[EL] Dick Morris's foreign money claims
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Mon Oct 15 07:52:29 PDT 2012
Back in 2008, proposed greater disclosure to the FEC (though not to
the public) of small contributions and/or mandatory audits of all
presidential campaigns to deal with the foreign money issue. I stand by
that. I hope you will join me.
On the rest of this, I'll leave it to others. I don't have much to say
about a website redirect, etc.
On 10/15/12 7:46 AM, Steve Hoersting wrote:
> 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
> <mailto: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 arecent 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
>>
>>
>>
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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 <tel:949.824.3072> - office
> 949.824.0495 <tel:949.824.0495> - fax
> rhasen at law.uci.edu <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
> http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
> http://electionlawblog.org
> Now available: The Voting Wars:http://amzn.to/y22ZTv
>
>
>
>
> --
> Stephen M. Hoersting
>
>
>
>
> --
> Stephen M. Hoersting
>
>
>
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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
http://electionlawblog.org
Now available: The Voting Wars: http://amzn.to/y22ZTv
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