Category Archives: campaigns
“Rand Paul Purchases a Path Around an Inconvenient Kentucky Law”
The Atlantic:
Over the weekend, the Kentucky senator said he gave $250,000 to his state’s Republican Party for the explicit purpose of funding its presidential caucus in March. He promised to pony up another $200,000 in the fall, enough… Continue reading
“Proposed electioneering rule addresses political attack ads”
Bozeman Daily Chronicle:
As part of the state’s new election disclosure law, Montana’s commissioner of political practices has proposed a rule aimed at attack ads masquerading as educational.
It has become common for “social welfare” organizations to send postcards… Continue reading
“Could Donald Trump really run as an independent?”
The Guardian:
Running as an independent, however, would require more than a change of heart by Trump – it would require a national campaign to document the support of hundreds of thousands of voters across the country, in the form… Continue reading
“Presidential Campaigns See Texting as a Clear Path to Voters”
NYT:
The killer app for the 2016 presidential campaign is not an app at all. It is not even new. Texting — that 1990s-vintage technology — has suddenly become a go-to tactic for presidential campaigns when they need to… Continue reading
Must-Read @AdamLiptak Sidebar Column on Reed v. Town of Gilbert…
and how this new #SCOTUS case is messing with First Amendment doctrine in many areas, including election law.
My Reuters Opinion commentary on one of those cases will post shortly.
“Facing Money Gap, Hillary Clinton Slowly Warms to ‘Super PAC’ Gifts”
NYT:
Hillary Rodham Clinton recently spent four days straight scurrying across the Western United States, mingling for hours at a time with hundreds of Democratic donors from the Rockies to Portland, Ore., from Southern California to the southern tip… Continue reading
“Out of the dark: Attorney challenges Disclose Act, Commissioner Motl”
Missoula Independent:
James Bopp, the Indiana attorney who won the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission case, interrogated Montana’s top political cop for nearly seven hours last week, comparing Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl to a racist… Continue reading
“Presidential Candidates, Each Sold Separately”
“The McCain-Feingold Act May Doom Itself”
I have written this oped for the National Law Journal. It begins:
Did the congressional drafters of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law build within it the seeds for its own destruction?
Tucked within the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (the formal… Continue reading
“Pro-Bush super PAC spending $10M-plus on initial TV campaign”
“Pro-Republican ads funded by group with untraceable donors”
AP:
Opportunity News Media wants you to know it’s OK to be a Republican, and it is spending $3 million to say so in the presidential battleground states of Ohio and Colorado.
Where that money comes from is anybody’s… Continue reading
“The Strangest Campaign Pledge; Why it makes sense to support a candidate who vows to straighten out democracy and then quit.”
Eric Posner on Lessig at Slate:
So there is a mismatch between Lessig’s means—a dramatic run for office as an unprecedented “referendum president” who resigns as soon as his mandate is legislated—and his goal, which is at best incremental reform.… Continue reading