[EL] Fortune 500 election-related contributions

Mon Jul 9 10:59:07 PDT 2012

I think the answer to this is complicated by the fact that there is now 
a fuller disclosure regime for electioneering communications than for 
independent expenditures (an ironic result of the van Hollen decision).  
But given the close timing of the two cases I don't think there's any 
way to tease out what kind of spending WRTL II would have unleashed 
without CU.  You can see from the chart I sent around earlier that ECs 
were way up in 2008 compared to 2004 (that is, in the period between 
WRTL and CU) but that ECs/IEs are way up over 2008 as well.

On 7/9/2012 10:55 AM, Marty Lederman wrote:
> If I may repeat a question I've asked before (to which I have yet to 
> see any answer -- perhaps I'm the only one who's interested!):
>
> To the extent spending has materially increased or changed in nature 
> in these past two or so election cycles, how much of the change can be 
> chalked up to Wisconsin Right to Life rather than to CU?
>
> That is to say:  Is an appreciable amount of the spending about which 
> you're all debating being expended for "magic words" advertising, or 
> could all or almost all of it have been spent after WRtL, even if CU 
> had come out the other way?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu 
> <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:
>
>     It would be nice if we could have some data to back up such
>     assertions either way. Based on the data we have (see below), it
>     sure does look like CU changed the extent of outside
>     spending---corporate or not.
>     On 7/9/2012 10:01 AM, Kelner, Robert wrote:
>>
>>     Lloyd Mayer’s response to Rick’s question below is exactly
>>     right.  There was lots and lots of pre-CU c4 and c6
>>     election-related activity (in the lay sense of that term), and a
>>     good chunk of it was corporate funded. I don’t think that is or
>>     was exactly a state secret.  I am hardly the first person to make
>>     this point.  And acknowledging that history is critical to avoid
>>     misleading claims that CU somehow changed the way the world
>>     works.  It did not.
>>
>>     Robert K. Kelner
>>     COVINGTON & BURLING LLP
>>     1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
>>     Washington, DC 20004
>>     phone: (202) 662-5503 <tel:%28202%29%20662-5503>
>>     fax: (202) 778-5503 <tel:%28202%29%20778-5503>
>>     rkelner at cov.com <mailto:rkelner at cov.com>
>>
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>>
>

-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
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