How Citizens United Affects State and Local Government

The Public Law Journal:

Local governments can still establish candidate contribution limits and impose robust reporting requirements.

While the predictions of an overwhelming influx of corporate spending and the effectiveness of corporate messaging could not be fully understood until after this year’s midterm election, the impacts of Citizens United nevertheless began to be felt in court decisions, the reactions of regulators, and in the experiences of corporations that have begun to engage the public in this forum heretofore unavailable to them. This article examines how Citizens United has informed later decisions in the Ninth Circuit, the reaction of California state and local regulators, and the experiences of corporations as more visible political players.

Election 2010 Outside Political Spending Officially Eclipses Such Expenditures From 2004 Cycle

OpenSecrets: "During the 2004 election cycle, all outside groups spent $448 million on independent expenditures, electioneering communications and other communication costs to influence the election and aid their preferred candidates, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. As of this morning, the Center’s research indicates, all outside groups have spent $455 million on such expenses -- a number that will continue to rise as Election Day nears."

Campaign finance reform: R.I.P.?

Politico: ""It's no secret that the reformers are on the run — they've gotten pounded in the courts and also have not been very successful legislatively," said Brad Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, a nonprofit that opposes many campaign regulations and that has had a hand in several recent important court cases striking down such rules.

Only a decade ago, the campaign finance movement achieved one of its greatest victories: the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which reformers saw as a foundation they would build upon in the years ahead."

Who Is This Voter Who Will Be Swayed By the "Campaign Ad Disclosure" Argument?

Weigel : Slate: "That's basically the argument that Democrats were making in the rust belt before the 'foreign Chamber' story, though. It's an argument they always make in the rust belt. But who is swayed by the process argument that there's something wrong with these ads appearing on the air. During that brief period when campaign finance reform was a national cause (remember Doris 'Granny D' Haddock walking across the country for McCain-Feingold?), unemployment was hovering around 4 percent. Go and look at a poll ranking voter concerns and show me where campaign finance ranks these days."

Obama Scales Back Campaign Finance Criticism After Claims Decried as 'Baseless'

FoxNews.com: "President Obama on Sunday scaled back his claim that Republicans are taking foreign money for their campaigns, using slightly more ambiguous language at a rally in Philadelphia after GOP strategists warned Democrats against telling 'baseless' lies to win votes.
Democrats had been directing their criticism at the Chamber of Commerce and other GOP-supporting groups. But after the latest Democratic National Committee ad outright claimed 'it appears they're even taking secret foreign money to influence our elections,' White House senior adviser David Axelrod acknowledged that 'no one knows' where the money is coming from."

Related articles

• Obama Scales Back Campaign Finance Criticism After Claims Decried as 'Baseless' (foxnews.com)
• Rove, Gillespie Slam Obama for Spreading 'Baseless Lie' Over Foreign Contributions (foxnews.com)
• Whose lying, Obama or Rove? (nowpublic.com)
• Desperate Times Demand Despicable Conduct (powerlineblog.com)
• Dems: Business Group Using Foreign Cash to Aid GOP (abcnews.go.com)
• Karl Rove Accuses Obama Of Having An 'Enemies List' (huffingtonpost.com)
• Obama's attack on Chamber of Commerce backfiring (hotair.com)
• Dems: Business group using foreign cash to aid GOP (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Democrat Attack On Chamber Of Commerce Seems Baseless (sayanythingblog.com)

Topic of Foreign Money in U.S. Races Hits Hustings

NYTimes.com: "“Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations,” Mr. Obama said. “So groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections.”
But a closer examination shows that there is little evidence that what the chamber does in collecting overseas dues is improper or even unusual, according to both liberal and conservative election-law lawyers and campaign finance documents."

Related articles

• You: Liberal groups say foreign funds aid Republicans (latimes.com)
• Questions on source of chamber's ads surface (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

New Citizens United sequel?

