Editorials: A Bipartisan Voting Rights Act Is Possible | Spencer Overton/Huffington Post

Conventional wisdom among some liberals, conservatives, and moderates is that a “polarized Congress” will never update the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act bill introduced today in Congress (summary here, bill text here), however, shows that a bipartisan update is possible. Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court scaled back part of the Voting Rights Act. The Act required that all or parts of 15 states (many in the South) preclear their changes to election rules with federal officials. The Court ruled that the formula that determined which states had to preclear their changes was unconstitutional because it was based on election data from the 1960s and ’70s, and the decision effectively released those 15 states from preclearance. The new bill responds to the Court’s decision by tying preclearance to recent discrimination. For example, the bill would require a state with five or more Voting Rights Act violations in the last 15 years to preclear new election law changes. While the new bill would require that fewer states preclear changes, the new bill expands nationwide some of the functions served by preclearance.

Florida: Miami-Dade mayor overturns elections supervisor, will keep key absentee ballot information public | Miami Herald

Miami-Dade County will no longer block the public from obtaining key information that has helped detect attempted voting fraud. Overturning a decision by his appointed elections supervisor, Mayor Carlos Gimenez said Thursday that Internet Protocol addresses for absentee-ballot requests submitted online are public record. Gimenez explained his position in a memo to Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who had asked the mayor to use his executive authority to make the IP addresses available. Supervisor of Elections Penelope Townsley had said she would keep them secret. Gimenez and Townsley both said Thursday they had spoken earlier and agreed to the policy change. “

National: There’s No Way to Follow the Money | The Atlantic

Christmas comes early for campaign watchdogs—or late, depending on your perspective. Thanks to a lag in IRS reporting rules, the tax returns of independent groups that spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2012 election are just now coming due. Considered together with a recent campaign-finance investigation in California, these filings hint at an orgy of self-dealing and “dark money” shenanigans unprecedented in American politics. The first presidential election since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision spawned what Bloomberg Businessweek called “a Cayman Islands-style web of nonprofit front groups and shell companies.” These not only shielded donors’ identities but also obscured the huge profits of political operatives who moved nimbly between the candidates, the super PACs, and the vendors that get their business. The so-called “independent expenditure” groups have been “transforming the business of running a political campaign and changing the pecking order of the most coveted jobs,” Businessweek noted. “With a super-PAC, the opportunity to make money is soaring while the job is getting easier to do.” Is it any wonder then that many of the biggest players from past elections jumped to the other side of the game in 2012? Or that they imported two money-making techniques perfected in campaign work: shell corporations that put fees and commissions beyond the reach of federal disclosure rules, and “integrated businesses,” set up by staff and advisers to do nuts-and-bolts electioneering?

National: Corporate campaign contributions issue falls off SEC regulatory agenda | Al Jazeera

Advocates for more transparency in the political system were dealt another blow this week as the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped a potential rule on the disclosure of corporate campaign contributions from its 2014 agenda. The regulatory agency, which is mandated to protect investors, is required by law to submit its agenda for the next year to the Office of Management and Budget. A conspicuous absence this time was consideration of a rule that would require publicly traded companies to disclose the specifics of their political spending to shareholders — an item that was included in the SEC’s 2013 agenda but was never acted upon. Individuals, interest groups, and corporations can write to the SEC to show they are in favor or opposed to proposed regulations. This particular provision garnered more than 600,000 public comments, more than any other rule in the SEC’s history, mostly written in favor of more disclosure. That fact alone makes the SEC’s decision all the more disappointing to those agitating for reform.

National: New IRS rules add both clarity and confusion about the role of advocacy groups in politics | The Washington Post

For the first time since 1959, nonprofit advocacy groups face new Internal Revenue Service rules governing their political activities, an area of the tax code that has been crying out for greater clarity. A proposed regulation unveiled Tuesday by the Treasury Department draws the boundaries more clearly — but instantly kicked off intense debate about whether the lines are in the right place. One phrase in the official notice summed up the imperfect nature of the exercise. The new rules, the department said, “may be both more restrictive and more permissive than the current approach.” That seemingly contradictory statement reflects the muddy zone now occupied by “social welfare” organizations set up under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code. Originally a designation used by civic leagues and homeowner associations, social welfare groups emerged in the past decade as the go-to vehicles for political operatives seeking to influence campaigns without revealing their donors.

