[EL] Donors' demands to Sen. Sinema

[Mark Scarberry]

The other question I had is this:

Suppose the letter came from an "independent expenditure" group that had
planned to spend money supporting her reelection. Suppose she changes her
position, such that the group ends up doing so. Would this demand affect
whether their spending is treated as independent or instead as coordinated
with the candidate (and thus subject to contribution limits)? I don't think
so, but perhaps this letter from a list of individuals is designed to
sidestep that issue.

It's late at night here. I hope that question makes some degree of sense.

Mark

[image: Pepperdine wordmark]*Caruso School of Law*

*Mark S. Scarberry*

*Professor of Lawmark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu
<mark.scarberry at pepperdine.edu>*
Personal: mark.scarberry at gmail.com




On Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 11:30 PM Volokh, Eugene <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu> wrote:

> From the donors’ letter
> <https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-7431-dbc8-a1ff-75310e2a0000> to
> Sen. Sinema:
>
>
>
> We must draw a line. We cannot in good conscience support you if you
> refuse to use your office to protect our fundamental rights to vote, and we
> will be obliged to back alternatives for your seat who will do the right
> thing for our country. Further, we are in agreement that, should your
> ultimate decision be to prioritize the veneer of bipartisanship, in the
> form of an arcane senate rule, over the voting rights that John Lewis put
> his life on the line to defend, your campaign should return each of our
> 2018 Senate campaign donations.
>
>
>
> Any thoughts on whether this crosses the line from permissible demand (and
> a permissible threat of political retaliation) into an impermissible
> implicit quid pro quo?  Not a rhetorical question:  I’d love to know the
> answer, if there is a clear answer.  Many thanks,
>
>
>
> Eugene
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> https://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/20220122/36a37350/attachment.html>