[EL] dark money defined

Mon Jul 20 08:06:46 PDT 2015

… or if they're contributing the money to someone who does.

(This is what our FEC PFR, REG 2015-03, is intended to stop. Note that
our proposal explicitly does *not* apply to money spent on issue
advocacy.)

Sincerely,
Sai
President, Make Your Laws PAC/C4/C3

On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Adam Bonin <adam at boninlaw.com> wrote:
> If they are spending money to influence the outcome of an election, they
> are.
>
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 10:26 AM, David Keating
> <dkeating at campaignfreedom.org> wrote:
>>
>> So that I understand the definition, all groups that are not FEC political
>> committees, IRS-reporting 527s or state political committees are dark money
>> groups.  Public Citizen would be an example of a dark money group.
>>
>>
>>
>> Or is it like pornography and you know it when you see it?  But who
>> decides that?
>>
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>> _________________________________________________
>>
>> David Keating | President | Center for Competitive Politics
>>
>> 124 S. West Street, Suite 201 | Alexandria, VA 22314
>>
>> 703-894-6799 (direct) | 703-894-6800 | 703-894-6811 Fax
>>
>> www.campaignfreedom.org
>>
>>
>>
>> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Craig
>> Holman
>> Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2015 6:07 PM
>> To: law-election at uci.edu
>> Subject: Re: [EL] 7th circuit john doe opinon
>>
>>
>>
>> Ilya:
>>
>>
>>
>> The definition of "dark money" for groups is that we do not know about
>> their expenditures; it is that the groups do not disclose the sources of the
>> funds.
>>
>> Craig Holman, Ph.D.
>> Government Affairs Lobbyist
>> Public Citizen
>> 215 Pennsylvania Avenue SE
>> Washington, D.C. 20003
>> T-(202) 454-5182
>> C-(202) 905-7413
>> F-(202) 547-7392
>> Holman at aol.com
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ilya Shapiro <IShapiro at cato.org>
>> To: 'Eric J Segall' <esegall at gsu.edu>; Smith, Brad
>> <BSmith at law.capital.edu>; Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>;
>> law-election at UCI.edu <law-election at uci.edu>
>> Sent: Sat, Jul 18, 2015 3:33 pm
>> Subject: Re: [EL] 7th circuit john doe opinon
>>
>> How are they “dark moneyed groups” if everyone knows who they are?
>>
>>
>>
>> Ilya Shapiro
>>
>> Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies,
>>
>> Editor-in-Chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review
>>
>> Cato Institute
>>
>> 1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
>>
>> Washington, DC  20001
>>
>> tel. (202) 218-4600
>>
>> cel. (202) 577-1134
>>
>> fax. (202) 842-3490
>>
>> ishapiro at cato.org
>>
>> Bio/clips: http://www.cato.org/people/shapiro.html
>>
>> Twitter: www.twitter.com/ishapiro
>>
>> SSRN: http://ssrn.com/author=1382023
>>
>>
>>
>> Cato Supreme Court Review:  http://www.cato.org/supreme-court-review
>>
>>
>>
>> Watch our 2014 Constitution Day Conference - Supreme Court Review/Preview:
>> http://www.cato.org/events/13th-annual-constitution-day
>>
>>
>>
>> See me defend the right to keep and bear arms on the Colbert Report:
>> http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/340923/july-08-2010/automatics-for-the-people---ilya-shapiro---jackie-hilly
>>
>>
>>
>> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Eric J
>> Segall
>> Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2015 2:19 PM
>> To: Smith, Brad; Rick Hasen; law-election at UCI.edu
>> Subject: Re: [EL] 7th circuit john doe opinon
>>
>>
>>
>> So, regardless of whether power (in the guise of enforcement of campaign
>> finance laws) was abused in Wisconsin, and regardless of how much Walker
>> himself was personally behind or not behind the various groups at issue,
>> when well-funded and dark moneyed groups support judges with campaign money
>> (and trips) and then those same judges don't recuse themselves in criminal
>> investigations of those groups, we have a serious problem.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/the-inside-story-of-the-crony-court-that-deep-sixed-the-scott-walker-probe
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
>> <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on behalf of Smith, Brad
>> <BSmith at law.capital.edu>
>> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 3:37 PM
>> To: Rick Hasen; law-election at UCI.edu
>> Subject: Re: [EL] 7th circuit john doe opinon
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you. I rest that part of my case.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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 Rick Hasen
>> [rhasen at law.uci.edu]
>> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 3:21 PM
>> To: law-election at UCI.edu
>> Subject: [EL] 7th circuit john doe opinon
>>
>> Since it has been referenced today, here's last year's opinion and an
>> excerpt (with my emphasis):
>>
>> http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/7th-john-doe.pdf
>>
>> The Supreme Court has yet to determine what “coordination” means. Is the