National: Experts: ‘Dark money’ here to stay | The Hill

A new administration proposal to limit the political activity of tax-exempt groups could fall short of forcing “dark money” out of campaigns, experts say. The new Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service proposals, which are expected to spark extensive debate, would bar so-called 501(c)(4) organizations from counting certain political activity as part of their social welfare work. But the IRS and Treasury are still going to accept recommendations on how much political activity a group can engage in while still receiving the prized 501(c)(4) status — and their decision is crucial to lawmakers and outside groups trying to ensure that big-time political contributors are public knowledge. But no matter how the decision comes down, campaign finance experts predict lawyers will eventually be able to find a way to help donors avoid public disclosure. “One thing we’ve learned is that very few fixes in this area of the law are permanent, and it requires a consistent regulatory response since lawyers can find their way around these rules,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine. According to the current law, groups classified as 501(c)(4), which can accept unlimited amounts of donations, are to be exclusively engaged in promoting social welfare.

California: Probe of campaign donations sheds light on ‘dark money’ | Los Angeles Times

Tony Russo had a multimillion-dollar problem. The Republican consultant and his team had raised piles of cash to use in California politics as last November’s election approached. But a wrinkle in state law meant he couldn’t spend it in the final two months of the campaign without jeopardizing the anonymity he had promised his rich donors. So Russo turned to what he called “the Koch network.” He asked a political consultant who has worked with billionaire Republican contributors Charles and David Koch to shuttle the money through an Arizona nonprofit. That group, which is not required to reveal its donors, could send cash to California causes without names attached. But things went from bad to worse. Although Russo handed over $25 million, only about $15 million ended up back in California. And when the money surfaced, it sparked an investigation by state authorities, who last month[ levied $16 million in penalties against the Arizona group and three others.

Editorials: Politicians’ Extortion Racket | Peter Schweizer/New York Times

We have long assumed that the infestation of special interest money in Washington is at the root of so much that ails our politics. But what if we’ve had it wrong? What if instead of being bribed by wealthy interests, politicians are engaged in a form of legal extortion designed to extract campaign contributions? Consider this: of the thousands of bills introduced in Congress each year, only roughly 5 percent become law. Why do legislators bother proposing so many bills? What if many of those bills are written not to be passed but to pressure people into forking over cash? This is exactly what is happening. Politicians have developed a dizzying array of legislative tactics to bring in money. Take the maneuver known inside the Beltway as the “tollbooth.” Here the speaker of the House or a powerful committee chairperson will create a procedural obstruction or postponement on the eve of an important vote. Campaign contributions are then implicitly solicited. If the tribute offered by those in favor of the bill’s passage is too small (or if the money from opponents is sufficiently high), the bill is delayed and does not proceed down the legislative highway.

Editorials: No, overturning campaign contribution limits really would be a problem | Bob Biersack/Washington Post

Ray La Raja made some interesting points in his post last week about McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.  I’m not as sanguine as he is about this case, and I think each of his points deserves a little more consideration. First, Ray argues that the current direct contribution limit for people giving to candidates ($2,600 per election) is very low.  He goes so far as to note that $2,600 is about 0.18% of the $1.4 million or so the typical House winner spends in a campaign.  There are a couple of nits to pick with this description.  First, the $2,600 limit is, of course, a “per election” limit, and virtually every candidate for federal office participates in at least two elections (a primary and a general) in each cycle.  So, the proper way to describe this boundary is that the existing limit is effectively at least $5,200 per candidate.   That means that just under 300 people are able to fully fund the typical House winner under existing limits without a penny from PACs or parties or other campaigns — not exactly requiring a groundswell of support.

National: Campaign Contributions Go Into the Shadows During Shutdown | National Journal

There are four people working at the Federal Election Commission during the shutdown. There are usually 339. This is the agency that’s meant to shine a light on campaign contributions and expenditures, to let the people know who is paying for the attack ads flooding their television screens as Election Day approaches. Campaign contributions are going into the dark. Campaigns can still file electronically, but if the system breaks, there will be no one around to fix the problem. “And it is possible that technological problems may arise that would prevent filers from filing on time,” FEC’s website states.

