CBS News: A CBS News investigation has uncovered a possible pay-for-play scheme involving the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the Bahamas. Emails obtained by CBS News show the nominee, San Diego billionaire Doug Manchester, … Continue reading
Category Archives: campaign finance
Supreme Court takes no action yet again on major campaign finance petition. Court could eventually grant, or, perhaps at this point more likely now would be either some kind of summary action or a dissent from denial of cert. from … Continue reading
Court order. Comment from Marc Elias via email: “The idea that a so called good government group would use the fact that the FEC is shorthanded to try to score a victory in court and not let the case be … Continue reading
Nick Nyhart and Adam Eichen at TAP. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: The April 2018 dinner was designed to be an intimate affair, an opportunity for a handful of big donors to a super PAC allied with President Trump to personally interact with the president and his eldest son.In an exclusive suite … Continue reading
AP: A top aide to Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer in Iowa privately offered campaign contributions to local politicians in exchange for endorsing his White House bid, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the conversations.The overtures from Pat … Continue reading
Gene Mazo has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Pepperdine Law Review). Here is the abstract: This Article chronicles the history, structure, and contours of our “campaign finance nationalism.” I use this term to describe a system in which the … Continue reading
As early as Friday, the Supreme Court could announce it will hear a case that could put the nail into coffin of limits on campaign contributions to candidates. Here’s my preview in The Atlantic from last summer about this Paul … Continue reading
Bloomberg editorial. … Continue reading
Kate Ackley for Roll Call. … Continue reading
Lori Ringhand has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Ohio State L.J.). Here is the abstract: There is an urgent conversation happening among the world’s democracies about how to respond to the combined threat of online electioneering and foreign interference … Continue reading
NYT: A progressive organization is plunging itself into the presidential campaign, unveiling plans to spend $75 million on digital advertising to counter President Trump’s early spending advantage in key 2020 battleground states.The effort, by a nonprofit group called Acronym and … Continue reading
CPI: These are dark times at the Federal Election Commission, which has now gone two months without enough commissioners to enforce federal campaign finance laws. That’s because U.S. senators and President Donald Trump have failed to strike an agreement to fill any of … Continue reading
Newsday: The panel is charged with developing a voluntary system of using state funds to help pay for political campaigns, but Cuomo and other legislative leaders also tasked the commission with looking at the merits of fusion voting. The system provides … Continue reading
WaPo: Billing himself as one of President Trump’s top fundraisers, Michael Hodges told fellow payday lenders recently that industry contributions to the president’s reelection campaign could be leveraged to gain access to the Trump administration.“Every dollar amount, no matter how … Continue reading
CREW: Following a historic victory against dark money by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Americans for Job Security (AJS) has released its donors from 2010 through 2012, including major contributions from Peter Thiel, Richard and Helen DeVos, … Continue reading
WaPo: Joe Biden is apparently dropping his long-held opposition to the creation of an outside group that would supply an infusion of money to benefit his campaign, a recognition that financial struggles are becoming a major problem for his presidential … Continue reading
Dave Levinthal for CPI: Basking in the sunny side of the corporate political disclosure spectrum are household names such as AT&T, HP Inc., Capital One Financial Corp., General Electric Co. and Google parent Alphabet Inc.Comparatively slinking through the shadows? Netflix … Continue reading
Daily Beast: A Los Angeles financier who donated $900,000 to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee has admitted to falsifying records to hide his work as a foreign agent while he lobbied prominent U.S. government officials, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.Shah Zuberi, … Continue reading
Brad Smith oped in the Daily Caller. Although Brad correctly quotes me as saying that I support raising the donor thresholds, it is not because I believe there is a serious increase in unconstitutional harassment (I don’t). It is because … Continue reading
Todd Ruger for Roll Call. … Continue reading
ProPublica: Last year, a Department of Defense contractor quietly donated half a million dollars to a group supporting President Donald Trump’s reelection.Once a watchdog organization noticed it, the contribution raised an alarm. Federal contractors are not allowed to donate to … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Associates of a Ukrainian oligarch fighting extradition to the U.S. were working to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden last summer in an effort to get Rudy Giuliani’s help in the oligarch’s legal case, according to … Continue reading