>> scope of permissible regulation limited to groups that advocate the election
>> of particular candidates, or can government also regulate coordination of
>> contributions and speech about political issues, when the speakers do not
>> expressly advocate any person’s election? What if the speech implies, rather
>> than expresses, a preference for a particular candidate’s election? If
>> regulation of coordination about pure issue advocacy is permissible, how
>> tight must the link be between the politician’s committee and the advocacy
>> group? Uncertainty is a powerful reason to leave this litigation in state
>> court, where it may meet its end as a matter of state law without any need
>> to resolve these constitutional questions. The district court thought that
>> the Supreme Court will overrule what remains of Buckley, as some Justices
>> have pro- posed. See, e.g., Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee
>> v. FEC, 518 U.S. 604, 635–40 (1996) (Thomas, J., dissenting in part). If the
>> Constitution forbids all regulation of campaign contributions, there is no
>> basis for regulating coordination either. After all, the rationale for
>> regulating coordination has been to prevent evasion of contribution limits
>> and ensure the public identification of persons who contribute to
>> politicians’ war chests.
>>
>> Yet although the Court’s views about the proper limits of campaign-finance
>> regulation continue to change, see Citizens United (overruling part of
>> McConnell) and McCutcheon v. FEC, 134 S. Ct. 1434 (2014) (overruling a
>> portion of Buckley that dealt with aggregate contribution limits across
>> multiple candidates), it has yet to disapprove the portion of Buckley
>> holding that some regulation of contributions to candidates is permissible.
>> Justice Thomas wrote separately in McCutcheon, 134 S. Ct. at 1462–65
>> (concurring in the judgment), precisely because a majority was unwilling to
>> revisit that aspect of Buckley. The district court’s belief that a majority
>> of the Court eventually will see things Justice Thomas’s way may or may not
>> prove correct, but as the Supreme Court’s doctrine stands it is not possible
>> to treat as “bad faith” a criminal investigation that reflects Buckley’s
>> interpretation of the First Amendment. Nor does it help plaintiffs to accuse
>> defendants of “retaliation”. That just restates the point that campaign
>> finance regulation concerns speech; it does not help to decide whether a
>> particular kind of regulation is forbidden. Cf. Fairley v. Andrews, 578 F.3d
>> 518, 525 (7th Cir. 2009).
>>
>> What we have said shows not only that an injunction was an abuse of
>> discretion but also that all defendants possess qualified immunity from
>> liability in damages. Public officials Nos. 14-1822 et al. 11 can be held
>> liable for violating clearly established law, but not for choosing sides on
>> a debatable issue. See, e.g., Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 618 (1999) (“If
>> judges … disagree on a constitutional question, it is unfair to subject
>> police to money damages for picking the losing side of the controversy.”).
>> The district court thought the law clearly established because, after all,
>> the First Amendment has been with us since 1791. But the right question is
>> what the Constitution means, concretely, applied to a dispute such as this.
>> The Justices forbid the use of a high level of generality and insist that
>> law is not “clearly established” until “existing precedent [has] placed the
>> statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd,
>> 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2083 (2011). See also, e.g., Plumhoff v. Rickard, 134 S.
>> Ct. 2012 (2014); Wood v. Moss, 134 S. Ct. 2056 (2014).
>>
>> Plaintiffs’ claim to constitutional protection for raising funds to engage
>> in issue advocacy coordinated with a politician’s campaign committee has not
>> been established “beyond debate.” To the contrary, there is a lively debate
>> among judges and academic analysts. The Supreme Court regularly decides
>> campaign-finance issues by closely divided votes. No opinion issued by the
>> Supreme Court, or by any court of appeals, establishes (“clearly” or
>> otherwise) that the First Amendment forbids regulation of coordination
>> between campaign committees and issue-advocacy groups—let alone that the
>> First Amendment forbids even an inquiry into that topic. The district court
>> broke new ground. Its views may be vindicated, but until that day public
>> officials enjoy the benefit of qualified immunity from liability in damages.
>> This makes it unnecessary for us to consider whether any defendant also
>> enjoys the benefit of absolute prosecutorial immunity, which depends on the
>> capacities in which they may have acted at different times. See Buckley v.
>> Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259 (1993).
>>
>> --
>>
>> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> Law-election mailing
>>
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Adam C. Bonin
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