[EL] Business Week story about DreamWorks marketing team assisting Messina (Pres. Obama's campaign manager)

[Scarberry, Mark]

Joe,

On your first point, all I can say is "duh." Of course Citizens United didn't affect contribution rules; I try to make that point whenever I can, so  I don't know how I could have made that mistake!

For the rest of it, thanks for confirming what I thought was the case, that if the marketing team provided services at the direction of their corporate boss, then that would be considered a corporate contribution.

Thanks!

Mark

Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law



From: Joe La Rue [mailto:joseph.e.larue at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 10:33 AM
To: Scarberry, Mark
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Business Week story about DreamWorks marketing team assisting Messina (Pres. Obama's campaign manager)

Mark,

Even post Citizens United, corporations are prohibited from making contributions to candidates, whether direct or in-kind. Citizens did nothing to change that. A corporation may, however, offer its services to a candidate so long as the candidate pays the fair market value for the services. Employees and officers of corporations are free to make contributions up to the contribution limits, of course. But under current federal law the corporation itself may not make contributions.

So this article really raises only four questions. First, did Spielberg offer advice in his private capacity or as an extension of DreamWorks? (I think it would be hard to argue that he's an extension of a corporation; therefore, I think his advice has to be considered private). Second, does advice from one person to another, offered in a private conversation, count as a contribution, such that a monetary value must be attached to it to determine whether one has given 'too much advice' and violated the applicable contribution limit? (I don't know the answer to this, not having researched it; but, I find it difficult to conceive that private advice would be counted as a contribution). Third, did the DreamWorks employees offer advice as private individuals, or was it offered within the scope of their employment? This is, I think, the key question: for, if they acted within the scope of their DreamWork employment because a DreamWork executive told them to do so, then this seems to be an illegal in-kind contribution.

Finally, here's another key question: why is it Democrats are so worried that corporate money is going to go to SuperPACs supporting Romney? Obama did quite well with donations from corporate executives in 2008. Might it be because Democrats realize that Obama's policies have been bad for business? And, if Obama's policies are bad for business, aren't they also, by extension, likely bad for job creation?


Joe
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On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Scarberry, Mark <Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu<mailto:Mark.Scarberry at pepperdine.edu>> wrote:
>From Business Week (http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/30696-obamas-ceo-jim-messina-has-a-president-to-sell):

"At DreamWorks Studios, Steven Spielberg spent three hours explaining how to capture an audience's attention and offered a number of ideas that will be rolled out before Election Day. An early example of Spielberg's influence is RomneyEconomics.com, a website designed by the Obama team to tell the story-a horror story, by their reckoning-of Mitt Romney's career at Bain Capital. Afterward, Spielberg insisted that Messina sit down with the DreamWorks marketing team. Hollywood movie studios are expert, as presidential campaigns also must be, at spending huge sums over a few weeks to reach and motivate millions of Americans."

Pre-Citizens United, would free consulting from a corporation's marketing team, at the CEO's direction, be an illegal corporate contribution? I'm not that familiar with rules about in-kind contributions. Spielberg as an individual surely had the right to provide free advice to Messina, without it being counted against contribution limits, right? I suppose the members of the DreamWorks marketing team might have volunteered as individuals, rather than as a corporation's employees, to provide these consulting services, but the story suggests that they did so at Spielberg's direction.

Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law



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