In the News
American Thinker: 9th Circuit Court’s Democratic Campaign Contribution
By Mark J. Fitzgibbons
Charities and other nonprofits that ask Californians for donations must first register with Ms. Harris’ office. Although not expressly authorized by statute, Harris demands that, to receive a license, nonprofits file their IRS Form 990 Schedule B listing their top donors even though federal law treats that information as confidential.
CCP has been a leader in articulating how donor anonymity helps prevent retribution by government officials and even members of the public who abuse citizens and small businesses that don’t adhere to their positions. Its founder Brad Smith was chairman of the Federal Election Commission, which oversees lots of donor reporting under campaign finance laws.
The May 1 decision, which has nothing to do with campaign finance laws, allows Harris to continue to collect the names of top donors to organizations that solicit contributions in California. Some of these organizations are critical of the extreme leftwing policies that Harris pushes. The ruling creates a stifling and perhaps extortive atmosphere for some charities, whose donor privacy is now violated by Harris the attorney general, while letting Harris the politician know donors to other groups to whom she may dole out political favors.
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Venable: Federal Appeals Court Affirms Mandatory Filing of Unredacted Donor List by Charities Registered for Solicitations in California
In order to solicit charitable contributions in California, charities must be registered with the California Office of Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts and, subsequently, file annual reports to maintain their registration, which requires submitting a Form 990 Schedule B. Charities have successfully submitted redacted copies of their Form 990 Schedule B to the state in the past, but recently, the California Attorney General began requiring charities to submit unredacted copies disclosing “significant donors.” The California Attorney General reasoned that having access to donor information enables the state to assess whether a charity is actually engaged in a charitable purpose or instead conducting fraudulent activities in violation of California law. Although documents filed with the Registry of Charitable Trusts are generally open to public inspection, Form 990 Schedule B is maintained confidentially and not made available to the public. (Note that the Form 990 also is subject to public inspection according to federal tax law, but Schedule B donor/contributor information may be redacted by the tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.)
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CCP
Survey Says: Investment Managers Not Interested in Making Things Political
By Joe Trotter
A recent survey is once again demonstrating that investment managers are not interested in dragging politics into the corporate governance debate.
The Stanford Business School, partnering with RR Donnelley and Equilar, released its “2015 Investor Survey – Deconstructing Proxy Statements.” The survey questioned numerous asset managers and owners with a combined $17 trillion in assets “to understand how institutional investors use the information in corporate proxies to make voting and investment decisions.”
The survey found that only 19% of investors use the political contribution section for voting decisions, and only 5% use it for investment decisions.
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Check out this helpful infographic on what percentage of investment managers surveyed found the political contribution section relevant for investment decisions.
IRS
Wall Street Journal: The IRS Goes to Court
Editorial
“You don’t really mean that, right? Because the next couple words would be the IRS is free to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint, religion, race [for 270 days]. You don’t actually think that?” Judge Garland said. “Imagine the IRS announces today a policy that says as follows: No application by a Jewish group or an African-American group will be considered until one day short of the period under the statute . . . Is it your view that that cannot be challenged?”
The judges also asked why the government had buried the key precedent in a footnote in its brief. In Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, the Supreme Court decided that the language of the Anti-Injunction Act did not preclude cases like Z Street’s. In a previous case before the D.C. Circuit, Judge Garland noted, the court also “rejected” the exact arguments the government was making, “so in a way we have already decided every issue before us today, against you.”
Poor Ms. McLaughlin was sent to argue the indefensible so the IRS can delay discovery until the waning days of the Obama Administration. “If I were you, I would go back and ask your superiors whether they want us to represent that the government’s position in this case is that the government is free to unconstitutionally discriminate against its citizens for 270 days,” said Judge Garland.
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Independent Groups
NY Times: Hillary Clinton Embraces a ‘Super PAC,’ Trying to Erode a Republican Edge
By Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Confessore
Hillary Rodham Clinton will begin personally courting donors for a “super PAC” supporting her candidacy, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has fully embraced these independent groups that can accept unlimited checks from big donors and are already playing a major role in the 2016 race.
Her decision is another escalation in what is expected to be the most expensive presidential race in history, and it has the potential to transform the balance of power in presidential campaigning, where Republican outside groups have tended to outspend their Democratic counterparts.
Mrs. Clinton’s allies hope that with her support, the top Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA Action, will raise $200 million to $300 million. That is on par with what the largest Republican organizations, such as the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads super PAC and its nonprofit affiliate, spent in 2012.
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Free Beacon: Steyer Group Hit With FEC Complaint
By Lachlan Markay
“If the payment was in excess of the market value of the list, it would be a prohibited contribution to the candidate,” FACT says. “The Commission must conduct an immediate and thorough investigation into this action.”