Editorials: Time for corporations to disclose political donations | Lisa Gilbert/The Hill

Say you owned a business, and found out one of your employees was taking money out of the cash register and spending it on questionable ventures without telling you. You’d fire him, right? It’s a pretty clear-cut case of right and wrong. Now imagine that you aren’t allowed to know whether that employee is taking money out of your profits, or where the money is going. Sound unfair – and like a bad way to run a business? Sadly, that’s the case for shareholders – owners of the largest corporations in America – who’d like to know how their profits are being spent on political causes.  Now Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are holding a briefing to explain why shareholders’ need this information in their hands.

National: Not ‘essential’: Shutdown would hit FEC hard | Center for Public Integrity

If the federal government shuts down Tuesday, the Federal Election Commission — unlike some government agencies filled with employees deemed “essential” — will effectively go dark. Organizationally, all but the FEC’s four active commissioners, who are furlough-proof political appointees, would ultimately stay home. In all, 335 of the agency’s 339 employees would be affected, according to its 10-page “Commission Plan for Agency Operations in the Absence of the Fiscal Year 2014 Appropriation.” A small number of staff members, such as staff director Alec Palmer, would briefly work into a shutdown to help secure FEC facilities and records and aid with the agency’s wind-down, the plan states. And no one could labor on their own time and dime, as FEC staffers “are prohibited from performing any work functions while on furlough status, even on a voluntary basis,” the agency’s shutdown plan states.

California: New rules aim for transparency in online campaign material | Los Angeles Times

Under new rules approved Thursday, the state hopes to help Californians determine whether political material they read online is a writer’s own opinion or propaganda paid for by a campaign. Campaigns will now have to report when they pay people to post praise or criticism of candidates and ballot measures on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other websites. “The public is entitled to know who is paying for campaigns and campaign opinions,” so voters can better evaluate what they see on blogs and elsewhere online, said Ann Ravel, who chairs the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Open-government groups endorsed the new rules, which govern “favorable or unfavorable” content — although much of the time that information may come weeks or even months after publication. Bloggers and some others say the rules infringe on free speech. The regulations require disclosure by campaigns that pay someone $500 or more to post positive or negative content on Internet sites not run by the campaigns. In periodic spending reports required by the state, the campaigns would have to identify who was paid, how much and to which website or URL the posting was made.

Montana: Judge rules campaign disclosure law constitutional | The Missoulian

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Montana’s requirement that political committees disclose their campaign spending is constitutional. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen sided with the state in a new decision, and dismissed a case brought last year by the National Association for Gun Rights. He wrote that the public’s right to know who is financing political campaigns vastly outweighs the minimal burden imposed on committees required to report the information. The Virginia nonprofit organization originally argued it wanted to send political mailings on gun issues without registering as a political committee. The organization said it advances the “God-given right” to keep and bear arms.

National: PACs spent more at state level than on federal campaigns | Washington Post

Political action committees spent more money on state-level candidates in just 23 states during the 2012 election cycle than they did on federal candidates in all 50 states, according to a new analysis. The analysis from the Sunlight Foundation shows state-level PACs dished out $1.4 billion to candidates running for governor, attorney general, state legislative and other non-federal offices in those states. All told, PACs spent $1.2 billion on federal candidates. State PACs do not have to report their spending to the Federal Election Commission. Instead, they report to campaign finance organizations in the states in which they spend money, all of which have different rules for reporting, disclosure and spending.

Montana: State Legislators Aim to Check Dark Money Spending | PBS

After enduring one of the most expensive — and vicious — campaigns in Montana history, a handful of state senators and representatives are preparing an attack on dark money. They’re working on a ballot initiative that would let Montana voters decide whether nonprofit groups should disclose at least some of their donors. State politicians have grown increasingly concerned that outside groups have too much influence on their politics, said Sen. Jim Peterson, a Republican who has led the push for the ballot initiative. Peterson had proposed a Senate bill requiring more disclosure earlier this year, but it died in a House committee. “Dark money supporters use these nonprofit organizations, 501(c)4s in particular, to hide behind a curtain of secrecy so they can play in these elections anonymously,” he said. “And voters don’t like it. Candidates don’t like it. I don’t like it.”

