[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/11/16
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Tue May 10 21:29:38 PDT 2016
ELB Podcast Episode 12. Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein: From Political
Dysfunction to Trumpism? <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82666>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 9:27 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82666>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Has the country moved from a period of deep political dysfunction to
something bordering on authoritarianism, with the rise of Donald Trump?
Does the rise of Bernie Sanders on the left mean Democrats are moving to
the extremes like Republicans? What would a Hillary Clinton presidency
with a Republican House look like?
On Episode 12 of the ELB Podcast, we talk with Tom Mann and Norm
Ornstein, authors of /It’s Even Worse Than It Looks
<http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-Constitutional/dp/0465096204/ref=la_B000AQ2IP4_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462934646&sr=1-1>//:
How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of
Extremism/.
You can listen to the ELB Podcast Episode 12 on Soundcloud orsubscribe
at iTunes
<https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/elb-podcast/id1029317166?mt=2>.
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Posted inELB Podcast <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=116>,political
polarization <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=68>
“‘I have, in fact, done the crime’: Rep. Ami Bera’s father admits
illegal campaign contributions” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82670>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 9:23 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82670>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
LAT
<http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-ami-bera-father-campaign-money-20160510-story.html>:
Prosecutors said there were more than 130 instances of improper
campaign contributions reported from approximately 90 people. Bera’s
father repaid at least portions of those donations, and
investigators said that it’s possible even more money was donated
illegally to the congressman’s early campaigns.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,chicanery
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>
Forces That Put Justice Benjamin on W Va Supreme Court (Think
Caperton) Turn Around and Oust Him <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82668>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 8:28 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82668>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Read Pema Levy.
<http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/west-virginia-supreme-court-blankenship-benjamin>Then
seethese results <http://howappealing.abovethelaw.com/051016.html#067059>.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,judicial elections
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=19>
“Here’s what Donald Trump thinks about voting”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82664>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 7:36 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82664>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Zack
Roth<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/heres-what-donald-trump-thinks-about-voting>for
MSNBC.
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,fraudulent fraud squad
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>
“Anti-Donald Trump Forces Gear Up For Third-Party Challenge”
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82662>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 2:17 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82662>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
HuffPo
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-third-party-challenge_us_5732392de4b016f3789758e7?ymh32f0fwnjv4y4x6r>:
Top Republican strategists this past week have stepped up a frantic
effort to lay the groundwork for a third-party presidential run,
even as elected officials within the party begin to make their peace
with Donald Trump.
The effort is admittedly a long shot, according to aides directly
involved in it. But they insist it’s not as impossible as some
members of the GOP and the press perceive it to be. In particular,
these aides have begun exploring the idea of suing states over their
deadlines for ballot access so they can be afforded more time to
field a candidate and gather signatures. Additionally, they are
discussing the possibility of launching an entirely new political
party rather than latching onto an existing one, since doing so
would provide easier passageways for getting on the ballot.
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Posted inballot access <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=46>,political
parties <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>,third parties
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=47>
“How Congress members opened door to bigger checks for their
parties” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82660>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 1:32 pm
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82660>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
McClatchy
<http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article76724972.html>:
But hold on. If you’re a donor, don’t put away your checkbook just yet.
The Democratic and Republican national committees each have separate
Senate and House campaign committees to help elect members of
Congress. Each has a general fund account to which wealthy donors
can also send $33,400 contributions. But the last-minute rider to
the 2014 spending bill allowed each of those committees to form two
additional accounts: one for recounts and another headquarters business.
And to each, a donor can – you guessed it – also give triple the
maximum amount.
Ka-ching.
That’s another $100,200 a year per committee, and times four equals
$400,800.
All told, a well-heeled political donor can now contribute more than
$800,000 in a year to one of the parties; over the course of the
election cycle, more than $1.6 million.
“This is not meaningless,” said Larry Noble, general counsel for
theCampaign Legal Center, <http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/>a
nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign-finance and voting-rights advocacy
group, and a former general counsel for the Federal Election
Commission. “These are people who have access to our elected
officials, who have their ear. It is a campaign system out of control.”
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“This Dark Money Group Spent Big On A Montana Judicial Race. Now We
Know Why.” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82657>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 7:39 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82657>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Paul Blumenthal
<http://this%20dark%20money%20group%20spent%20big%20on%20a%20montana%20judicial%20race.%20now%20we%20know%20why./>for
HuffPo:
This was certainly the case in Sheehy’s 2012 race, although the
public didn’t know it at the time.
The Montana Growth Network was launched that year by Jason Priest
and Ed Walker, then both Republican state senators. It went on to
spend $900,000 on the state Supreme Court race, more money than the
Sheehy and McKinnon campaigns combined. Because the group was
organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit under the federal tax code, it
was not required to disclose its donors. Any interest those donors
had in the race was obscured, as was any potential conflict that the
group’s favored candidate, McKinnon, might later face on the bench.
