[EL] CPA/Zicklin

Rick Hasen rhasen at law.uci.edu
Wed Sep 24 11:20:59 PDT 2014 

This just in 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/republicans-corporate-donors-governors.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>from 
the NY Times:

The documents 
<https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1303363/r-g-a.pdf>, 
many of which the Republican officials have since removed from their 
website, showed that an A-to-Z of America's most prominent companies, 
from Aetna to Walmart, had poured millions of dollars into the campaigns 
of Republican governors since 2008. One document listed 17 corporate 
"members" of the governors association's secretive 501(c)(4), the 
Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, which is allowed to shield 
its supporters from the public.

Continue reading the main story 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/republicans-corporate-donors-governors.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news#story-continues-3>


    Document: The Price of Political Influence

<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/22/us/politics/republican-governors-association-rga-documents.html>

....

The trove of documents, accessed by watchdogs at the Democratically 
alignedCitizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington 
<http://www.citizensforethics.org/content/index>, or CREW, sheds light 
on the secretive world of 501(c)(4) political groups, just as the battle 
over their future intensifies. Unlike the Republican Governors 
Association, the tax-exempt Republican Governors Public Policy Committee 
is not required to disclose anything, even as donors hit the links, rub 
shoulders and trade policy talk with governors and their top staff 
members....

At a policy committee symposium last year at theLa Costa Resort and Spa 
<http://www.lacosta.com/>in Carlsbad, Calif., committee members included 
the health insurers Aetna and WellPoint, the insurance lobby America's 
Health Insurance Plans, the utility giant Southern Company, and the 
lobbying firms Dutko Grayling (now known as Grayling), BGR Group and 
Leavitt Partners....

.

In a tit for tat, the Republican association unearthed documents from 
the Democratic Governors Association that also name corporate donors and 
the benefits:meetings with Democratic governors 
<http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20100225LOBBY/20100225LOBBY-DGA.pdf>, 
"preferred seating" at policy discussions, andlavish receptions 
<http://dga.3cdn.net/30582be8855da69ca9_szm6bhhpl.pdf>. But those 
documents do not detail contribution levels, nor do they reveal the 
corporate members of the Democratic association's own secretive 
501(c)(4), the Center for Innovative Policy.

Among the R.G.A. documents isa 21-page schedule 
<https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1304679/rga-symposium-schedule-and-attendee-list.pdf>of 
the policy committee's Carlsbad meeting last year that lists which 
companies attended, who represented them and what they contributed. The 
most elite group, known as the Statesmen, whose members donated 
$250,000, included Aetna; Coca-Cola; Exxon Mobil; Koch Companies Public 
Sector, the lobbying arm of the highly political Koch Industries; 
Microsoft; Pfizer; UnitedHealth Group; and Walmart. The $100,000 Cabinet 
level included Aflac, BlueCross BlueShield, Comcast, Hewlett-Packard, 
Novartis, Shell Oil, Verizon Communications and Walgreen.

Other documents detail, in part, what they got in return.

One 2009 document states thebenefits of a Governors Board membership 
<https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1304668/republican-governors-association-board-benefits.pdf>, 
for a $50,000 annual contribution or a one-time donation of $100,000, 
saying it "offers the ability to bring their particular expertise to the 
political process while helping to support the Republican agenda."

Board 
members<https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1304668/republican-governors-association-board-benefits.pdf>received 
two tickets to "an exclusive breakfast with the Republican Governors and 
members of their staff"; three tickets to the Governors Forums Series, 
where "a group of 5-8 governors discuss the best policy practices from 
around the country on a particular topic"; and a D.C. Discussion 
Breakfast Series, among other events.

If they bump up toCabinet Membership 
<https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1304669/republican-governors-association-cabinet-benefits.pdf>--- 
$100,000 annually or a single payment of $200,000 --- contributors also 
receive two invitations to "an exclusive Gubernatorial Dinner," an 
"intimate gathering with the Republican Governors and special Republican 
V.I.P. guests" at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington.



On 9/24/14, 11:16 AM, Ilya Shapiro wrote:
> Only if you lump lobbying in with political spending. For-profit corps 
> don't tend to do much political speaking because they don't want to 
> alienate half of their customers.
>
> To put a finer point on that, much more money is spent on lobbying 
> than campaigning (on the order of 10-12 times I read somewhere 
> recently), so campaign restrictions shut down advocacy groups (which 
> are also corporations, of course), not the Fortune 500.
>
> Ilya Shapiro
> Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies
> Cato Institute
> 1000 Mass. Ave. NW
> Washington, DC 20001
> Tel. 202-218-4600
> Cel. 202-577-1134
> www.cato.org/people/shapiro.html <http://www.cato.org/people/shapiro.html>
> twitter.com/ishapiro <http://twitter.com/ishapiro>
>
> On Sep 24, 2014, at 1:08 PM, David Ely <ely at compass-demographics.com 
> <mailto:ely at compass-demographics.com>> wrote:
>
>> To put a finer point on it,  is the political spending of for-profit 
>> corporations really just an attempt to buy off the regulatory 
>> structure and allow themselves to externalize costs to a maximum extent?
>>
>> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu 
>> <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> 
>> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of 
>> *David Ely
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 24, 2014 10:58 AM
>> *To:* 'Smith, Brad'; 'law-election at UCI.edu <mailto:law-election at UCI.edu>'
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] CPA/Zicklin
>>
>> Which is why markets do such a poor job of dealing with external 
>> effects of economic activity. It's hard for a consumer to separate 
>> worrying about political views and activities from worrying about 
>> economic decisions that externalize public costs from the price of a 
>> product.
>>
>> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu 
>> <mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> 
>> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of 
>> *Smith, Brad
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 24, 2014 9:03 AM
>> *To:* law-election at UCI.edu <mailto:law-election at UCI.edu>
>> *Subject:* [EL] CPA/Zicklin
>>
>> CPI writes:
>>
>> "Watch your Netflix show, wear your Ralph Lauren shirt, brew your 
>> Keurig coffee and deposit your paycheck at M&T Bank.
>>
>> Just know that you're patronizing some of the nation's least 
>> politically transparent companies,"
>>
>> What a horrible, impoverished way to live one's life, worrying about 
>> the political views and activities of everyone you come into contact 
>> with, and using that to decide whether to do business with them.
>>
>> /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/
>>
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>
>
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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://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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