[EL] accountability and disclosure

Fri Jun 1 11:23:47 PDT 2012

Jim, I know the answer first four questions in your set. What are the
answers to the remainder?

On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 1:56 PM, <JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:

> **
>     Why should this be the choice of the government rather than the
> speaker and listener?
>
>     It seems to me that the First Amendment makes that the speaker's and
> listener's choice.  If the speaker wants to risk the fact that some will
> ignore her if she is anonymous then that is a risk she takes.  If it is up
> to the government, then the effect is to ban those speakers who won't speak
> unless they can do it anonymously.
>
>     In addition, I for one am willing to listen to some anonymous speech
> -- I have read the Federalist Papers.  But I am skeptical of some anonymous
> speech, like the anonymous letters we often get here before some contested
> Democrat primary saying scandalous things about one candidate or another.
> Why isn't that also the listener's choice?
>
>     Making it the government's choice means anonymous speech is banned for
> those who will only speak anonymous, even though some would listen to them.
>
>     It also seems to me that the identity of the speaker is also
> irrelevant to most arguments. Does 2 plus 2 equal 4?   Does the sun come up
> in the morning?  Is water H2O?  Did the Holocaust happen?  Is Obama a
> socialist?  Does abortion kill an unborn child?  Why is one thing a fact if
> Joe says it, but not if Pam says it? Or are all facts just a matter of
> opinion or true if the government says so? See *1984*. Jim Bopp
>
>  In a message dated 6/1/2012 1:28:34 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> mmcdon at gmu.edu writes:
>
> It was the idea of the authors of the Federalist Papers not to disclose
> their identity so that others could not attack their arguments on a
> personal
> level, on what they personally could gain or lose in successful or failed
> ratification of the constitution. The disclosure argument today mirrors
> that
> strategic choice: is public discussion more or less informative to the
> general public if the identity of the speaker is known?
>
> ============
> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
> Associate Professor, George Mason University
> Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
>
>                              Mailing address:
> (o) 703-993-4191             George Mason University
> (f) 703-993-1399             Dept. of Public and International Affairs
> mmcdon at gmu.edu               4400 University Drive - 3F4
> http://elections.gmu.edu     Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
>
> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Smith,
> Brad
> Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 1:00 PM
> To: law-election at uci.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] accountability and disclosure
>
> Of course, in this example, there is no evidence at all of a) corrupt
> politicians; b) corrupt spenders; or c) foreign money (although if there
> were foreign money, it is highly unlikely it would be disclosed), and d)
> there is no evidence that this makes creates a better informed public (note
> that the idea of the federalist papers was that that the busy public would
> better evaluate the message if it DID NOT know who it came from). So we see
> here all the problems of overly broad disclosure regimes.
>
> We can't ban guns because some people commit crimes with them; we can't ban
> speech because some people defame others; we can't ban juries because they
> sometimes let the guilty go free, and so on.
>
> That said, for reasons I won't elaborate on here, I do believe that some
> disclosure can be justified. Unfortunately, the current effort is a push
> for
> broader disclosure than the courts have traditionally upheld, primarily for
> the purpose of fostering private harassment of speakers (even if it's
> relatively low levels of harassment that don't equate to sending SWAT teams
> to kill you), with very little added informational value.
>
> 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 Rick Hasen
> [rhasen at law.uci.edu]
> Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 12:37 PM
> To: law-election at uci.edu
> Subject: [EL] accountability and disclosure
> Great illustration of the need for accountability.  Note how the Koch
> brothers and others try  to hide behind the anodyne "Center for Patients
> Rights" and funnel the money through numerous organizations to mask their
> involvement.
> The busy public will evaluate campaign messages better knowing who they
> really came from.  And disclosure can make it harder for corrupt
> politicians
> and spenders to escape scrutiny.  At it ensures that foreign money---which
> the Supreme Court tells us is perfectly constitutional to BAN because of
> the
> IDENTITY of the speaker--stays out of our elections.
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject:
> Washington Post Column By Ruth Marcus: An End Run Around Campaign Finance
> Laws
> Date:
> Fri, 1 Jun 2012 12:25:53 -0400
> From:
> <wertheimer at democracy21.org>
> Reply-To:
> <ekesler at democracy21.org>
> To:
> Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Democracy 21 News Release, June 1, 2012, www.democracy21.org
> _________________________________________________________________
