Category Archives: Money in Politics

Cut Time

By tmess2 | Published September 5, 2020

A political party serves two fundamental purposes.

First, people form and join political parties to advance policy.  (Of course, there are disagreements on the exact priorities or the specific details of policy proposals.)  In fact, one of the biggest mistakes that the Framers made was not anticipating that, once there were elections for federal offices, the groups in New Jersey that favored rural farmers over “urban” merchants would unite with similar groups in Georgia (and vice versa for the groups that favored merchants) rather than stay isolated in their own states.  Simply put, if you want a single-payer health care system, you are more likely to get it by forming a large group with other supporters of that type of proposal than working on your own.

Second, the way that political parties try to advance policy is by getting their candidates elected to office.  You can’t pass a single-payer system if the opponents of single-payer have the majority in Congress or control the White House.  And political parties win elections by finding good candidates and raising and spending money to support those candidates.   Especially in the year before the election, money tends to be spent on creating tools (like voter databases and helping state parties) that are available to all candidates that run on the party’s ticket.  And at this point in time, with the exception of the last handful of state primaries, the parties have their candidates. Continue Reading...

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How to Win in November

By DocJess | Published February 12, 2020

The most important thing that happened yesterday was NOT the New Hampshire primary. It was the unconscionable meddling by Bill Barr and his thugs on the Roger Stone and Mike Flynn legal cases. However, that has great impact on what we must do to insure that we win in November. Because every time you think they can’t go lower and more dangerous, they find a way. It’s what they excel at. And our only hope is to win back the Presidency….and a few other things.

There’s a lot of pain coming out of New Hampshire as people’s pick fave candidates drop out, or are on the verge of dropping out….as establishment Democrats and Movement people consider their options and our party schisms further.

So here’s my simple solution: as I see it, there are only two candidates who have a believable path to victory against the Orange Menace – we should all pick one, and get on that train, but commit to supporting the other if our pick isn’t successful — because we eat our young, and we will lose in November if we don’t. Continue Reading...

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Spending is Speech — A look back at Buckley vs. Valeo

By tmess2 | Published January 12, 2020

Most non-lawyers only vaguely, at best, know about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Buckley vs. Valeo.  However, Buckley was the 1970s equivalent of Citizens United.  And it is a major factor in the modern campaign finance system and the candidates that are running for President.

In the early 1970s, Congress passed two laws related to campaign finance — the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and a set of amendments in 1974.  Some of the provisions of these two statutes are familiar to people who follow politics because the Supreme Court upheld them.  These laws established the limits on contributions to campaigns — both by individuals and by political action committees and required campaigns to report donations.  The law also established the system of public funding of presidential campaigns which is still nominally on the books.  (Simply put, the law on public financing and the resources for public financing have not kept up with the ability of candidates to raise funds through various means including the internet.  Candidates can easily raise a level of funding that vastly exceeds the expenditure limits that are associated with accepting public finance.  And once one candidate opts to forego public financing, the rest of the candidates have to exceed those limits too.)

What most people do not remember is that these laws placed limits on expenditure in federal elections and restricted the ability of candidates to self-fund.  While the Supreme Court did not directly state that spending is speech, it did note that spending by a political campaigns is connected to its ability to speak and communicate the candidate’s message.  As a result, the Supreme Court found that mandatory limits on campaign expenditures (as opposed to the voluntary limits that went with accepting public funding) and any limits on independent expenditures were unconstitutional.  While this part of the ruling ultimately led to PACs and Super-PACs having the ability to run their own ads supporting and attacking candidates, that power mostly impacts things at the end of the process. Continue Reading...

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Catching Up with TMess, and a Local Note

By DocJess | Published August 13, 2019

I don’t just blog here, I read, too. And over the past few days, TMess has posted some riveting information, and I learned tons! I agree completely with his take on the House (link), and learned about the upcoming international elections (link) which he keeps up with, and the rest of us really should since we’re part of the world. Oh! Canada! Touch blue, make it true (for those of you who remember the 70’s).

But what really fascinated me was his information on the 2020 delegate selection plans. (Link.) The most compelling tidbit related to the changes in how Iowa will calculate its delegates. Far different from how it was through 2016. It will be a real game changer, although the math will be tricky. Remember, folks, that no matter what the national polls say, “All Politics Is Local” and it’s those primaries and caucuses that will lead to the delegate count.

I do, however, take issue with TMess’ numbers. He says that approximately a third of the delegates will be chosen by Super Tuesday. And that’s been true in the past BUT this year is different, as is my math. There are two ways to calculate delegates: one is off the total number of delegates, meaning both pledged delegates and Super Delegates. That number is 4,532. And if that’s how one counts, then “approximately a third” is okay math – the actual number is 35%. HOWEVER, the Super Delegates are not chosen at primaries nor caucuses. They are already delegates. So when you subtract the 764 Super Delegates, math indicated 3,768 pledged delegates, meaning that the actual amount of chosen delegates by Super Tuesday is 42%. Not that much of a difference, but it’s closer to half than a third. Granted, some of the dates might shift, but having both Texas and California as Super Tuesday states is a big deal in terms of pledged delegates allocated. Together, they hold 17% of the pledged delegates. Continue Reading...

