[EL] NY Times Editorials on Election Law

[John Tanner]

My reaction upon reading the Post piece was, "How many editorial pages are
not entirely predictable?" -- and picking on Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd
is just cruel.  I just read the Observer article, however, and Joe
LaPoint's characterization of the Times editorials as "strident" struck me
as particularly apt, as if the Gray Lady has dyed her hair pink and started
piercing random body parts.  The paper ignores (or is ignorant of) facts
and screams rather than convinces.  It is a real fall from former glory,
and I can well imagine that the reporters, who are still the gold standard,
would be frustrated.


On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 6:37 PM, Mark Schmitt <schmitt.mark at gmail.com>wrote:

>  There's another aspect of this story that is relevant to election law:
> One long section of the *Observer* story argues that the *Times*editorials have become irrelevant, because the candidates they endorsed
> (Chris Quinn, Daniel Squadron, others) didn't win.
>
> Why is that important? For years, we've heard from Sen. McConnell and
> others that any attempt to balance the influence of money in politics would
> have the unintended result of increasing the power of those corporations
> that happen to own newspapers. And certainly in the past, the *Times*endorsement has been considered one of the most lucrative commodities in
> city and state politics. (By all accounts, it was the Times endorsement
> that made Daniel Patrick Moynihan the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in
> 1976 rather than Bella Abzug, who the editorial page editor preferred, but
> he was overruled.) I'm sure I'm not the only current or past NYC voter who
> will admit to occasionally using the Times endorsement as a heuristic in
> judicial and state legislature elections.
>
> But if Times-endorsed candidates lose, perhaps that's an indication that
> in a campaign-finance system like New York City's, one that ensures that
> candidates with broad support have sufficient resources to get their
> own message out, that single endorsement doesn't have nearly as much
> influence. One more reason that small-donor public financing is the way to
> go.
>
> That said, I largely agree with Allen Dickerson. Even when I agree with
> *Times* editorials on election law and campaign finance, and I usually
> do, they bear all the marks of one phone call to one advocate.
>
>
> ------ Original Message ------
> From: "Allen Dickerson" <adickerson at campaignfreedom.org>
> To: "Pildes, Rick" <pildesr at exchange.law.nyu.edu>; "law-election at UCI.edu"
> <law-election at uci.edu>
> Sent: 2/14/2014 1:11:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [EL] NY Times Editorials on Election Law
>
>
>  Prof. Pildes,
>
>
>
> In some ways election law presents a perfect test case: this is a
> highly-technical area of the law that elicits strong emotional reactions,
> is understood by very few, but upon which nearly everyone has (often loud)
> opinions. In the specific case of the Times, there have certainly been
> instances where the editorial page's writing has not reflected its budget.
>
>
>
> A few very quick examples:
>
>
>
> Conflating Super PACs and social welfare groups:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/opinion/when-super-pacs-become-lobbyists.html?_r=0
> .
>
>
>
> In an editorial concerning *McCutcheon, *stating categorically that
> "Since [*Buckley*] the court has upheld every federal contribution limit
> that has come before it." Which is true, as far as it goes, but ignores *state
> *contribution limits, including Breyer's inconvenient opinion in *Randall
> v. Sorrell, *a fairly recent and significant case:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/opinion/politicians-for-sale.html.
>
>
>
> Or its review of the district court's opinion in *U.S. v. Danielczyk, *which
> takes the court to task for disallowing a complete ban on corporate
> contributions, but fails to note that the nearly $200,000 in straw
> donations would have been illegal regardless, and that the court's opinion
> explicitly stated that corporations would still be subject to the federal
> limits (all of which might have undermined the sky-is-falling corruption
> rhetoric).
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29sun2.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
>
>
>
> And then there's the petty. A direct accusation that the FEC's 3-3 vote
> against finding reason to believe Crossroads GPS violated federal law was
> "further evidence of the power of machine politicians to mock election law
> as they raise and spend vast amounts of money to the tune of "Anything
> Goes." (I, for one, was not aware that FEC commissioners are "machine
> politicians.")
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/opinion/dangerous-inaction-by-the-election-commission.html?ref=campaignfinance.
> Or a piece published August 29, 2011 ("'Independents' Candidates Really
> Love") that ended by stating that "[t]he Romney Super PAC has already been
> blessed with mystery million-dollar donations, including one via a dummy
> corporation that had to be hurriedly disclosed lest it violate the law. "No
> harm, no foul," Mr. Romney assured voters about the donation, sounding like
> a candidate for the F.E.C." (Again, an unfair dig at FEC commissioners who,