Three years passed before the identities of the billionaire
businessmen funding the ads came to light, following an
investigation by Montana’s Commissioner of Political Practices. The
December 2015 probe found that the Montana Growth Network
hadviolated state election laws
<http://politicalpractices.mt.gov/content/2recentdecisions/HamlettvMontanaGrowthNetworkDecision>and
forced the nonprofit to disclose its funders.
The largest portion of the group’s money came from two of America’s
richest men. San Francisco billionaire Charles Schwab, the founder
of the eponymous discount brokerage firm, donated $300,000. James
Cox Kennedy, the Atlanta-based chairman of media giant Cox
Enterprises, gave $100,000. Schwab is worth a reported $6.4 billion,
while Kennedy is worth $10.2 billion — ranking both of them among
Forbes’ wealthiest 400 Americans.
The probe also revealed that the two billionaires had a direct stake
in a case moving through Montana’s courts at the time of the 2012
election. While neither are residents of Montana, they both own
large estates there. The two properties include streams and rivers
to which the owners would like to restrict access. But Montana has
some of the most liberal laws for recreational waterway use in the
country: The state’s 1972 constitution allows broad public access to
those waterways.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,judicial
elections <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=19>
“Donald Trump, in Switch, Turns to Republican Party for Fund-Raising
Help” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82655>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 7:35 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82655>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/us/politics/donald-trump-campaign.html?ref=politics>:
Donald J. Trump
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/donald-trump-on-the-issues.html?inline=nyt-per>took
steps to appropriate much of theRepublican National Committee
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_national_committee/index.html?inline=nyt-org>’s
financial and political infrastructure for his presidential campaign
on Monday, amid signs that he and the party would lag dangerously
behind the Democrats in raising money for the general election.
Mr. Trump, who by the end of March had spent around $40 million of
his fortune on the primaries, has said that he may need as much as
$1.5 billion for the fall campaign, but that he will seek to raise
it from donors rather than continue to self-finance.
But Mr. Trump has no fund-raising apparatus to resort to, no network
of prolific bundlers to call upon, and little known experience with
the type of marathon, one-on-one serial salesmanship and
solicitousness that raising so much money is likely to require —
even if individuals can contribute up to the current limit of
$334,000 at a time to the party. And he has to do it all in six
months, with a deeply divided party that is still absorbing the fact
that Mr. Trump is its standard-bearer….
Republican Party
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org>officials
have pressed Mr. Trump to sign a joint fund-raising agreement, which
would allow him to raise money for the national committee and for
his own campaign simultaneously. That, in turn, would also give Mr.
Trump a defensible answer for why, after months of railing against
Wall Street executives and special interests, he recently turned to
a former Goldman Sachs executive, Steven Mnuchin, to corral large
checks for his campaign.
Both Mr. Trump’s aides and party officials were caught by surprise
by the abrupt end of the primary contest last week, when Mr. Trump
carried Indiana, prompting Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. John
Kasich of Ohio to withdraw from the race. But the two sides have
hurried to wrap up a joint fund-raising agreement, and one is close
to being signed, according to people close to the national committee
who were not authorized to speak publicly.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>
“Why Dark Money Is Bad Business” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82653>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 7:02 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82653>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Kathleen Donovan-Maher and Steven Groopman have writtenthis NYT oped.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/opinion/why-dark-money-is-bad-business.html?_r=0>
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>
“Kennedy to retire after 33 years as Wisconsin’s top elections
official” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82651>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 6:58 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82651>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WisPolitics.com
<http://elections.wispolitics.com/2016/05/kennedy-to-retire-after-33-years-as.html>:
Next month as the GAB is replaced by two new entities.
Kennedy, who turned 64 in March, told WisPolitics.com today he
decided last year he wanted to retire after 2016. He moved up his
timeline after the GOP-led Legislature voted to replace the GAB with
the new Elections and Ethics commissions.
“Once the Legislature made the decision to restructure the agency, I
didn’t see any reason why I’d want to be part of the new structure,
and even if I did, it would have been a very short-term situation
because of the timetable I had for myself was already in place,”
Kennedy said.
Kennedy has become a lightning rod for criticism Republicans have
lobbed at the GAB over the past several years, including the
agency’s involvement in John Doe probes. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos,
R-Rochester, vowed at a WisPolitics.com luncheon in October 2014
that the GAB would not exist in its current format in two years and
declared Kennedy “has to go.”
Kevin Kennedy is a class act and did an excellent job in his position.
The politicization of election administration in Wisconsin by the state
legislature in getting rid of the GAB is sad and unjustified.
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Posted inelection administration
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,election law biz
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=51>
“Trump Takes the Money; Don’t buy that Donald Trump is a campaign
finance reformer” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82649>
Posted onMay 10, 2016 6:52 am
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=82649>byRick Hasen
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
David Donnelly
<http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-05-09/trump-is-no-money-in-politics-reformer>for
US News.
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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>
--
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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