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June at the Supreme Court — October 2017 Term

By tmess2 | Published June 3, 2018

Because the Supreme Court has a custom of publishing opinions in the same term as the oral argument on a case and the justices like to wrap up their work before July 4, June is always an active month at the Supreme Court — the legal equivalent of an everything must go closeout sale.  Because during the rest of the year, the Supreme Court issues decisions as the opinions are ready for release, the June opinions reflect two groups of cases.  First, there are the cases from late in the year — March and April primarily — for which a June decision would reflect a somewhat normal opinion pace.  Even for a unanimous decision, it takes time to write an opinion, and sixty days is somewhat the norm even for unanimous opinion.  Second, there are the difficult cases.  While sixty days from argument to opinion is a good pace when everyone agrees, if other justices want to write an opinion (dissenting or concurring) in response to the initial opinion that extends things considerably — particularly if the original author revises their draft to respond to the other opinions as sometimes happens.

This year’s caseload for June is somewhat on the high end for recent years with 29 cases still pending.  (For now the Supreme Court is just issuing cases on Monday, but, at some point this month, the Supreme Court will add additional days each week.  Needing to issue seven cases per week, my hunch is that they will go to two days per week starting June 11, but they might hold off to June 18.)  While there have been other years with more cases still pending at this point in time, what makes this year exceptional is the low number of cases decided.  The Supreme Court only had 63 arguments this year, reflecting the continued decline in accepting cases.  Of those 63 cases, two were dismissed meaning that the Supreme Court has only decided 32 argued cases this year.   As would be expected, the Supreme Court has decided most of the cases from argued between October and January — 28 decisions out of 34 cases.  Of the twenty-nine cases argued in February, March, and April, the Supreme Court has dismissed two cases and decided four cases.  Because the Supreme Court tries to balance out opinion assignments from each argument session, that means that there is some clue as to who is handling the pending cases from the first four argument sessions, but very little clue as to the last three sessions.

From October, there is only one case left and it is bigly important — Gill vs. Whitford on partisan gerrymandering.  Based on the other opinions from October, it appears that Chief Justice Roberts got the initial assignment on the case.  Normally, that would be a bad sign for those who believe that the Supreme Court has some role to play in assuring fair elections.  However, after the initial conference, the Supreme Court did accept a second case on partisan gerrymandering.  I can also see a situation in which the majority saw problems with the standard used by the panel but could not agree on what the standard should be.  That split would allow Chief Justice Roberts to assign the case to himself but could lead to a situation (like the last time that the Supreme Court considered this issue) in which there was no majority opinion.  Or the argument in the second case may have clarified issues resulting in one of the other justices now having the majority opinion. Continue Reading...

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Following the Money: Congress 2018

By DocJess | Published April 22, 2018

There used to be an immutable law about campaign finances: more money always beats less money, unless candidates self-fund, which rarely works out well. WOW! Things have changed.

There are still some rules about campaign money that hold true. First, if, as a candidate, you can get a local voter to give you money, even $5, they are going to vote for you because they’re invested in you. Granted, if you do something incredibly stupid, that could change, although it may not. For example, there are people who fund candidates who still vote for said candidate even if the election falls between conviction and sentencing. (I am not making this up.) Contrary, if you, the candidate, sleep with a donor’s underage child and that donor probably will withdraw support, although sadly, not always. (Again, not making this up.)

Second rule is that if you cannot, as a campaign, raise a certain amount of money, you cannot be competitive. This amount differs based on the level of the election, and the cost of the media market, but all campaigns need to be able to fund a field operation at the very least. It’s pretty cheap to fund a school board operation: you need database access, some mailers/door lit, gas for the car to get to events. You can do that for less than a thousand dollars in most places. However, once you get to a state or Federal position, you need a paid campaign manager, likely a paid field person (both with legit skills), an office, advertising funds, and it goes on from there: in an expensive media market you’re looking at tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, to even more. Basically, you need enough money to run a credible, professional campaign. Continue Reading...

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The Democratic Party: Where do we go from here?

By DocJess | Published April 17, 2017

In the past week, I had three conversations that all intersect on the issue of the future of the Democratic Party. Three quite different people, and varying subject matters. I have not yet reached a conclusion, but the questions raised fascinate me.

Conversation 1

I belong to a political action group and we had a meeting. While the topic doesn’t matter, this comment still rings in my ears: “I work in a factory, and we make decisions immediately. I hope the rest of you won’t take this wrong, but you are pencil pushers.” Continue Reading...

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Where are the Battlegrounds?

