[EL] Dick Morris's foreign money claims

[Steve Hoersting]

Rick,

1. Are you calling for enhanced disclosure of contributions to *authorized
committees? -- *because that is the allegation here. My memory is you're
for enhanced disclosure of social welfare organizations and for removing
the regulation at issue in *Van Hollen v. FEC.*

2. Things are evolving quickly. Is the GAI report evolving as quickly? Are
you or others at, say, *Politico,* interested at all in the fact that the
website Obama.com -- purportedly owned by a third-party and distributed
throughout the world -- goes straight to the DONATE page at Obama Victory?

3. So, there is no "journalist[ic]" interest in "sensationalism," eh?
Sticking to campaign finance and not Lindsay Lohan, I saw Palin's
campaign-wardrobe budget lead the news for a full weekend one year. I saw
sensationalism drive the news cycle for three days in October 2010: "The
Chamber is using foreign money."

I think someone needs to yawn, grab another mug of coffee and get about the
business of exposing Morris and Breitbart for the hacks they really are.
 Easy enough to do, I'm sure...

...and so much more in keeping with the mission of the reform organizations
and the bent of the nation's editorial boards.

All the best,

Steve



On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

>  Steve,
> Three things.
> 1. I hope you will join me in supporting enhanced disclosure laws to
> ensure that foreign money is not secretly flowing into our elections.
> 2. I believe the reason you don't see a lot of discussion of this on the
> editorial pages is that there's really nothing new in the GAI report.
> Here's what I wrote about it in a recent Slate column<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/10/will_republicans_accept_if_barack_obama_defeats_mitt_romney_.html>:
>
>
>  This week features what conservative<http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/10/dubious-donations-peter-schweizer-speaks.php>blogs are
> touting<http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/08/obama-bundler-tied-to-chinese-government/>as an “explosive” new
> report<http://campaignfundingrisks.com/wp-content/themes/cfr/images/AmericaTheVulnerable.pdf>suggesting that the Obama campaign is illegally accepting massive foreign
> contributions via credit card. The so-called proof comes from a number of
> foreign visits to the Obama campaign website, the lack of any federal
> requirement to publicly disclose contributions from individuals who give
> less than $200 overall, and the Obama campaign’s supposed failure to use
> credit card verification tools to make sure the contributions are coming
> from inside the United States.
>
> Never mind that the Obama campaign has denied similar reports in the past
> and has confirmed <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33935> it does use the
> verification tools; that an extensive Federal Election Commission audit of
> the 2008 Obama campaign found no evidence<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=33193>of illegal foreign contributions; that foreign visits to the website does
> not mean that foreign contributions are being made; and that U.S. citizens
> (including those in the military) living abroad have the right to
> contribute to federal campaigns. The claims are a way to delegitimize the
> Obama campaign, even as Republican leaders in Congress stymie efforts to
> fix our broken disclosure laws<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/07/campaign_finance_after_citizens_united_is_worse_than_watergate_.html>and argue for
> *less* disclosure of campaign finance information.
>
>  3. Dick Morris lacks fundamental credibility with journalists and
> others.  So his sensationalism won't bring attention to an important
> issue.  In fact, it will convince journalists to ignore the issue.
> Rick
>
>
>
>
> On 10/15/12 7:14 AM, Steve Hoersting wrote:
>
>
> http://www.dickmorris.com/is-obama-running-on-foreign-money-dick-morris-tv-video-alert/
>
>  We often argue about corruption -- what makes up corruption, what kinds
> of corruption matter, and which do not.
>
>  Given Judge Kavanaugh's discussion in *Bluman*, I get the feeling that
> this matter -- yet to be proved or discredited in any news outlet I follow
> -- would far outrank unlimited IEs by the local Right to Life, the US
> Chamber or even the dreaded Kochs.
>
>  If we do not see meaningful discussion of this issue here and in the
> editorial pages, will it be fair to conclude, as many have surmised, that
> campaign-finance purists are campaign-finance instrumentalists or partisans?
>
>  Or is the relative silence just more evidence that retribution, or the
> prospect of it, is real?
>
>  --
> Stephen M. Hoersting
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing listLaw-election at department-lists.uci.eduhttp://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
>
> --
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000949.824.3072 - office949.824.0495 - faxrhasen at law.uci.eduhttp://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.htmlhttp://electionlawblog.org
> Now available: The Voting Wars: http://amzn.to/y22ZTv
>
>


-- 
Stephen M. Hoersting




-- 
Stephen M. Hoersting
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20121015/3750dbb4/attachment.html>