> -NOTE TO THE MEDIA-
> Enclosed for your review is a Washington Post column published May 31, 2012
> by Ruth Marcus, entitled "An end run around campaign finance laws."
> An end run around campaign finance laws
> By Ruth Marcus
> May 31, 2012
> To grasp the clear and present danger that the current flood of campaign
> cash poses to American democracy, consider the curious case of Post Office
> Box 72465. It demonstrates that the explosion of super PAC spending is only
> the second-most troubling development of recent campaign cycles.
> Box 72465, on a desert road near Phoenix, belongs to a little-known group
> called the Center to Protect Patient Rights. According to reports by the
> Center for Responsive Politics and the Los Angeles Times, the center
> funneled more than $55 million to 26 Republican-leaning groups during the
> 2010 midterm election.
> Where is the money from? The Times found links to the conservative Koch
> brothers, yet because the center is a nonprofit corporation, it is
> impossible to know. Such groups must disclose how they distribute their
> money, not who donates to them.
> This privacy makes sense in the context of ordinary nonprofits. But in the
> push-the-envelope world of modern campaigns, in which such groups spend
> millions of dollars on thinly disguised campaign ads, the result is an end
> run around the fundamental principle of campaign finance law: that voters
> are entitled to know who is trying to influence elections.
> Even the Supreme Court understands this: Disclosure, it wrote in its
> otherwise appalling 2010 Citizens United ruling, “permits citizens and
> shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way.
> This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and
> give
> proper weight to different speakers and messages.”
> Except when, as in the case of the Center to Protect Patient Rights, the
> identities — and motives — of those giving are hidden from public view. The
> center sent almost $13 million to the American Future Fund, a Des
> Moines-based group that ran campaigns against two dozen Democrats in 2010.
> Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) was targeted with what the Times described as “a
> $2-million fusillade” of radio ads, robo-calls and mailers.
> “It was almost a feeling of helplessness because there was no way to
> identify who the source of the funds was,” Braley said. He won by two
> percentage points, after a 29-point margin two years earlier.
> The gusher of secret money that nearly toppled Braley promises to be even
> more abundant this year — and the groups behind the undisclosed cash remain
> determined to do whatever it takes to keep the sources hidden.
> In March, ruling in a lawsuit brought by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a
> federal judge found that the Federal Election Commission was wrong to
> exempt
> nonprofits and other groups that run “electioneering communications” —
> advertising that names specific candidates within a short time before the
> election — from having to reveal their donors.
> It says something about the FEC that the agency charged with overseeing
> campaign reporting would come out against disclosure.
> Luckily, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson disagreed. “Congress
> intended to shine light on whoever was behind the communications bombarding
> voters immediately prior to elections,” she wrote. The federal appeals
> court
> in Washington refused to stay the ruling while an appeal was underway.
> The response from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was telling: It would switch
> its way of influencing elections rather than reveal its donors. The
> chamber,
> which has made itself a major political player, plans to spend more than
> $50
> million during the 2012 campaign.
> At a breakfast with reporters this week, chamber officials said that, in
> reaction to the ruling, the organization would conduct its political
> spending through independent expenditures that explicitly support or oppose
> particular candidates.
> Such is the perverse mess that is the current campaign finance law. Under
> the Citizens United ruling, corporations, such as the chamber, can make
> unlimited independent expenditures. The upshot is that advertising like the
> chamber’s can be even more brutal — because it won’t have to pretend to be
> merely “educating” voters — and just as opaque.
> Meanwhile, the American Future Fund, the organization that ran ads against
> Braley, has brazenly asked the FEC to approve a different end run. The
> group
> contends that if its ads merely mention “the administration” or “the White
> House,” they would not be attacking a “clearly identified candidate” and
> therefore not subject to disclosure requirements.
> This would be laughable — if it were not such a scary illustration of the
> lengths to which these groups will go to avoid letting voters know who is
> trying to buy their elections, and the unfortunate likelihood that they
> will
> succeed.
>
> #   #   #
> Released: June 1, 2012
> Contact Kathryn Beard at 202-355-9600 or kbeard at democracy21.org.
>
> For the latest reform news and to access previous reports, releases, and
> analysis from Democracy 21, visit www.democracy21.org .
>
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-- 
Jonathan Singer
http://www.polising.com
Cell: (503) 705-2952
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