In a letter sent yesterday afternoon to members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, groups urged the members to vote against a resolution pending before the committee today to censure IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

The groups included include Democracy 21, Americans for Democratic Action, Campaign Legal Center, Center for Media and Democracy, Common Cause, CREW, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Issue One, National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund, Money Out! People In!, National Organization of Women, People For the American Way, Public Citizen and Small Planet Institute.

According to the letter:

The case being made against Commissioner Koskinen is meritless. There is no justification for taking the unwarranted action pending before the committee to punish Commissioner Koskinen.

The censure resolution, furthermore, is an approach established by the House to take action against one of its own members. It was not established to take action against an executive branch official and would be wrongly used in this matter.

The letter stated:

The censure resolution being proposed is, unfortunately, in line with other unwarranted attacks that House Republicans have made against the IRS. For example, the slashing of IRS budget funds has seriously undermined the ability of the agency to do its job and effectively collect the revenues which the government is entitled to by law. It is the political equivalent of “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” 

Riders adopted by House Republicans, furthermore, have prohibited the IRS from adopting new regulations to properly interpret and implement the statutory requirements that apply to section 501(c)(4) organizations and other section 501(c) groups. This has prevented the IRS from replacing outmoded regulations adopted more than a half century ago with new regulations to govern section 501(c) groups and prevent them from improperly spending secret contributions in federal elections.

Since 2010, more than $500 million in secret contributions have been spent through section 501(c) groups to influence federal elections. Secret contributions prevent public accountability for improper government actions taken to benefit undisclosed donors.

The letter concluded:

The committee should abandon its unwarranted, unjustified effort to censure Commissioner Koskinen and let the IRS and Commissioner Koskinen do their job.

We strongly urge you to vote against any resolution to censure or otherwise attack IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

To read the letter: click here

Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center sent a letter today to FEC Commissioners challenging the agency’s failure to adopt regulations to implement the restricted national party accounts enacted in December 2014 and warning about the consequences of this failure.

Congress snuck a rider into a session-ending Omnibus Appropriations bill in 2014 that authorized three new separate party accounts for the DNC and RNC. Each account is authorized to receive contributions up to $100,200 per donor, per year, thereby allowing a single donor to give more than $300,000 to these national party committee accounts. The donor can give an additional $33, 400 per year to the party to make campaign related expenditures.

The use of the money in each of these new accounts is restricted: one account is to pay for the presidential nominating conventions, a second account is to pay for the legal costs of election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings and the third account is to pay for the construction, purchase and operation of party headquarter buildings.

None of these funds are authorized to be used for campaign expenses.

The FEC is supposed to administer and formulate policy on the provisions. Yet seventeen months after have the provisions were enacted, the agency has failed to even begin a proceeding to adopt regulation or further define the restricted scope of the new accounts.

“The indefensible failure of the FEC to adopt regulations for the restricted accounts and the widely held view by political operatives that campaign finance laws are not enforced are bound  to result in the misuse of the money in these accounts.” according to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer. “Already there are published reports that Trump campaign strategists plan to use the restricted accounts for campaign expenditures. History tells us that when you don’t have proper enforcement of laws, you don’t have the laws.”

“The language of the appropriations bill is clear. It’s illegal for the parties to use these mega donations for campaign expenses,” said Paul S. Ryan, Campaign Legal Center Deputy Executive Director. “The FEC should have adopted regulations by now, but even without regulations it’s still the FEC’s job to enforce the restrictions on use of these accounts.”

The letter concluded:

The discussion at last week’s meeting made clear that the Commission has given up on having rules in place for the frenzy of raising and spending the huge donations that are already flowing into these new party accounts. With or without regulations in place, however, it is still the Commission’s ongoing responsibility to ensure that the statutory restrictions on these accounts are followed. Therefore, we urge the Commission to issue interim regulations or otherwise make clear that the statutory limitations on the use of these accounts will be enforced and that no campaign expenditures can be made from these accounts.   

To read the letter: click here. 

In a letter sent today, reform groups urged members of Congress to oppose all “poison pill” riders, including all campaign finance riders, to the fiscal year 2017 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations bill.  

The groups included the Brennan Center for Justice, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, CREW, Democracy 21, League of Women Voters, Public Citizen, Represent.Us, Sunlight Foundation, The Rootstrikers Project at Demand Progress and U.S. PIRG.

Last year four “poison pill” campaign finance riders were added to the House and Senate FSGG bills. In addition, an effort was made in finalizing the fiscal year 2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill to insert at the last minute another rider never considered by either congressional committee.

