[EL] accountability and disclosure
Joe La Rue
joseph.e.larue at gmail.com
Fri Jun 1 12:49:17 PDT 2012
Rick, I don't have time at the moment to document this so anyone who asks
for citations will simply have to go pull them off PACER themselves. But
you are wrong about the harassment in the same-sex "marriage" cases. I
worked on a couple of them. There were death threats; there were people who
were fired & forced out of their jobs, including an Olympic official; there
were acts of vandalism resulting in the destruction of property; there were
invasions of worship services by homosexual "activists"; and there was at
least one physical battery. And that's just what I recall off the top of my
head.
It is simply not accurate to say the harassment was only a few moonings and
middle fingers. There was more than that.
Joe
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On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 12:43 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
> Not only do I not agree. This has been tested in court in the most
> controversial areas of social policy today and found wanting. Go read
> those gay marriage referendum cases. Here's the harassment that the group
> faced: one guy was mooned. another was given the finger.
> Those who make claims of widespread harassment are either misinformed or
> disingenuous.
>
>
> On 6/1/12 12:41 PM, Steve Hoersting wrote:
>
> No, Rick: it's a fear of harassment. The underlying fear is one of
> businessmen or women acutely aware that ministers tied to a winning
> politician or politicians can, more and more "legitimately," determine the
> very economic fate of a businessman or woman after an election.
>
> This is lost on no one. This is the message sent when a Chuck Schumer
> (let alone a Van Jones) says, "The deterrent effect of disclosure should
> not be underestimated."
>
> This is a real problem, whether you agree it is or not. It's all the
> larger problem when we see, as Smith has been detailing, that the Court's
> articulated interests for disclosure of independent political speech are
> not being furthered in the current "accountability" crusade.
>
> Steve
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 3:25 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
>
>> Does the public have a compelling interest in keeping foreign money out
>> of elections? The lower court said so in Bluman, and the Supreme Court
>> unanimously affirmed. Jim Bopp said this was the right decision (along
>> with making derogatory comments about Democrats and communist China if I
>> recall). And where is the scientifically sound statistical evaluation to
>> back this up? Without it, should courts let foreign governments flood
>> our elections with money? Of course not.
>>
>> When it comes to disclosure, we know that voters rely upon cues about who
>> pays in evaluating the worth of such ads. We know that there are
>> prosecutions of elected officials and contributors which occur after
>> campaign finance information is disclosed. We know the FEC looks at
>> campaign information to make sure foreign money is coming in. No more
>> evidence is necessary. Eight Justices of the Supreme Court seem to agree.
>>
>> I must say that it is quite depressing to have to defend disclosure,
>> which used to be endorsed by the likes of someone even as extreme as
>> Senator Mitch McConnell. But no more. Truly, there are some who not only
>> want to use all of the wealth at their command to affect electoral and
>> legislative outcomes and to not even stand up in public for what they are
>> doing. It is shameful. Justice Scalia is exactly right about the need for
>> civic courage. Let's be clear. What's at issue here is not a fear of
>> harassment but, as I've said, a desire for speech (and power and influence)
>> without consequences.
>>
>> Count me out.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6/1/12 12:18 PM, Milyo, Jeffrey D. wrote:
>>
>> Well, at least we now we know who speaks for the public’s interest:
>> it’s Rick! I guess Dan was right after all…
>>
>>
>>
>> Rick has claimed repeatedly that disclosure has particular beneficial
>> effects on the quality of democracy, but he surely also knows that there
>> are no scientifically sound statistical evaluation studies of disclosure
>> laws to back this up. It’s just another example of reformers basing their
>> claims on vacuous appeals to the public interest and repeated unfounded
>> assertions about the effects of regulations. Shouldn’t the burden of proof
>> be greater than “because I say so”? The fact that the courts get this
>> wrong time and again is all the more reason to speak out; and who can blame
>> the courts for getting it wrong when they rely on experts who can divine
>> the will of the people and determine the effects of regulations based on
>> intuition and anecdote.
>>
>>
>>
>> Of course, I may not fully comprehend Rick’s argument, since I don’t know
>> what his salary is or even his home address, so I’m just going off the
>> argument itself without the obvious insights that full disclosure would
>> provide…
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [
>> mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>]
>> *On Behalf Of *Rick Hasen
>> *Sent:* Friday, June 01, 2012 1:47 PM
>> *To:* JBoppjr at aol.com
>> *Cc:* law-election at uci.edu
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] accountability and disclosure
>>
>>
>>
>> It is the choice of the people. Disclosure serves the public interest.
>> It is not only broadly supported; court's have consistently recognized the
>> strong public interests in disclosure. Indeed, I don't believe you have
>> succeeded in any of your major litigation challenges to disclosure since
>> Citizens United. There's a reason for that. You are an excellent lawyer
>> and win many cases. But the law, and the public's interest is against you
>> here. The public wants to know who's behind the ads, for information
>> purposes, to prevent corruption, and to ensure that other campaign finance
>> laws (like the one banning foreign money) are being enforced. You may not
>> care who is funding the tidal wave of ads you have helped unleashed but you
>> are in a decided minority.
>>
>> Rick
>>
>> On 6/1/12 10:56 AM, 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<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> <wertheimer at democracy21.org>
>> Reply-To:
>> <ekesler at democracy21.org> <ekesler at democracy21.org>
>> To:
>> Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> <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 .
>>
>> Follow us on Twitter. Like us on Facebook.
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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
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>> --
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>> 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
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>
>
>
> --
> Stephen M. Hoersting
>
>
> --
> 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
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