2020. Because the progressive movement is supporting her plans to make the issue a top policy priority.
HRC being slimed or not is irrelevant to the CU decision. “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which did slime GWB, was released to coincide with the 2004 election and impact it and was controversial. Complaints were filed with the FEC which dismissed the complaints, but many distributors backed away from showing it in the days before the election.
The FEC took the opposite position wrt the CU mockumentary. CU filed suit against the FEC but the film wasn’t shown during the 2008 election cycle. The FEC lost but the SC decision was much broader than the narrow issue presented by CU in its lawsuit.
Free speech is very broad, but anti-defamation laws do exist. Not plaintiff friendly, but Hulk Hogan won big against Gawker. Trashing opponents is what politicians do, but most of the heavy trash lifting is done by supporters. Leaves voters free to assess the truth or falsity of such claims and if the former, the materiality of it to their opinion and voting behavior. All trash talk is not created equal. A distinction wrt to HRC that many ignore.
No, except for the 2000 Senate race, the “conservative movement” has never had a money advantage over Clinton. She spent almost seven times what her opponent spent in 2006. GWB had a money advantage over Gore and a slight advantage over Kerry. But Obama had a large money advantage over McCain and Romney. HRC’s ’08 primary campaign spending dwarfed that of the GOP candidates. Due to all her various PACs and the DNC spending on her behalf, we’ll never know how much she out-spent Sanders in this primary cycle.
The RNC and conservative SuperPACS always spend more money on political campaigns than the DNC and liberal SuperPACs, every cycle that I can remember. The Clinton campaign’s ability to outraise the pathetic Trump campaign, or the pathetic Spencer campaign in ’06, does nothing to change that.
Even in this unusual election, overall political spending in the U.S. will favor Republicans/conservatives this cycle as well.
Hillary needs a better Congress to pass any meaningful portion of her agenda. Her re-election depends on having some success, and that will be made more difficult by the money spent by conservatives and Republicans on Congressional races, both this year and in 2018. Dems and liberals will also be outspent by conservative organizations on issue campaigns and lobbying as well. Hillary doesn’t want this to continue; it endangers her in 2020, and on the path to it.
Stop changing the goalposts. (One reason why any engagement with you is never constructive.) Your statement was campaign spending by and for HRC. Not the amount spent by all candidates and committees for all Democrats and Republicans.
We don’t know how much SuperPacs will raise and spend in this election cycle because they are new (no freaking historical track record) on the campaign funding/spending landscape. We don’t even know how much McCutcheon will alter the money disparities in the 2018 and after election cycles because neither party got that up and running to any great extent before this calendar year.
Find someone else to be argumentative with.
“Because the conservative movement will always have a money advantage over Clinton and her movement, and would love to use big bags of money to stymie her in her first term and defeat her with even bigger bags of money in 2020.
When politicians don’t want to change and the voters do, they propose Constitutional Amendments.
Seems to me that the lead character in one of those stories about the DNC/HRC money-laundering thingie through the the state Demo parties was a fellow who got millions from the government of Sri Lanka to cement friendships with Clinton. Imaad Zuberi.
Zuberi has been a bundler and personally a large donor for the Democratic party and Clinton for a number of years. Would be an excellent idea to ban all lobbyists for foreign governments and/or businesses from contributing to federal election campaigns in any way shape or form. I’d go so far as to include those that earn a portion of their income from foreign entities for work that doesn’t meet a test of ordinary employee/professional employer relationship. IOW the work speaks for itself and the hiring has zero association with any prior or expected future favors from influence peddling. That would put a crimp in many of the large donors to both parties.
Tommy Daily tweet:
Billmon response:
very nice
The Intercept – 8/11/16 – FEC Commissioner Citing The Intercept Calls for New Ban on Foreign Money in Politics.
Big hurdles to get an FEC rule change and even with it, won’t actually ban foreign money and not much hope that FEC enforcement of whatever it does ban would improve.