Ellen Aprill oped: The impact of private wealth on public policy through tax-exempt organizations has garnered much attention of late, with recent scandals involving the Sacklers, Jeffrey Epstein, and a number of prestigious universities. Recent critiques, however, fail to emphasize … Continue reading
Carrie Levine: 1/One interesting tidbit from the Trump campaign's most recent FEC disclosure: the architect of the Supreme Court's Citizens United case is now on the campaign's ever-growing roster of lawyers. The campaign reported paying Jim Bopp's law firm $25,000 … Continue reading
WSJ oped by Bradley A. Smith, Lee E. Goodman, and Michael E. Toner. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
WSJ reports. At least 14 Republican candidates and groups directly received a total of $675,500 in campaign contributions last year from Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, the Soviet-born Florida businessmen indicted this week on campaign-finance violations.Federal prosecutors in Manhattan say … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: The news of Thursday’s indictments of two associates of Rudy Giuliani’s, who according to their lawyer (and former Trump lawyer) John Dowd, assisted Giuliani “in connection with his representation of President Trump” shows that foreign … Continue reading
WSJ: Two Soviet-born donors to a pro- Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to investigate Democrat Joe Biden were arrested late Wednesday on criminal charges of violating campaign finance rules, including funneling Russian money into President Trump’s campaign.Lev … Continue reading
Issue One release. … Continue reading
WaPo: Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2015 had no pollster, rapid-response team or fundraiser. A bare-bones staff fueled by pizza and energy drinks toiled in a makeshift office at Trump Tower. His opponents vastly outspent him — and lost.But as … Continue reading
Marketplace: Most of us can identify a standard commercial and we usually know someone is trying to sell us something. But what happens when the “product” is a political candidate and the “ad” is a tweet, or Facebook post?In her … Continue reading
NPR reports. … Continue reading
Ellen Aprill has an important new piece at Tax Notes building off the Price for Congress request for an advisory opinion, and lucky for us you can get it from behind the paywall: An August 22 deadlock by the Federal Election … Continue reading
Bloomberg: A federal judge eased the way for watchdog groups to bypass a gridlocked Federal Election Commission in a decision allowing a lawsuit seeking to unmask secret donors to a major Republican campaign spending organization.Federal District Judge Christopher Cooper said the watchdog … Continue reading
Statement: Late last week, my colleague, Ellen Weintraub, unilaterally and without advance notice, made public a draft interpretative rule regarding the Act’s foreign national ban and placed it on the agenda for the open meeting of October 17, 2019. Approval … Continue reading
This cannot be acted on by an FEC without a quorum, and surely this would divide the commission along party lines, but Ellen Weintraub’s analysis seems solid. … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy analysis. … Continue reading
I’m quoted in this WaPo piece: Justice Department officials took less than a month to abandon an inquiry into President Trump’s communications with his Ukrainian counterpart about investigating former vice president Joe Biden — reigniting concerns among Democrats and legal … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy for TPM Cafe. … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump acknowledged on Sunday that he raised corruption accusations against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a phone call with Ukraine’s leader, a stunning admission as pressure mounted on Democrats to impeach Mr. Trump over allegations … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: President Donald Trump may well have committed a new campaign finance crime if he, as reported, pressured Ukraine into providing dirt on a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and … Continue reading
Bloomberg: A nonprofit linked to the conservative Koch organization that spent more than $20 million to elect Republican congressional candidates must disclose its donors, according to a settlement with the Federal Election Commission.The now-defunct Americans for Job Security (AJS), said in … Continue reading
Axios: Small-dollar political donations have exploded this campaign cycle, thanks in large part to technology that makes it possible for candidates to target potential donors with cheap ads and easy-to-use online donation platforms.Why it matters: A surge in fundraising for contributions … Continue reading
ProPublica: In one of the first Justice Department cases of its kind, Maryland political consultant Kelley Rogers pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Tuesday for operating multiple fraudulent political action committees that raised money from donors for conservative causes but kept much … Continue reading
Seattle Times: What Yang’s talking about was Initiative 122, which Seattle voters approved in 2015 as an experiment in public financing of elections. Through a property tax it gives every Seattle voter $100 worth of “democracy vouchers” to give to candidates. … Continue reading
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. … Continue reading
New documentary video series from Ciara Torres-Spelliscy. … Continue reading