Gavel Grab

Senate Republicans drew condemnation in two newspaper editorials for blocking a bill to require disclosure by corporations and labor unions of their political spending (see Gavel Grab).

“Senate Republicans made sure this fall’s elections will be drenched in corporate money,” said a San Francisco Chronicle editorial. “Get ready for a high-spending mud fight this fall as business groups exploit the [Supreme Court's Citizens United] ruling and take advantage of low polling numbers for Democrats.”

A New York Times editorial was headlined, “Keeping Politics in the Shadows.” Foes of the measure, the editorial said, “want the right to poison the political atmosphere without being held accountable for their speech.”

The editorial added that supporters of the measure, called The DISCLOSE Act, didn’t help their cause by adding several unnecessary provisions that attracted Republican opposition. Read more

Target Corp.’s donations totaling $150,000 to a group supporting the GOP candidate for governor in Minnesota have sparked controversy.

Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel told employees that Target is “unwavering” in support of the gay community, according to an Associated Press article, which noted concerns raised by gay Target employees. The GOP candidate, Tom Emmer, is a staunch conservative and opposes gay marriage. The group supporting him, MN Forward, is running ads backing Zemmer.

“We rarely endorse all advocated positions of the organizations or candidates we support, and we do not have a political or social agenda,” Steinhafel said.

Under the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, corporations and labor unions can spend unlimited sums to support or oppose political candidates with independent advertising. The impact of that decision is not clear.

“This is the leading edge,”  Ed Bender, who heads the National Institute on Money in State Politics, told AP.

Senate Republicans have blocked efforts by Democrats to advance  a bill with more stringent requirements for special interest groups, unions and corporations to disclose their political spending.

Democrats were unable to muster the 60 votes needed Tuesday to get past a filibuster by Republicans against The DISCLOSE Act, as the bill is called, and it could mean the bill is dead for this year, according to a Reuters article. The procedural vote was 57-41.

“The DISCLOSE Act seeks to protect unpopular Democrat politicians by silencing their critics,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.

President Obama, in Rose Garden remarks on Monday, had called for passage of the bill. A vote against it, he said, “is nothing less than a vote to allow corporate and special interest takeovers of our elections,” the San Francisco Examiner reported. Read more

A bill to require disclosure of corporate and labor union spending to influence elections has stalled in the U.S. Senate, but one-fifth of the states have passed legislation to require further disclosure of political spending.

This update comes from an article in USA Today, reporting that states have passed measures quickly in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision in January.

States adopting new rules are Iowa, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, South Dakota and West Virginia. In Washington state, existing laws governing disclosure were broadened.

“In most of the states, it’s ‘Hey, what’s the big deal? Let’s provide information,’ ” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, a partner of Justice at Stake. Read more

New reports are surfacing across the country of businesses and special interests working to exert more political influence in elections, following the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United v. FEC decision. Judicial elections are among the targets.

“An organization is being formed to coordinate spending by businesses interested in electing sympathetic judges. It plans to gear up next year,” reported an article in the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. The article was headlined, “Businesses look for more state election influence.”

While Georgia corporations in the past were permitted to pump unlimited dollars into independent expenditures, “signs point to increased corporate involvement,” the article said.

In Minnesota, an umbrella group funded by state businesses has begun airing a TV ad supporting Tom Emmer, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful, according to a Minnesota Public Radio report. It referred specifically to the impact of Citizens United:

“Because of a U.S Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, those businesses and other companies are now allowed to spend corporate money to influence elections. That court ruling, along with an open governor’s race, means political spending will dramatically increase from the last governor’s race.” Read more

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce has filed  litigation challenging Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land’s recent interpretation of state campaign finance law in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

The Chamber has gone to court challenging part of Land’s ruling in May. She effectively said,  according to a Grand Rapids Press article,  “the state chamber can use its own funds to back political candidates, but cannot set up a political committee to accept outside funding and use the money to support or oppose a candidate.”

A copy of the litigation, filed in U.S. District Court, is available here. You can learn more about Land’s earlier declaratory ruling from Gavel Grab.

Citizens United lifted restrictions on corporate political spending for independent advertising to support or oppose candidates in elections.

In the upcoming midterm elections, advocacy groups on both sides of the political fence “are expected to pour tens of millions of dollars into loosely regulated independent election expenditures,” according to a CQPolitics.com article.

