[EL] Check out TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow unlimited political contributi
Michael McDonald
mmcdon at gmu.edu
Thu Jan 17 11:20:40 PST 2013
Here is the plank of the 2012 Republican Party platform authored by Jim:
The rights of citizenship do not stop at the ballot
box. They include the free speech right to devote one's
resources to whatever cause or candidate one supports.
We oppose any restrictions or conditions that
would discourage Americans from exercising their
constitutional right to enter the political fray or limit
their commitment to their ideals. As a result, we support
repeal of the remaining sections of McCain-
Feingold, support either raising or repealing contribution
limits, and oppose passage of the DISCLOSE Act
or any similar legislation designed to vitiate the
Supreme Court's recent decisions protecting political
speech in Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election
Commission and Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission. (p.12)
http://www.gop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/2012GOPPlatform.pdf
The phrase "any restrictions or conditions" would clearly preclude
disclosure, since disclosure is a condition.
I am not calling out Jim as a hypocrite. I do not believe that Jim supports
disclosure. While Joe and Brad say that Jim believes disclosure is
acceptable at some level, his stance against any disclosure is there in the
Republican Party platform. Perhaps I am wrong, but that is my prior belief,
so I can't be calling Jim a hypocrite as Brad claims. What I am calling Jim
out for is providing only half the story. It would be significant if Jim
publicly states he is willing to accept disclosure in exchange for unlimited
contribution limits, particularly whatever limits are to be found in this
Florida proposal or disclosure at a general threshold level.
============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
George Mason University
4400 University Drive - 3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
703-993-4191 (office)
e-mail: mmcdon at gmu.edu
web: http://elections.gmu.edu
twitter: @ElectProject
-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Smith,
Brad
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 1:10 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Check out TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow unlimited
political contributi
Michael here seems to be conflating two issues. One is disclosure of
contributions to candidates and parties. Jim's post, apparently endorsing
the initiative in Florida, suggests that he is open to that, and indeed that
is the position of Senator McConnell and pretty much all people in the
pro-freedom camp. There is nothing new here except the willingness of
reformers to actually consider that possibility.
The issue here has indeed been, if anything, one of the level for reporting.
What I personally would agree to would depend on the nature of the full
compromise. At a minimum, I tend to think that reporting shouldn't be
required for anything under $750, which is roughly the current $200 federal
limit adjusted for inflation. I'd like it to be higher, but I could
compromise on a lower number if the deal was worth it. There. Now, Michael,
what's your threshold? $1? $25? What's your bottom line negotiating
position? Does $750 work for you? It might, by the way, be noted that the
pro-freedom side has offered some exchange here for literally decades, but
has always been rebuffed, both rhetorically and in votes in Congress. So
this is real progress in Florida.
Meanwhile, the issue in recent years has not been disclosure and
contributions to campaigns so much as the compelled disclosure of membership
in or support for organizations that do not have political activity as a
primary purpose. Here, the pro-regulatory camp offers no compromise. They
simply want more disclosure. They offer nothing in return, except that
which, through their own intransigence, they already lost in court. No
disclosure laws have been weakened since Citizen United and SpeechNow.org.
Reformers could probably have had a reasonable legislative compromise but
they rejected any talk of it - even $1 in corporate or union independent
expenditures was illegal, and had to stay that way. Note that Michael has
confused this issue with the issue above in some of the quotes he has pulled
from past posts. Furthermore, it is not illogical to raise examples of
harassment even if one would be willing to accept such risks - the point may
simply be to point out to the harassme nt-deniers that it does take place,
is a real costs, and should lead us to undertake a serious cost/benefit
analysis.
We have, at least at the Center for Competitive Politics, offered some ideas
for addressing the concerns of the pro-regulation lobby in a reasonable
fashion, but I've seen no interest in discussing any of them from the
regulators.
In any case, there is no reason for Michael's sarcasm and thinly veiled
accusations of hypocrisy.
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 Michael
McDonald [mmcdon at gmu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 12:38 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Check out TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow unlimited
political contributi
Please, no $25 hypothetical argument against small donations since whatever
threshold is actually proposed can be attacked for being too low by raising
the hypothetical bar. State the acceptable threshold. Is it $200? Is it $5
million? $1 trillion? Would you like to index it to inflation? Specifics,
please.
