[EL] When Capitalists Need Socialist Workers

[Smith, Brad]

By the way, congratulations to Steve and his partner at DB Capital Strategies, Dan Backer, to Ben Barr, and to Allen Dickerson of the Center for Competitive Politics, who were just awarded over $120,000 in attorney's fees from the FEC for their work in National Defense PAC v. Carey. The Court noted, "the FEC is supposed to be an expert on federal election law and its attorneys are required to know the current status of election law, especially Supreme Court and Circuit law.”

It is also worth noting that when the NDPAC filed an advisory opinion request with the FEC, the 3 Republicans would have given the green light - the 3 Democrats did not, so NDPAC had to sue, leading to this result. I note this only because of the regular efforts by some to blame FEC "gridlock" on the Republican commissioners and their supposed refusal to "enforce the law." In this case, as in many others, it appears they were ones getting things right.


Bradley A. Smith

Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault

   Professor of Law

Capital University Law School

303 E. Broad St.

Columbus, OH 43215

614.236.6317

http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx

________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Steve Hoersting [hoersting at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 9:39 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] When Capitalists Need Socialist Workers

Kim Strassel's latest:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577537233908744496.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

And it's applicability to election law:

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/266623

Kim asks this question at the end: "As for Mr. VanderSloot, to what authority should he appeal if he believes this to be politically motivated—given the Justice Department on down is also controlled by the man who targeted him?"

The answer, for Mr. VanderSloot, is, realistically and unfortunately, "to no authority; none."

But for those businessmen who are yet safely anonymous, and understand speaking in the political process is their only remedy against economic deprivations from an unchecked IPAB or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sure to come, the authority to which they should appeal is the district court.

Businessmen who don't want to be the "next" Frank VanderSloot should file in district court as John Does to seek the Socialist Workers exemption to compelled disclosure of their partial funding of independent political speech.

--
Stephen M. Hoersting

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