> agree or not, are generally considered to hold good-faith views. Oh, and
> that point about "mystery million-dollar donations" seems like the sort of
> thing one would back up, or at least explain, since "mystery donations" to
> Super PACs are illegal).
>
>
>
> All this is disheartening. The national debate on these topics already
> generates more heat than light. And the Times reaches a readership that
> could be taught some of this topic's complexities. It's too bad that it has
> instead used its unique position in for this level of one-sided, and
> sometimes misleading, rhetoric.
>
>
>
> Thanks for raising such an interesting and important question.
>
>
>
> Allen
>
>
>
> Allen Dickerson
>
> Legal Director | Center for Competitive Politics
>
> 124 S. West Street | Suite 201 | Alexandria, VA 22314
>
> O: 703.894.6800 | F: 703.894.6811
>
> adickerson at campaignfreedom.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Pildes, Rick
> *Sent:* Friday, February 14, 2014 12:02 PM
> *To:* law-election at UCI.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] NY Times Editorials on Election Law
>
>
>
> A bit earlier, I posted on the blog an excerpt from a long story<http://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/>the New York Observer published a week or so ago, which reported that NY
> Times staffers were deeply frustrated with the Board's editorials.  One
> staffer was quoted saying of the editorials:  "They're completely
> reflexively liberal, utterly predictable, usually poorly written and
> totally ineffectual."  Having just run across the story, I wanted to
> generate a discussion on the list serv about this subject when it comes to
> the NY Times editorials on election law.  I realized it would be better to
> keep that discussion internal to the listserv, so I am sending this to the
> listserv rather than on the blog itself.
>
>
>
> A critique of the Observer story from the Washington Post can be found here.
>
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/02/05/17-problems-with-the-new-york-observers-hit-piece-on-the-new-york-times/> Here's
> an excerpt from the Observer story:
>
>
>
> *IT'S WELL KNOWN* *AMONG THE SMALL WORLD* of people who pay attention to
> such things that the liberal-leaning reporters at *The* *Wall Street
> Journal *resent the conservative-leaning editorial page of *The* *Wall
> Street Journal*. What's less well known--and about to break into the open,
> threatening the very fabric of the institution--is how deeply the
> liberal-leaning reporters at *The* *New York Times* resent the
> liberal-leaning editorial page of *The* *New York Times*.
>
> The *New York Observer* has learned over the course of interviews with
> more than two-dozen current and former *Times* staffers that the
> situation has "reached the boiling point" in the words of one current
> *Times* reporter. Only two people interviewed for this story agreed to be
> identified, given the fears of retaliation by someone they criticize as
> petty and vindictive.
>
> The blame here, in the eyes of most *Times* reporters to whom *The*
> *Observer* spoke, belongs to Andrew Rosenthal, who as editorial page
> editor leads both the paper's opinion pages and opinion postings online, as
> well as overseeing the editorial board and the letters, columnists and
> op-ed departments. Mr. Rosenthal is accused of both tyranny and pettiness,
> by the majority of the *Times* staffers interviewed for this story. And
> the growing dissatisfaction with Mr. Rosenthal stems from a commitment to
> excellence that has lifted the rest of the *Times*, which is viewed by
> every staffer *The* *Observer* spoke to as rapidly and dramatically
> improving.
>
> "He runs the show and is lazy as all get-out," says a current *Times*writer, and one can almost hear the
> *Times*-ness in his controlled anger (who but a *Times*man uses the
> phrase "as all get-out" these days?). Laziness and bossiness are
> unattractive qualities in any superior, but they seem particularly galling
> at a time when the *Times* continues to pare valued staffers via unending
> buyouts<http://observer.com/2013/01/after-the-deadline-at-the-new-york-times-the-economics-of-buyouts/>
> .
>
> The *Times* declined to provide exact staffing<http://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/>numbers, but that too is a source of resentment. Said one staffer, "Andy's
> got 14 or 15 people plus a whole bevy of assistants working on these three
> unsigned editorials every day. They're completely reflexively liberal,
> utterly predictable, usually poorly written and totally ineffectual. I
> mean, just try and remember the last time that anybody was talking about
> one of those editorials. You know, I can think of one time recently, which
> is with the [Edward] Snowden stuff, but mostly nobody pays attention, and
> millions of dollars is being spent on that stuff."
>
> Asked by *The* *Observer* for hard evidence supporting a loss of
> influence of the vaunted editorial page, the same *Times* staffer fired
> back, "You know, the editorials are never on the most emailed list; they're
> never on the most read list. People just are not paying attention, and they
> don't care. It's a waste of money."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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