news of the day 6/24/04

Subject: news of the day 6/24/04

From: Rick Hasen

Date: 6/24/2004, 7:23 AM

To: election-law

"Bush '04 Slams Donor Story"

Roll Call offers this report (paid subscription required), which begins:

Bush-Cheney campaign officials confirmed they are encouraging their donors to support get-out-the-vote efforts by contributing hard money directly to the Republican National Committee and state GOP parties. The RNC hopes to raise roughly $50 million in hard money for GOTV activities at the state level this cycle, according to GOP sources.

But the Bush-Cheney campaign said the assertion that anyone with direct ties to the campaign was involved in any activities relating to soft money, including soliciting, steering, directing or encouraging such contributions to state GOP parties, was “totally false.”

“The factual representations in the article, the basic premise of the article, are flawed beyond comprehension and dead wrong,” said Ben Ginsberg, counsel to the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign. Ginsberg was referring to a story in Wednesday’s edition of Roll Call. That article said Bush Cheney ’04 officials — through outside fundraisers — had asked wealthy Republicans to give soft money to state GOP parties.

“As a matter of law, people on the campaign or associated with the campaign or agents of the campaign can’t raise [soft] money for state parties, so we don’t,” Ginsberg said.

"Nader: Go to My Rallies, But Vote for Kerry"

NPR offers this audio report.

"Fahrenheit 9/11 Ban? Ads for Moore's Movie Could Be Stopped on June 30"

The Hill offers this report, which begins: "Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” on television or radio after July 30 if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel. At the same time, a Republican-allied 527 soft-money group is preparing to file a complaint against Moore’s film with the FEC for violating campaign-finance law."

It is not clear to me that the general counsel's draft, if adopted, would directly affect Moore. In footnote 4 of the draft, the makers of the documentary in question did not claim a right under the media exemption, nor did they appear to ask for an exception to the electionnering communications rules that the FEC may give under 2 USC 434(f)(3)(B)(iv). So Moore will have some room to argue regardless of what happens at the FEC today.

"O'Connor Not Confined By Conservatism"

USA Today offers this report, which notes the following of interest to election law: "During the past six months, O'Connor was the only justice who was in the majority to uphold the new campaign-finance law (a move that infuriated conservatives) and in the majority to prevent voting rights lawsuits against partisan gerrymanders (a move that irritated liberals)." Of course, in the latter case, there was no majority opinion.

-- 
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org