By tmess2 | Published August 13, 2016

   Party committees — whether it be the Democratic National Committee or your local county or township committee —  serve three basic functions in politics.  First, they try to find good candidates to run for office — preferably candidates that the committee views as having a strong chance at winning in the general election.  This function can become controversial when other folks also want to run and people start complaining about the party trying to rig the race or stack the deck.  Second, the party committees raise money.  Particularly at the national level, where big money is involved, this function sometimes looks unseemly as both parties typically offer access to party leaders to big dollar donors.  Finally, the parties decide what to do with the money they raise.  Some of this money go to basic party building activities, paying for voter databases and committee staff that help all of the candidates.  But, at both the state and national level, there is money to go for staff for field offices in certain states and certain areas of states and to spend on party sponsored ads.  Similarly, the campaign of the presidential campaign also has money for staff and ads.  The question for the party committees and the presidential campaign is where to put the staff and where to buy the ads.  That question turns on conclusions about where the most bang can be gotten for the buck — which states are the battleground states, those with a close battle where the extra resources could potentially swing the election.

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Missouri Primary

By tmess2 | Published July 31, 2016

The state that gave voters Todd Akin in 2012 is back at it again.  Missouri used to have campaign finance limits, but — when the Republicans held the Governor’s mansion between 2005 and 2008 — those limits went away.  (There might be a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this fall to restore those limits.  In recent years, policy proposals have tended to be constitutional amendments to avoid any legislative attempts to repeal voter-approved legislation such as the original campaign finance limits.)  It is not unusual for one donor (actually one of two or three individuals) to give several hundred thousand dollars in seed money to a candidate.  As a result, the pre-filing period sees a lot of candidates changing races in response to these well-funded candidates.  Outside of the U.S. Senate race, each of the state-wide races (there are five state offices on the ballot) has a competitive primary on at least one side of the ballot.

Republicans like to describe Missouri as a state with two thorns in its sides.  The two thorns being the St. Louis area and the Kansas City area; both of which tend to vote for the “liberal” side of any proposition or race, often overcoming a “conservative” majority in almost all of the remaining counties.  This picture of Missouri tends to be reflected in the two primaries.  On the Democratic side, there is often a battle between St. Louis and Kansas City,  On the Republican side, it is often Springfield against the Kansas City and St. Louis exurbs.  On to the individual races.

Continue Reading...

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Trump, Inc., for President

By tmess2 | Published July 23, 2016

For all that is different about this year’s presidential race, the one that, for the most part, has been overlooked is that Trump is the head of a closely-held family business.  For lawyers, there is a big difference in how we look at publicly traded companies and those that are privately held.    If a company is publicly traded, it has to file SEC reports and answer to a diverse group of stockholders.  While officers and directors can engage in self-dealing, there is a clear separateness between them and the corporation.  When a company is owned by a single person or family, lawyers are more likely to take a very close look at whether the owners treat the corporation’s assets as their personal assets or if they maintain an appropriate degree of separation.   In other words, we look at whether the corporation and the person are truly separate or whether the owner treats the business as his alter ego.

Everything that we have seen in this race so far tends to indicate that Donald Trump is the Trump Organization and that the Trump Organization is Donald Trump.  Throughout the primary, Trump held a lot of events at Trump Organization properties (with Trump Organization products lavishly displayed),  This week at the convention, we saw this overlap in the news reports on Melania’s speech.  Aside from what the plagiarism says about Trump Organization business practices and what that say about how Trump would govern, the bigger concern is how the Trump Organization just delegated somebody to work on the speech.  (Given that Trump is the owner of the Trump Organization, the campaign laws issues is easily managed.  Trump just has the Organization give him a dividend which he contributes to the campaign and the campaign pays back to the Organization — a mere paper transaction that complies with the law.)

If, before the election, Trump sees the Organization as a tool to further his personal ambitions, what happens after the election?  Traditionally, a president (or other politician)with significant holdings puts them into a blind trust.  In theory, because the politician does not know what changes the trustee may make to the portfolio, this practice prevents them from making decisions to benefit their personal stock holdings (e.g., deciding to change weapons acquisitions from the army to the air force because they hold Boeing stock).  With Trump, there is simply no conceivable way that Trump could divest himself of his holdings in the Trump Organization.  More importantly, while Trump may step down from day-to-day management, the new CEO will be one of his children (and we have already seen the key role that his children play in advising him).  The first time that Trump tries to play hardball with another foreign leader, the logical response will be for that foreign leader to start talking about what that country could do to help or hurt the Trump Organization.    If Trump wants China to take a tougher stance on piracy of movies and software, China may offer a good site for a Trump Casino in Hong Kong.  Trump wants Mexico to do more on drug trafficking, Mexico may impose some new regulations that effect the Trump property in Baja.  When the Trump Organization’s interests diverge from the U.S. interests, whom will Trump favor?  The risk that Trump will sacrifice the U.S. to favor his company is simply to large for any reasonable person to take.

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