The federal law at issue is designed to prevent illicit campaign contributions disguised as payments for goods or services that greatly exceed their market value.
“A Super PAC should not be permitted to make a donation to a candidate under the guise of purchasing a voter list,” FACT’s complaint states. “If this type of behavior were permitted, the rule prohibiting Super PACs from donation to candidates would be eviscerated.”
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SCOTUS/Judiciary
Concurring Opinions: Williams-Yulee — The Ruling Few Expected . . . & the One Few Will Remember
By Ronald L. Collins
Question: Just how important is the Chief’ Justice Roberts’ Williams-Yulee
opinion?
Answer: Not very, for the most part, that is. Here is why I say so — aided by some of the insights offered by my friends and colleagues who participated in the SCOTUSblog symposium (see listing below) on Williams-Yulee. I also offer a few related observations.
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First Amendment
RNLA: Harvard Progressives Botch the First Amendment
By Michael B. Thielen
The founders’ envisioned the First Amendment as a rampart of liberty against the government. As Madison stated when he introduced it: “the people shall not be abridged of their right to speak, write or to publish their sentiments and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty shall be inviolable.” The Founders weren’t concerned with rich patrons financing press operations or some pamphleteer drowning out the rest by flooding the streets with ten times more pamphlets. Popular government is what kept them up at night.
Nor does social science support their cause. The professors claim money and the speech it enables ‘corrupts’ the system allowing the rich to have their way. Those that study such things disagree. The American Political Science Association in 2013 stated: “Most research suggests that there is a weak connection between campaign spending and election outcomes or between sources of campaign funding and roll-call–voting behavior.” Political scientist Seth Masket asserts, “To some extent, the money gives [the rich] access to politicians, which isn’t nothing. But politicians are wary of boldly adopting a wealthy donor’s views . . . The super wealthy are certainly paying a lot of money into the political system these days, but it’s far from clear what they’re getting out of it.”
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Candidates, Politicians, Campaigns, and Parties
Washington Post: Inside Jeb Bush’s long game: A bet on peaking late
By Matea Gold and Robert Costa
During his closed-door presentation at the 1 Hotel in South Beach, Mike Murphy dismissed buzz-fueled candidates who rise fast early only to flame out once the primaries begin. Murphy ridiculed the early spate of presidential polls — many of which show Bush lagging, particularly in Iowa — as “noise meters.” And he insisted that the Bush team is patiently playing a long game, one that will not be upended by the actions of his rivals.
Murphy’s talk was aimed in part at quieting pockets of anxiety that have been percolating among Bush supporters who are beginning to worry whether he can excite Republicans in the same way that many of his younger rivals are already doing.
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Mother Jones: Hillary Clinton Isn’t Ready to Disclose Who’s Funding Her Campaign
By Patrick Caldwell
On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has been pushing hard to overhaul of the country’s broken campaign finance system. “We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccounted money out of it, once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment,” Clinton said during one of her first official speeches in Iowa last month.
Clinton’s campaign finance rhetoric appears to be aimed at super-PACs, the quasi-independent
organizations that bolster campaigns by buying ads. But when it comes to the major funders behind her own presidential campaign, the Democratic front-runner has yet to answer questions about how transparent she’s willing to be. When Mother Jones questioned the Clinton camp about whether it will disclose the names and fundraising totals of the key supporters—known as “bundlers”—who raise vast sums of cash, a spokesperson declined to provide an answer, saying only that the campaign was still figuring out its plans.
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Ethics
Politico: Feds probe Schock’s mileage payments
By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan
A federal prosecutor investigating Illinois Republican Aaron Schock is asking former aides to the ex-congressman whether he inflated his mileage reimbursements to cover the payments on his personal vehicle, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Timothy Bass, an assistant U.S. attorney in Illinois, has been questioning Schock’s former aides on a broad array of topics in front of a federal grand jury in Springfield, the state capital.
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State and Local
California –– Politico: Kamala Harris aide arrested for allegedly running rogue police force
By Adam B. Lerner
Brandon Kiel, the deputy director of community affairs for California’s Justice Department, which Kamala Harris heads, is currently on administrative leave as he faces charges of impersonating a police officer.
Kiel allegedly called himself the “chief deputy director” of the Masonic Fraternal PD in letters to various southern California police departments requesting meetings with officials.
During a search of two locations, Santa Clarita Valley police officers uncovered badges, identification cards, weapons, uniforms and vehicles resembling those of law enforcement officers, a local CBS affiliate reported.
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