The letter stated:

These “poison pill” riders have no place in the appropriations process and certainly no place in the fiscal year 2017 FSGG Appropriations bill. Of the four damaging campaign finance riders added last year to the 2016 FSGG Appropriations Committee bills, two ended up in the final Omnibus bill, which applied only to FY16…

The first three of these campaign finance riders served to continue keeping the American people in the dark about hundreds of millions of dollars in secret contributions being laundered into federal elections. Secret campaign money prevents holding officeholders and influence-seeking donors accountable for corrupt practices. The fourth rider served to repeal longstanding limits on the amounts that parties can spend in coordination with their candidates.

The letter continued:

A fifth campaign finance rider attempted unsuccessfully to be inserted at the last minute into the FY16 Omnibus Appropriations bill would have repealed the presidential financing system. This system served the nation well for more than two decades before it became outdated. It needs to be repaired, not repealed.

The unprecedented role being played by big money in the 2016 presidential election is making an overwhelming case for the need to repair the presidential financing system and again provide candidates with an alternative means to finance their presidential campaigns. The Obama administration is on record as strongly opposing repeal of the presidential financing system, stating that “it is critical that the Nation’s Presidential election public financing system be fixed rather than dismantled.”

The letter concluded:

Poison pill riders have no part in any budget bill. Any effort to rewrite the Nation’s campaign finance laws and related measures should be done by regular order and through the legislative process. This should not be done by a back door misuse of the appropriations process.

We strongly urge you to oppose any campaign finance riders being included in the FSGG appropriations bills or in any final FY17 Omnibus Appropriations bill.

To read the letter: click here. 

Case Could Help Determine a Workable Legal Standard for All Future Partisan Gerrymander Cases

A group of Republican voters challenging the state’s 2011 congressional redistricting plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander should have their day in court, the Campaign Legal Center today argued in a friend-of-the-court-brief filed in the U.S. District Court for the District Court of Maryland.

“Legislators – across the political spectrum – are increasingly abusing  the redistricting process as a powerful weapon in modern political warfare to create rigged elections,” said Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center. “The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional and has kept its doors open to hearing these cases, though the Court has yet to announce a standard for deciding these claims. In allowing this case to go to trial, the parties could develop evidence and attempt to develop a workable standard for deciding future partisan gerrymandering challenges in courts across the country.”

The voters in this case, Shapiro v. McManus, argue that Maryland’s map violates their First Amendment rights because it purposefully diminished their voting power as Republican voters on the basis of their political affiliation and their voting histories. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 9-0 decision, reversed two lower court opinions dismissing the challenge. The case was remanded and is now once again before the district court.

 “Americans are increasingly frustrated at our broken democratic process that cheats them of their ability to elect representatives of their choice,” said Danielle Lang, legal fellow with the Campaign Legal Center. “Recent studies show a significant uptick in the extremity of partisan gerrymanders. Americans want and deserve fair elections. The need to develop a meaningful and manageable partisan gerrymandering standard is becoming increasingly dire to preserve the public confidence in our democracy.”

WASHINGTON – Beginning June 24, cable, satellite and radio providers will join television broadcasters in posting their public files on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) online database.  The database was initially established in 2012 for television broadcasters.  By putting these files online, the public and the media will be able to more easily access information about the political advertisements running on cable, radio and satellite as required by long-standing statute.  Included in the political file is information on the rates charged for political advertisements, the times when the ads ran and the sponsors of the ads.
 
The Commission had voted on January 28 to expand the online requirements beyond broadcast television.  The June 24 date was established after successful review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act.
 
The Commission’s action followed continuing efforts by the Campaign Legal Center, joined by Common Cause and the Sunlight Foundation, pushing the Commission to extend the online file requirements.  The Institute for Public Representation of Georgetown Law Center represented the group in the FCC filings.
 
“Extending the disclosure requirements to cable, satellite and radio was the next logical step to ensure that the long-required public inspection files are easily accessible,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center.  “Our joint efforts to drag the FCC into the 21^st Century began more than five years ago.  Having these public files stuffed in backroom file cabinets at the headquarters of media providers in the age of the Internet makes no sense.”
 
McGehee continued:  “We commend the Commission for getting these rules in place as the 2016 elections are heating up.  In the last several election cycles, the number of political ads running on cable and satellite systems has grown as candidates, super PACs and dark-money groups are targeting specific groups of viewers and listeners.  The adoption of the new rules will help ensure that U.S. media providers are abiding by long-standing statutes requiring disclosure of key information about ads bought to influence American elections.  This extension was simply a matter of fairness to all media, and an appropriate use of existing technology. ”
 
“While extending the online requirements to cable, satellite and radio is a victory for the public, the Commission has yet to require these political files be in a standardized, machine-readable format.  Media providers are still uploading PDFs.  Without a standardized format, it remains difficult for both the FCC and the public to easily review the information that is being uploaded.  We continue to urge the FCC to expeditiously move away from PDFs and replace them with a database that is searchable, sortable, and downloadable,” said McGehee.

Read the notice.