One of the expected top spenders will be the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A Chamber vice president, Bruce Josten, said his group hopes to pull in as much as $75 million to spend on election operations in such states as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois.

While Democrats predict the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision will open the floodgates for spending by businesses and their coalitions, Josten said campaign spending disclosure legislation in Congress doesn’t make corporations happy.

“That does not compel companies to write checks,” Josten said. “It is clearly a factor in the decision-making of corporations if in fact it does become law.”

The legislation has been passed by the House. In the Senate, it could face a Republican filibuster, according to a New York Times editorial.

You can read about the disclosure legislation in Congress, and similar bills in state legislatures, from Gavel Grab.

In recent years, the Supreme Court has staunchly upheld the constitutionality of campaign disclosure laws, saying there is public value in letting voters know who is bankrolling attempts to sway elections.

In the wake of Citizens United, which allowed unlimited election spending by corporations, six states have toughened their disclosure laws. No state was more forceful than Minnesota, where the legislature voted unanimously to require corporations to disclose financial support of election-season advertising. Polls show overwhelming support for such laws.

Enter James Bopp (photo), in his latest attempt to claim that any campaign regulation, no matter how popular and common-sensical, violates the constitutional rights of beleaguered corporations.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, Bopp and three groups, including one for-profit corporation, argued that the new law unconstitutionally burdens them with the prospect of … unacceptable paperwork.

According to Bopp’s suit, all three groups would spend money on independent electioneering efforts in the fall, even naming some candidates they are interested in supporting. But they object to forming a political committee, as the new law requires, and filing those infernal campaign disclosure reports that show who’s paying to play come election time. To quote Bopp:

“Political funds have burdensome and onerous registration, reporting and record-keeping requirements. … A political fund must elect or appoint a treasurer. … A political fund is required to … [file] a ‘statement of organization.’ … A political fund must keep an account of the sum of all contributions received.”

To which one is tempted to say, “Horrors!”

In the last decade, independent groups have been a leading source of runaway spending on state court elections, conservatively pumping $39.3 million into Read more

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, bitterly divided 4-3, has formally issued new rules stating that lawful campaign donations from a litigant shall not alone require a judge’s recusal in a case. The new rules were accompanied by stinging, dueling statements in which justices on opposing sides belittled each other.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, in a dissenting commentary joined by two allies, wrote that the new rules “signify a dramatic change to our judicial code of ethics” and have fueled a widespread perception in newspaper editorials that they “subvert the integrity of the court.”

Justice Bradley assailed the rules’ adoption in what she called a “ramrod manner.” She also said that following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, “we should be adopting stronger standards for recusal rather than neutering our existing recusal rules.” Her statement came close to asking the legislature to look at judicial recusal:

“If this court is unwilling or unable to keep its own house in order, perhaps it will require action by others to step in and assist in maintaining the integrity of the court and preserving the public trust and confidence that Wisconsin judges will be impartial.”

Justice Patience Drake Roggensack, joined by colleagues in the majority, labeled Justice Bradley’s dissent as “undeserved” and as “a political statement that will foster disrespect for and distrust of the Wisconsin Supreme Court as an institution.” Justice Roggensack elaborated:

“Justice Bradley has chosen to base her attack on popular political positions, which she supports with newspaper articles rather than with the legal tenets upon which legal writing customarily is based.” Read more

As critiques of the Supreme Court’s recently completed term continue to roll in, the impact of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. is a prime topic.

In its latest term, “the Roberts court demonstrated its determination to act aggressively to undo aspects of law it found wanting, no matter the cost,” a New York Times editorial said.

To back up this analysis, the editorial cited from Justice Roberts’ concurring opinion in Citizens United. It summed up Justice Roberts’ approach this way:

“Justice Roberts wrote that the court must be willing to depart from a previous decision if it thinks it does damage to a constitutional ideal, and particularly if the precedent was an aberration. A decision can become an aberration, it turns out, if the court’s conservatives never agreed with it in the first place. If not quite legislating from the bench, this is not a formula for stability.”

A Los Angeles Times editorial limited its focus to First Amendment decisions by the court. In that category, it said, the Supreme Court compiled in its latest term “a mixed record at best.” Read more