National: Deadlock by design hobbles Federal Election Commission | Boston Globe

The free charter flight for Mitt Romney campaign volunteers seemed like an open-and-shut case for the six members of the Federal Election Commission. A wealthy friend of Romney spent $150,000 to fly as many as 200 campaign volunteers from Utah to a fund-raising phone-a-thon in Boston. The three Democrats on the FEC agreed with the agency’s staff that the charter appeared to violate rules limiting such “in-kind’’ gifts to $2,600 per election. But the three Republican commissioners disagreed, saying Romney’s friend merely acted “in behalf of’’ Romney’s 2008 campaign — not the illegal “on behalf of” — and thus the flight was allowed. With that twist of legal semantics, the case died — effectively dismissed. The 3-3 deadlock was part of a pattern of paralysis that has over the past five years gripped the commission, the nation’s principal referee for federal elections. The FEC has often been the subject of criticism since its founding four decades ago. But the impression of weakness has escalated dramatically, as Republicans named to the panel in 2008, united in the belief that the commission had been guilty of regulatory overreach, have moved to soften enforcement, block new rules, and limit oversight. In essence, according to critics, the FEC has been rendered toothless, and at the worst possible time, when powerful special interests are freer than they have been in decades to exert financial influence on Washington politicians.

Voting Blogs: IRS Enforcement and the Court | More Soft Money Hard Law

One theme in the narrative about the IRS is that it faces a special challenge in enforcing the (c)(4) rules in the wake of Citizens United. A (c)(4) organization, which is typically a corporation, can make independent expenditures, so long as this campaign activity and others do not make up its primary purpose. Two basic reform models have been advanced to protect against the misuse of these nonprofits to make these and other campaign-related expenditures. One is that the Service should generally employ more rigor in rooting out organizations that have exceeded their limit for political activity. Another is that the IRS should change its rules, switching the test from a “primary” social welfare purpose to an “exclusive one” without any campaign activity mixed in, and rid itself of the problem altogether: effectively, the no-tolerance option. In both cases, however, the proposed solutions may have to scale steep walls erected by Supreme Court precedent. These issues have to be taken into account in judging the role that IRS enforcement can play in campaign finance regulation.

National: IRS Probe Ignored Most Influential Groups | Associated Press

There’s an irony in the Internal Revenue Service’s crackdown on conservative groups. The nation’s tax agency has admitted to inappropriately scrutinizing smaller tea party organizations that applied for tax-exempt status, and senior Treasury Department officials were notified in the midst of the 2012 presidential election season that an internal investigation was underway. But the IRS largely maintained a hands-off policy with the much larger, big-budget organizations on the left and right that were most influential in the elections and are organized under a section of the tax code that allows them to hide their donors.

Nevada: Miller under attack as he pursues campaign finance reform | Las Vegas Sun

An out-of-state conservative group wants you to call Democratic Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller and tell him that you’re “sick of his costly hypocrisy.” If you think this sounds like a campaign ad, that’s because it is. A group called the State Government Leadership Foundation has attacked Miller for sponsoring a transparency and good-governance bill at the Legislature while alleging that Miller hasn’t been ethical himself. Ironically, some of the “lavish gifts” Miller has received would be curtailed under his banner bill, which he calls the Aurora Act. Miller also defends the gifts, which include football games, theatrical performances and UFC fights. “I disclose absolutely everything,” he said, noting that the gifts are legal.

Colorado: Ballot images from 2009 election online for public inspection | Aspen Daily News

Images of the ballots cast in the 2009 municipal election are available for public inspection now that a four-year legal battle between City Hall and an Aspen resident has come to a close. The city of Aspen made 2,415 ballot images available Thursday on its website, and released them to the attorney for Marilyn Marks, who sued the city for access to the ballots. There were a total of 2,544 ballots cast in the 2009 election; 129 of them have been withheld due to identifying markers that could be traced back to a voter. Marks, who on Thursday said she has not spent much time examining the images posted online, wondered why the city withheld 129 ballots and if officials plan to attempt to make contact with voters who cast them since it’s illegal to make distinguishing marks on a ballot.

Editorials: Behind the I.R.S. Mess: A Campaign-Finance Scandal | Steven Rattner/New York Times

Let’s stipulate that the scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative nonprofit groups portrays government as if drawn in caricature — an almost Keystone Kops-style comedy of errors on the part of low-level staffers, with a vein of possible political bias. Of course, the matter needs to be fully investigated, those responsible need to be held accountable and procedures need to be put in place to ensure that nothing like this can happen again. But let’s also remember what the I.R.S. brouhaha is not. Unlike the abuse of the I.R.S. by President Richard M. Nixon, in this case there’s no evidence that anyone in the White House had any involvement in — nor even any knowledge of — what was going on within the agency’s Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division.

