Super PACs are still a bad idea. Corporations should not be able to give unlimited sums to political campaigns. It is bad for our democracy.Bill Burton, co-founder of an Obama-supporting super PAC, Priorities USA. This is a significant question for Democrats: Should progressives who oppose the very existence of super PACs also oppose progressive super PACS? Or is the utilization of super PACS a necessary step to changing the legal framework that makes them possible? Burton seems to believes it’s the second. “Citizens United harms our country, not just the liberal cause,” he says. “I’m proud of the work we did at Priorities in this election, but this system is broken and needs reform.” source (paywall)
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Montana’s campaign donation limits, telling the federal judge who overturned it to outline his full reasoning so the panel can review the case.
The court intervened late Tuesday less than a week after the judge’s decision opened the door to unlimited money in state elections – during the height of election season.
Big news out of the 9th Circuit this morning, regarding the state of Montana’s continued efforts to regulate campaign finance post-Citizens United. We don’t expect this to be the end of the story though, and it seems increasingly likely that this will end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court before this is all over.
I am hoping to work myself out of a job.David Donnelly, co-founder of Friends of Democracy, on the irony of backing a super PAC that aims to abolish super PACs. (via The New York Times)
The Supreme Court has overruled the Montana Supreme Court decision limiting the Citizens United ruling to the federal level. This decision makes that controversial decision also apply to the state level as well. Read it here.
Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan, a self-made Florida millionaire, is only in his third term in Congress, but he already is in charge of fundraising for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, and he sits on the powerful House Ways and Means committee.
But all that could be jeopardized. Federal investigations underway could result in Buchanan serving his next term behind bars.
CNN has confirmed there are no fewer than four congressional and federal investigations into Buchanan’s business practices, his campaign finances and his alleged attempt to try to stop a witness from talking.
Now that witness is stepping forward in an exclusive interview with CNN. Buchanan’s former business partner says the congressman schemed to launder money from his car dealerships into his campaign coffers, and then tried to get others to cover it up.
“Mr. Buchanan is a very selfish person, and in my opinion people who go to Congress have got to do good for the people they represent.” Here’s a scandal that’s been a bit under the radar of late.
Obviously, maybe in a roundabout way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign.Sen. John McCain • Criticizing the recent $10 million donation casino magnate Sheldon Adelson made to Mitt Romney’s Super PAC by suggesting that Adelson likely used profits from properties he owns in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau to fund Romney’s campaign. (It’s an issue near and dear to McCain’s heart, as the campaign finance bill that Citizens United largely struck down, McCain-Feingold, bears his name.) The Las Vegas Sands head also played a heavy role in the primaries, heavily funding Newt Gingrich’s electoral efforts. While people from foreign countries cannot fund election efforts, McCain is arguing that efforts like Adelson’s skirt around this, due to the fact that Adelson is the leader of a multinational corporation. Follow McCain’s logic here?
Ethical lapses aplenty: Last week saw Kwame R. Brown, the second-ranking political official in the city, step down from his job in the wake of a campaign finance and bank fraud scandal. Before that, Harry Thomas Jr. dropped his city council seat in January and is about to head to jail on bank fraud charges. And two mayor Vincent Gray’s aides pleaded guilty on corruption charges of their own (though Gray denies wrongdoing). It’s another set of scandals in a city that has seen more than its fair share. “Politicians will say there’s a culture of corruption, and often people say it’s rhetoric,” notes Democratic activist Bryan Weaver “But when it comes to D.C., there’s a culture of corruption that really exists. What gets passed off as politics as usual are huge ethical lapses.” Read more here. (photo by Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
Today in ongoing tension: Jurors in the John Edwards campaign finance trial will deliberate for a seventh day, amid word of “juror issues” affecting the decision-making in the case. Edwards could face prison time depending on how they decide. (photo by Gerry Broome/AP)
The Super PACs have played a key role, unfortunately, in my view, because most of them are negative ads. They’ve driven up the unfavorables of all of the candidates and made it much more difficult, frankly, to win the election in November.Sen. John McCain • Speaking on the 2012 presidential election, which he called “the nastiest I have ever seen.” Remember, this is coming from the guy who once was falsely accused of birthing a black child out of wedlock. So his standards are pretty high as far as nasty races go. McCain, a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform, went further, calling the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision “the worst decision the United States Supreme Court has made in many years.”
Time for Citizens United: Round 2? Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the Montana Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the state’s longstanding campaign finance laws banning corporate political spending, American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock. The decision came after American Tradition Partnership and two Montana businesses filed an application asking the Court to strike down the Montana Supreme Court’s decision. ATP now has until the end of March to formally request that the Court review the Montana Supreme Court’s decision. If they don’t, Montana’s decision would stand, but should they file the request, it would pave the way for a full review of the controversial Citizens United decision. (photo courtesy of flickr user kenudigit) source
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We’ve retained independent counsel to look at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story and report back to us… Amy, why don’t we talk about the campaign going forward?Herman Cain’s chief-of-staff, Mark Block • Refusing to give a detailed answer on the much less examined scandal afflicting the Cain campaign right now. As we mentioned earlier, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that early in Herman Cain’s presidential run, his campaign accepted about $40,000 worth of illegal donations from a charity, Prosperity USA, which was run by Mark Block himself. This is, so far as we’ve seen, the first instance of Block or any representative of the Cain campaign being asked directly about this, and it doesn’t seem like he was very keen on the question. source (via • follow)
» And he wasn’t even at his peak powers: Thanks to the long-running debt ceiling debate that boringly captivated the country earlier this summer, Obama had to turn down a number of major fundraising events, lowering his total from the previous quarter. He’s miles ahead of every other candidate, for obvious reasons: The still-splintered GOP field has to fight with each other for the right to take on Obama next November.
SCOTUS: Should Scalia & Thomas have skipped campaign finance?: Liberal group Common Cause argues that the justices should’ve recused themselves from last year’s campaign finance decision for ties to Koch Industries and advocacy groups. source
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