"GOP Seeks Curbs On '527' Groups"

The Washington Post offers this report, which begins: "House Republican leaders proposed changes in lobbying laws yesterday that would include a crackdown on independent, big-money committees that heavily aided Democrats in the 2004 elections. The proposed ethics package would increase the amount of information that lobbyists must disclose and would, at least temporarily, cut off privately financed travel for lawmakers. The bill would also force lawmakers to disclose the pet projects they are seeking for their home districts." BNA Money and Politics Report offers more details on the legislative process (paid subscription required).

"New bid to carve districts survives; Measure would give choice to citizens"

The Sacramento Bee offers this report, which begins: "Legislation to strip California lawmakers of their power to draw state Senate, Assembly and other political boundaries narrowly passed a legislative committee Wednesday." The article is well worth reading by anyone interested in the various options for proposed "citizen" input into the redistricting process.

Voter ID Law Roundup

Ed Still collects the news from the states here (MIssouri), here (Minnesota), and here (Pennsylvania).

"Many states struggling with election changes"

Gannett News Service offers this report.

"Gallegly re-enters the race; Doctors give him clean bill of health"

The Ventura County Star offers this report.

"Watchdog Noble Joins Law Firm"

Roll Call offers this report (paid subscription required). It begins: "As uncertainty reigns over what new rules will govern the lobbying business, the head of the Center for Responsive Politics, a leading campaign finance and lobbying watchdog, is cashing out, joining the political-law practice at the firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. Larry Noble, the CRP's executive director for five years, will be a counsel in a practice area that's booming amid the fallout from some of the biggest lobbying scandals in history."

"Rules Puts off Vote on Internet Bill"

Roll Call offers this report (paid subscription required). It begins: "The House Rules Committee decided Wednesday to defer its vote on a contentious measure that would determine whether Internet communications ranging from paid advertisements to Web logs should be free from campaign finance regulations, leaving the issue unresolved as the Federal Election Commission prepares to issue its own rulemaking on the matter." Why? It apparently came down to the question whether the bill would be debated with an open rule (allowing amendments) or a closed rule (not allowing amendments). Meanwhile, as The Hill reports, "The Federal Election Commission (FEC) yesterday postponed a controversial decision on subjecting Internet political speech to campaign-finance regulations, raising the stakes for today’s scheduled House vote on a bill that exempts all blogs, Web ads and other online communications." Now the FEC will need to take up its final rule (the contents of which remains a mystery).
For reactions to the turn of events in Congress, see Bob Bauer, Brad Smith, and Kos. (I would link to posts by those opposing 1606 and supporting the CDT alternative, 4900, but I haven't found any such posts or press releases yet.)

Of particular interest, given Adam Bonin's questions about whether 4900 would regulate Daily Kos and similar blogs, is this snippet from the article in The Hill:

Two of the Web's most famous blogs, the liberal Daily Kos and the conservative RedState, have trumpeted the Hensarling bill since it failed on the suspensions calendar during a November vote, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage but snagging more than half of the House. The bloggers of Daily Kos, RedState and other online forums argue that the Allen-Bass alternative, which would provide targeted exceptions from the law for individuals and some websites, would force them to register as political committees.

Allen did not dispute that possibility. He noted that his bill would allow websites unrestricted operations as long as their annual expenditures did not exceed $10,000.

"They might well have to file," Allen said of blogs as large as Daily Kos, "but that’s the point. If the Internet becomes more important, the types of financial abuses that occurred within the campaign-finance system in general" are more prone to occurring.

Texas Redistricting Supreme Court Oral Arguments Now Available

See here.

Briffault on 527s

Richard Briffault has posted The 527 Problem...and the Buckley Problem (George Washington Law Review) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In the world of campaign finance, 2004 was surely the year of the 527 committee. Named after the section of the Internal Revenue Code under which they are organized, 527s raised and spent more than $400 million, accounting for between a fifth and a fourth of total presidential election spending. Coming shortly after the Congress's enactment, and the Supreme Court's approval of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002, the rise of the 527s has been seen as an evasion of BCRA and a return of the soft money problem that BCRA was supposed to have solved. Congress is currently considering bills to more closely regulate 527s and to cap donations to them.

This Article traces the history of the 527s, examines their role in the 2004 election, and considers the constitutional questions raised by pending proposals to regulate them. It finds that although the explosive growth in 527s in 2004 directly followed BCRA's limits on political party soft money, gifts to 527s did not simply substitute for money that otherwise would have gone to the parties. Whereas many soft money gifts to the parties were clearly intended to win the donors influence with elected officials, the goals of 527 givers were more ideological. Corporations gave 527s far less money than they had previously given to the parties, while a handful of super-wealthy individual megadonors gave 527s far more than their previous soft money gifts. 527s do not clearly implicate the corruption concerns triggered by soft money, but they do raise important questions about the role of extremely large donations in our political system.

Pending proposals to treat 527s as political committees under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), and apply FECA's disclosure requirements and limits on corporate and union donations to 527s are likely to be found constitutional. The far more difficult question is whether Congress can limit the size of contributions to 527s. Surprisingly, that has little to do with the nature of the new 527s, but rather traces back to an unresolved tension at the heart of Buckley v. Valeo, in which the Court upheld contribution limits because they present a danger of corruption and the appearance of corruption but invalidated expenditure limits because expenditures raise no corruption danger. The Court has never clearly addressed whether it is constitutional to limit contributions to organizations that only make independent expenditures and do not give money to candidates.

Capping donations to 527s that only make expenditures does not fit easily under Buckley's anti-corruption paradigm. The Article presents three theories that would support limits on very large individual donations to 527s: (i) empirically, treating the web of informal relations between 527s and political parties as demonstrating that at least some 527s are arms of the parties, so that they can be regulated like parties; (ii) broadening the definition corruption to include the consequences of the gratitude a candidate is likely to feel for spending that benefits him, even if the spending is not coordinated with his campaign; and (iii) reconsidering Buckley's rejection of controlling the political role of wealth inequality as a basis for limiting spending. The third argument would be the most radical departure from Buckley, but it comes closest to capturing the particular challenge posed by the 527s.

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