Wow, from future Pulitzer winner David Fahrenthold: Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has received approximately $2.3 million from companies that owed money to Trump or one of his businesses but were instructed to pay Trump’s tax-exempt foundation instead, according to people … Continue reading
Category Archives: campaigns
Open Secrets: Donald Trump has an interesting relationship with Russia, to say the least. He’s praised Vladimir Putin. Hisformer campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had business dealings with pro-Russia leaders in Ukraine. U.S. intelligence officials are investigating whether one of Trump’s foreign policy … Continue reading
More evidence that Mark Joseph Stern is super wrong on ballot selfies. It is not just about vote buying, but coercion: Instead, Garrels’s subjects follow the time-tested Russian strategies of adaptation and circumvention. On the eve of recent elections, for … Continue reading
Announcement via email: Friday, September 30, 2016 at Fordham Law School, 150 West 62 Street, New York City Lunch and Welcome Reception (12:00 to 12:30) Panel 1 (12:30 to 1:50) (Moderated by Professor Jerry Goldfeder): Prof. Edward B. Foley … Continue reading
Release: The Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Sunlight Foundation and Benton Foundation today filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency to take immediate action against WCPO-TV of Cincinnati for failure to comply with the longstanding public … Continue reading
HuffPo: The campaign finance reform organization Every Voice made its first endorsement in a presidential election on Friday, backing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Every Voice, which used to be known as Public Campaign Action Fund, has endorsed candidates from both … Continue reading
OC Register: One published media report this month said the campaign to legalize marijuana in California had raised $18 million. Within days, other major news outlets pegged the total at just one-third that amount, while a nonprofit campaign watchdog group … Continue reading
Politico reports. … Continue reading
Lincoln Caplan in the New Yorker. Billy Corriher at Think Progress. … Continue reading
Here’s the part in Slate that’s most objectionable to me: Second, the (still relatively rare) instances of voter fraud to which Hasen alludes likely would not have been foiled by a ballot selfie ban. Vote-buying almost always occurs through mail-in … Continue reading
ABC News investigative report: Donald Trump and his children have for years promoted themselves and their real estate opportunities in Russia and other former Soviet states, and ethics experts say if he is elected President the get-tough U.S. sanctions against … Continue reading
Dave Levinthal on the excellent panel he ran at the Texas Tribune Festival: A small group of campaign super-donors agreed that the campaign finance system in the U.S. needs reform, but said in the meantime, they are following the rules of … Continue reading
NLJ: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy decried the current state of political discourse on Friday, telling an audience at the International Bar Association conference in Washington that the country’s divisions had reverberations around the globe. “The verdict on freedom … Continue reading
Michael Beckel reports for CPI. … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Fordham Law Review). Here is the abstract: The presidential nomination process used by the Democrat and Republican Parties is an ill-considered, unstable pastiche of competing components that generally operate in fundamentally different … Continue reading
Politico reports. The top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence panels said Thursday that they are convinced, based on briefings, that senior Russian officials are trying to sway or disrupt the U.S. elections. “Based on briefings we have received, … Continue reading
WaPo: John McCain and Russ Feingold used to be synonymous with their crusading overhaul of the campaign finance system that eliminated big money from federal elections. But after a sea change to campaign finance laws following the Supreme Court “Citizens … Continue reading
And nearly half the money came from 62 individuals, companies and unions. … Continue reading
NYT: In an illustration of the lack of enthusiasm for her among some liberal activists, just 24 percent of the contributors to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign so far have given $200 or less. In 2012, 43 percent of the money to … Continue reading
Politifact Florida: With some of the facts of the case unknown, Clinton’s ad makes claims that cannot be proven. For that reason, we decided to not put this statement on our Truth-O-Meter. Still, with all the news stories re-circulating about … Continue reading
John Harwood for the NYT: Donald J. Trump’s progress in national polls has done something in the 2016 presidential race that is unusual. It has made the Electoral College matter. Usually it doesn’t. Because voter preferences are distributed relatively evenly … Continue reading
I have written this USA Today oped: (with a condescending headline I did not choose) Many Millennials and other voters who are cool toward Hillary Clinton, and warming up to Libertarian Party candidate Johnson or Green Party candidate Stein, may not remember how … Continue reading
NYT: The Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson is shifting tens of millions of dollars into groups backing congressional Republicans despite months of entreaties from allies of Donald J. Trump, according to several Republicans with knowledge of Mr. Adelson’s giving, … Continue reading