National: IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups | ProPublica

The same IRS office that deliberatelytargeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year. The IRS did not respond to requests Monday following up about that release, and whether it had determined how the applications were sent to ProPublica. In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

National: Wider Problems Found at IRS | Wall Street Journal

The Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names—as the agency admitted Friday—to also include ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to “make America a better place to live,” according to new details of a government probe. The investigation also revealed that a high-ranking IRS official knew as early as mid-2011 that conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted—nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a congressional committee the agency wasn’t targeting conservative groups. Tax-exempt groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code are allowed to engage in some political activity, but the primary focus of their efforts must remain promoting social welfare.

National: I.R.S. Apologizes to Conservative Groups Over Application Audits | New York Times

The Internal Revenue Service apologized to Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations on Friday for what it now says were overzealous audits of their applications for tax-exempt status. Lois Lerner, the director of the I.R.S. division that oversees tax-exempt groups, acknowledged that the agency had singled out nonprofit applicants with the terms “Tea Party” or “patriots” in their titles in an effort to respond to a surge in applications for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012. She insisted that the move was not driven by politics, but she added, “We made some mistakes; some people didn’t use good judgment. For that we’re apologetic,” she told reporters on a conference call.

National: The IRS’s big admission: What it means | The Washington Post

The Internal Revenue Service dropped a bombshell on the political world Friday morning, acknowledging that it inappropriately targeted conservative political groups in the 2012 campaign, subjecting them to additional screening in their applications for tax-exempt status. An IRS official told the Associated Press that low-level staff unjustly focused on groups with words like “tea party” and “patriot” in their name, and the groups were asked for donor information, likely in violation of IRS policy. The news was met with a healthy dose of I-told-you-so from the conservative and tea party communities, which have long been pitted against the IRS and have in the past accused it of just such politically inappropriate behavior.

Editorials: Make companies disclose political spending | USAToday

Three years ago, when the Supreme Court opened the door to unlimited political donations by corporations, Justice Anthony Kennedy made the case for transparency as the best way to keep politics clean. Thanks to the power of the Internet, Kennedy wrote in the landmark Citizens United decision, “shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.” Alas, the world he described does not exist. Citizens and shareholders can’t make these determinations because they lack the basic information to do so.

Montana: Gov. Bullock and GOP senator roll out fix to stamp out campaign ‘dark money’ | Henleair

Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, and a Republican state senator joined forces Thursday behind a bill they said will force backers of anonymous political attacks in Montana to disclose their donors. “It is one thing to lie and distort the records of positions of those seeking office,” Bullock said at a Capitol news conference. “It takes it to a whole different level when those trying to corrupt our elections aren’t even courageous enough to stand behind their statements by disclosing who is writing the check.” Bullock said he is supporting a bill sponsored by Sen. Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, that, among other things, will require groups funding such attacks to report their donors.

National: Teachers Union Pushes Voting Rights, Disclosure Ahead Of State of the Union address | TPM

The largest teachers unions in the country is pushing President Obama to prioritize a number of electoral reforms, from new protections for voters to disclosure requirements, in his State of the Union address next week, suggesting a determination not to be outgunned once again during the upcoming midterm elections. “Reactionary state laws, unequal and unethical administration of voting procedures, and the unfettered access of corporations to influence electoral outcomes has severely damaged our democracy,” wrote NEA president Dennis Van Roekel in a letter Friday to Obama.

Montana: Judge throws book at American Tradition Partnership again; finds that it violated multiple state laws on disclosure | Helenair

The conservative “dark money” political group fighting state efforts to force disclosure of its finances lost another key court decision Friday, as a state judge ruled that it violated multiple state campaign-finance and election laws. District Judge Jeff Sherlock, of Helena, citing American Tradition Partnership’s continued failure to produce records requested by the state and the court, adopted the state’s proposed findings that ATP acted as political committee in 2008 and therefore must report its spending and donors. Sherlock ruled that members and officers of ATP used its corporate, nonprofit status “as a subterfuge to avoid compliance with state disclosure and disclaimer laws during the 2008 Montana election cycle.”