SCOTUSblog: "A Washington State conservative advocacy group, seeking to play a role in ballot measure campaigns in its state, on Friday asked the Supreme Court to clear the way for it to raise unlimited funds to pay for its efforts. Its attack on a Washington state law that puts a $5,000 limit on contributions to ballot measure committees in the final three weeks before an election could become a significant sequel to the Court’s controversial ruling last January in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."

Related articles

• "Confronting the Impact of Citizens United" (electionlawblog.org)
• Campaign Finance Reformers Facing Major Political, Legal Obstacles (opensecrets.org)
• How much has the Citizens United case changed campaign finance in 2010? (slate.com)

Democrats mounting attack on outside political spending

Radio Business Report/Television Business Report - Voice of the Broadcasting Industry: "The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has opened the money spigots, and allowed unaffiliated political organizations to attack candidates without revealing who is funding the advertising. Democrats are charging that illegal foreign cash is finding its way into the process, and are attempting to enlist the IRS and FEC to investigate.
Max Baucus (D-MT) is trying to bring the IRS into the issue. He says that entities operating as 501(c) organizations are supposed to have a reason for being other than the elect and/or defeat political candidates. He thinks that many such organizations operating this year were formed specifically for political purposes and warrant investigation. One prominent target, among many, is Karl Rove’s American Crossroads."

Related articles

• Jim: Senator Pushes IRS to Investigate Karl Rove and Co. | PINKtank (codepink.org)
• Republicans See a Political Motive in I.R.S. Audits (nytimes.com)
• Karl Rove group, other tax-exempt orgs under fire for alleged political activities (dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com)

Citizens United and Its Critics

The Yale Law Journal Online: "I wasn’t surprised by what seems to have been the general disapproval of the ruling. Campaign finance “reform” is generally viewed as an unmitigated good and is normally uncritically praised in publications and in the public statements of politicians. So a decision of the Supreme Court holding unconstitutional major elements of legislation ostensibly drafted to help take money out of politics was never going to be popular."

Washington Post vs. Americans for Prosperity

Washington Post on Americans for Prosperity: Think it's a coincidence that the "issue advertising" is running, and naming names, in districts of vulnerable Democratic incumbents? Consider this attack on Washington Democrat Denny Heck -- who isn't even in office -- for "putting Nancy Pelosi's agenda ahead of our needs" and being "a 30-year political insider." The $180,000 ad campaign started running the day after Mr. Heck won the Democratic primary. In a district with an open House seat in Michigan, the group is estimated to have spent almost $350,000 attacking Democratic nominee Gary McDowell.


Americans for Prosperity Letter: All of AFP's citizen-education efforts -- including our television advertising -- have been bona fide issue advocacy designed to advance our mission of promoting limited government fiscal and economic policies, lower taxes, less spending and less onerous regulation. Because we engage in no electioneering, we have done nothing after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that we were not already doing before.

Should Congress regulate political ad money?

Christian Science Monitor: 

YES (Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist, Public Citizen) -- Just as important, transparency provides voters with the tools necessary to weigh the merits of political messages. Full disclosure of major donors funding a campaign ad is critical information for voters in assessing the interests behind, and accuracy of, the political message.

NO (David N. Bossie, president, Citizens United) -- In regulating political speech and money in political advertising, Congress has time and time again shown a willingness to sacrifice freedom of speech in favor of overbroad legislation and regulation. It is this tendency that led to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (“BCRA”) – a law that significantly burdened the exercise of First Amendment rights.

Since its enactment, the US Supreme Court has overturned many of BCRA’s restrictions on speech, but there are still far too many laws on the books regulating political speech.

Citizens United finds niche after landmark case

AP: The decision has contributed to an explosion in political advertising by outside groups, so far most of them allied with the Republican Party, that have flocked to raise big money from individuals and companies and flooded into some of the most competitive races across the country.

Bossie, however, is sticking with his movies - conservative documentaries that are critical of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress or that champion conservative icons and causes.