[EL] What (Then) Non-Millionaire Benefitted from The Millionaire's Amendment in the McCain-Feingold Law?

Tue Mar 21 16:40:10 PDT 2017

And backing up still a few years more, the Illinois redistricting of 
2001 is one of the reasons that Obama was, in 2003 and 2004, "extremely 
well connected in a number of Chicago and some national circles, so he 
had access to a network of individuals who could give at a high level."

State Senator Obama ran against incumbent Bobby Rush for Congress in the 
2000 primary, and with a relatively hasty campaign against a sympathetic 
incumbent, won more than 30% of the vote.  When Illinois redrew its 
congressional districts, the block around Obama's home was sliced out of 
Bobby Rush's new district (as were the homes of all of Rush's other 
challengers in 2000: the map for the 2000 election is here 
<https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1UmpxpqoBCGy8v-r9RdE4_N9YSYk&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=41.818236053356586%2C-87.58850100000001&spn=0.102346%2C0.136642&z=11>, 
and the map for the 2002 election is here 
<https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1mYU3VrbNTONvC1oBKtP01RYsxUg&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=41.818236053356586%2C-87.58850100000001&spn=0.245745%2C0.617294&z=11>). 
The state Senate redrawing was considerably more kind to State Senator 
Obama: his district was substantially reconfigured to run through 
Chicago's Gold Coast, with a considerably wealthier donor base (the map 
for the 2000 election is here 
<https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1ELAbj4u_bNQuRMZFVN7wVWqkwLk&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&spn=0.245745%2C0.617294&ll=41.780569133234614%2C-87.62693200000001&z=12>, 
and the map for the 2002 election is here 
<https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=13xoXfhWwIlaLkeAlbxh3Bs-u8a4&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&spn=0.245745%2C0.617294&ll=41.81153846429898%2C-87.57654200000002&z=11>). 
That's another part of the reason (not the whole story, but a part) that 
Obama was poised to collect the bigger checks made possible by the 
Millionaire's Amendment.

Ryan Lizza <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/07/21/making-it> 
included this story in his deep dive on Obama's political background in 
2008, and teed up by Sam Issacharoff, it also found its way into a 2010 
documentary (from about 40:30 to 42:30 here 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-285T7Pdp58&feature=youtu.be&t=40m30s>).

-- 
Justin Levitt
Professor of Law
(on leave through spring 2017)
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles

On 3/21/2017 1:05 PM, Pildes, Rick wrote:
>
> I know this is what everyone is thinking about right now, but for 
> those of you who teach the /Davis v. FEC /case and this issue, there 
> are some very fun facts I was not aware of in the article Kate Shaw 
> just published in the Election Law Journal on this short-lived 
> provision of BCRA (not sure I can link to the article).  Turns out a 
> major beneficiary of this provision was an Illinois state senator 
> named Barack Obama.  Here is Kate’s description:
>
> The 2004 Illinois Senate race
>
> When a one-term Illinois Republican senator named Peter Fitzgerald 
> announced that he would not seek reelection in 2004, the Democrats 
> sensed an opportunity to pick up a Senate seat.^26 
> <javascript:popRef('fn26')> A number of candidates entered the field, 
> and two front-runners quickly emerged: Dan Hynes, the Illinois 
> comptroller and scion of a local political family; and businessman 
> Blair Hull, who in 1999 sold his trading business to Goldman Sachs for 
> $531 million.^27 <javascript:popRef('fn27')> State senator and law 
> professor Barack Obama, who had unsuccessfully run for Congress in 
> 2000,^28 <javascript:popRef('fn28')> was one of a number of other 
> candidates to enter the race.^29 <javascript:popRef('fn29')>
>
> Hull made clear from early on that he intended to pour substantial 
> sums of his own money into the race, pledging to spend up to $40 
> million.^30 <javascript:popRef('fn30')> In the end he spent $29 
> million of his own money, “an unprecedented sum for a Senate race in 
> [Illinois],”^31 <javascript:popRef('fn31')> and at the time one of the 
> top few Senate races ever in terms of personal expenditures.^32 
> <javascript:popRef('fn32')>
>
> Recall that the Senate component of the Millionaire's Amendment 
> entitled individuals running against the highest-spending self-funding 
> candidates (and Hull's expenditures of his own money far exceeded the 
> trigger) to accept contributions at six times the otherwise-applicable 
> limits. This meant that in 2004, when the individual contribution 
> limit was $2,000, opponents of self-funders could accept contributions 
> up to $12,000.^33 <javascript:popRef('fn33')>
>
> And Barack Obama, among others,^34 <javascript:popRef('fn34')> took 
> full advantage of this provision. During just the primary campaign, 
> Obama raised approximately $4.5 million; from the FEC records, it 
> appears that just over $2 million came from 350 individual donors who 
> gave at the elevated levels the Millionaire's Amendment allowed.^35 
> <javascript:popRef('fn35')> Without the increased limits, those donors 
> would have been able to contribute only $700,000 in total—a difference 
> of $1.3 million, or nearly a third of Obama's overall contributions in 
> the primary.^36 <javascript:popRef('fn36')>
>
> Hull's campaign ended up imploding, in part over domestic violence 
> allegations substantiated by an order of protection his ex-wife had 
> obtained;^37 <javascript:popRef('fn37')> once all of that came to 
> light, the omnipresent advertisements and massive campaign staff 
> enabled by his expenditures could not stop his slide. And by the time 
> Hull's descent began, Obama was in a position to move into 
> front-runner status. He ended up winning a decisive primary victory of 
> 53%, with Dan Hynes in second at 24%, and Hull a distant third with 
> 11%.^38 <javascript:popRef('fn38')>
>
> I don't mean to make any sort of strong causal claim about the role of 
> the Amendment in facilitating Obama's eventual victory.^39 
> <javascript:popRef('fn39')> But it does seem likely that the Amendment 
> played some part. It was not a foregone conclusion that Obama would be 
> the one to fill the gap left when Hull began to falter; at the time, 
> most local politicos were betting on Hynes, whose name was well known 
> and who had already won a statewide race. By contrast, Obama had never 
> held national or even statewide office, though he'd been a state 
> senator since 1996. But he was extremely well connected in a number of 
> Chicago and some national circles, so he had access to a network of 
> individuals who /could/ give at a high level.^40 
> <javascript:popRef('fn40')> And this particular confluence of 
> circumstances seems to have played some role in his eventual Senate 
> victory—which positioned him, four years later, to win the presidency.
>
> Best,
>
> Rick
>
> Richard H. Pildes
>
> Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
>
> NYU School of Law
>
> 40 Washington Square South, NY, NY 10012
>
> 212 998-6377
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20170321/d5aad1a9/attachment.html>