CNN: Conservative megadonor Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have committed roughly $45 million so far to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and downballot Republicans’ attempt to control Congress, according to a person familiar with Adelson’s thinking. The billionaire on Tuesday … Continue reading
Politico: Donald Trump has unleashed an unprecedented deluge of small-dollar donations for the GOP, and one that Republican Party elders have dreamed about finding for much of the last decade as they’ve watched a succession of Democrats — Barack Obama, … Continue reading
Important Jonathan Martin NYT news analysis: In fact, this past week offered a vivid illustration of how little regard Mr. Trump has for the long-held expectations of America’s leaders. He is not only breaking the country’s political norms, he and … Continue reading
Matea Gold for WaPo: Billionaire Charles Koch is consolidating the array of conservative advocacy groups financed by his donor network, merging all the organizations into the main political arm, Americans for Prosperity, officials announced Friday. Network leaders cast the surprising move as … Continue reading
Interesting development in WI John Doe investigation reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: The prosecutor who headed an investigation into Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign said Friday he had not previously seen some of the probe documents leaked this week, including ones regarding … Continue reading
Vocativ reports. … Continue reading
Law Newz reports. … Continue reading
Following up on this post about an oral order at the end of a Second Circuit argument, see this written order. … Continue reading
Vote trading ideas are back, this time on the NYT oped page (John Stubbs and Ricardo Reyes): Republican voters who refuse to vote for Donald J. Trump are in a bind. They could vote for Hillary Clinton, but that means … Continue reading
NYT: WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton and her Democratic allies, unnerved by the tightening presidential race, are making a major push to dissuade disaffected voters from backing third-party candidates, and pouring more energy into Rust Belt states, where Donald J. Trump … Continue reading
I spoke with WPR’s Central Time about the case and the potential for Supreme Court review. Listen. . … Continue reading
Yesterday I linked to a NY Times story which suggested that maybe the $25,000 from Trump to Florida AG Bondi was not meant to influence her choice on whether to go after Trump U fraud claims, on grounds that the … Continue reading
ProPublica reports. [corrected link] Back in August I blogged that such efforts might run afoul of an RNC consent decree aimed at stopping voter intimidation. … Continue reading
Another A1-NYT on Trump-Bondi, with a timing detail which Trump supporters will surely highlight: The Sentinel’s report, which was published on Sept. 13, 2013, paraphrased Ms. Meale’s response and took it a step further, saying that Ms. Bondi’s office would … Continue reading
From the same MJS article I earlier linked to: “The public release of this John Doe evidence without court authorization is not merely a violation of the John Doe secrecy order; it is a crime under Wisconsin law,” Chisholm said. … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature approved a measure aimed at retroactively shielding paint makers from liability after a billionaire owner of a lead producer contributed $750,000 to a political group that provided crucial support to Walker and Republicans in recall elections, according … Continue reading
Democrats have found a way to keep Trump-Bondi in the press. … Continue reading
NYT: The documents released Tuesday were not immediately as damaging as the first trove, and they proved difficult to access. WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy platform, posted multiple messages on Twitter explaining how to download the documents after users struggled to do … Continue reading
A nugget buried in the must-read Guardian John Doe story: good example of the way things worked was the donation made by Donald Trump. On 3 April 2012, two months before the governor faced the electorate, Walker flew to New … Continue reading
Political Wire has the video. Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) says patriots might have to shed blood to “reclaim” America if Hillary Clinton is elected: Whose blood will be shed? It may be that of those in this room. It … Continue reading
WaPo: If Trump continues to let Clinton and her allies lap him in ad spending, his best chance for capturing voters’ attention might be in media coverage of events like his Monday arena speech here in Asheville. The atmosphere was … Continue reading
Sam Frizell for TIME. More of these types of stories to come. … Continue reading
Politico reports. I’ve been getting a fair number of media calls asking me about what happens if Clinton cannot run. (“We know it is wild speculation and not supported by the facts, but….”) … Continue reading
You can find the unanimous opinion (with one judge not participating) here. This is the right result under the Democracy Canon. Courts should bend over backwards to make sure that voters have a real choice on election day. The Court … Continue reading
NYT: For decades, news organizations have refrained from releasing early results in presidential battleground states on Election Day, adhering to a strict, time-honored embargo until a majority of polls there have closed. Now, a group of data scientists, journalists and … Continue reading
At Political Wire (Hint: It’s not Hillary Clinton). … Continue reading
Joe Palazzolo reports for WSJ. … Continue reading