============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
George Mason University
4400 University Drive - 3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
703-993-4191 (office)
e-mail: mmcdon at gmu.edu
web: http://elections.gmu.edu
twitter: @ElectProject
From: Joe La Rue [mailto:joseph.e.larue at gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 12:25 PM
To: mmcdon at gmu.edu
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Check out TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow unlimited
political contributi
Jim can (and I presume will) speak for himself. But I can tell you as
someone who once worked for him that I never heard Jim say he opposed all
disclosure. My perception of Jim is that he opposes disclosure at levels
that make no sense and do not actually further the informational interest.
That was the type of disclosure we attacked when I worked for him. The
question for Jim (as it should be for everyone) is what level of
contribution makes sense to be disclosed. Does anybody really have the time
(or care!) to review disclosures of $25 to a campaign? Does the fact that my
neighbor, who I don't like, gave $25 to a campaign really make me want to
vote for the other guy? Or, does the huge volume of small disclosures make
it more difficult for me to figure out who the big-money funders of
campaigns (or independent expenditures) are?
Joe
___________________
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cell: 480.272.2715
email: joseph.e.larue at gmail.com
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On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 10:13 AM, Michael McDonald <mmcdon at gmu.edu> wrote:
No, I was not implying that Jim is hypocritical since I thought it was
common knowledge that Jim believes disclosure leads to harassment and worse.
Through the power of e-mail archives, we have such gems from Jim in the last
election as:
7/27/12 "Another Romney supporter harassed after Obama campaign posts a
negative story about him on their campaign web site."
And
7/25/12 "Romney donor bashed by Obama campaign now target of two federal
audits | Fox News"
After debating disclosure over the past year, I am truly surprised that I
completely misunderstood Jim's position on disclosure. Disclosure is
okay(!); the issue is just setting the right contribution amount for
disclosure. But, I'm struggling to understand what level is the right amount
since the second story that Jim graced us with is about Frank Vandersloot,
whose company gave $1 million to a Romney SuperPAC and claimed to have
raised between $2 to $5 million for the Romney campaign as a national
finance co-chair.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76899.html
What I was thought I was doing was poking Jim for approving only half of the
reform package and conveniently ignoring the part he doesn't agree with. A
reform trajectory on campaign finance has been for reformers to be willing
to give in on contribution limits if there would be disclosure, a deal that
many conservatives agreed to at the time. Once the contribution limits were
gone, the attack on disclosure commenced. But I'll play Brad's game: The
Tallahassee newspaper story does not say what contribution limit would be
subjected to disclosure...perhaps Brad and Jim would be willing to state for
posterity what disclosure threshold they would be willing to accept in
exchange for unlimited contribution limits.
============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
George Mason University
4400 University Drive - 3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
703-993-4191 (office)
e-mail: mmcdon at gmu.edu
web: http://elections.gmu.edu
twitter: @ElectProject
-----Original Message-----
From: Smith, Brad [mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 10:03 AM
To: mmcdon at gmu.edu; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: RE: [EL] Check out TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow unlimited
political contributi
This is a point, not a question. Michael seems to imply, rather unsubtly,
that Jim is being hypocritical here. Probably I should let Jim speak for
himself, but I have never understood Jim to oppose the disclosure of
campaign contributions to candidates and parties.
I think there is a growing majority of those who seriously study the issue
(i.e. academics, not the activists) that disclosure thresholds should be set
higher than they have been, but that's another issue. I've not known Jim to
oppose disclosure of contributions to candidates, as Michael suggests he
does.
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 Michael
McDonald [mmcdon at gmu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 9:23 AM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Check out TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow
unlimited political contributi
Jim, I take it your positive comment means you also approve of their call
unlimited contribution limits if there is within 24-hour on-line public
disclosure.
============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
George Mason University
4400 University Drive - 3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
703-993-4191 (office)
e-mail: mmcdon at gmu.edu
web: http://elections.gmu.edu
twitter: @ElectProject
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of
JBoppjr at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 7:08 AM
To: rhasen at law.uci.edu; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: [EL] Check out TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow unlimited
political contributi
Another state facing the reality that only by eliminating candidate
contribution limits can there be real accountability and transparency.
Interestingly, this time proposed by campaign finance reformers. Jim Bopp
Click here: TALLAHASSEE: Support mounts to allow unlimited political
contributions in Florida - Florida - MiamiHerald.com#stor
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