Today, the Campaign Legal Center joined with other reform groups in urging Members of the House and Senate to co-sponsor the DISCLOSE Act, legislation responding to the unprecedented amounts of anonymously-funded political spending triggered by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC.  The bills introduced by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) (H.R. 430) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) (S. 229) would reveal the contributors behind ‘dark money’ political spending and allow voters to make informed decisions at the polls as the Supreme Court envisioned in its Citizens United ruling.                      

“We are now entering our fourth election cycle since Citizens United and ‘dark money’ spending continues to grow exponentially each cycle as influence is bought and sold behind closed doors in Washington,” said Meredith McGehee, Campaign Legal Center Policy Director.  “Americans deserve to know who is buying special access and influence with their elected representatives.  The DISCLOSE Act will restore some honesty and integrity to the political process and it is long overdue.  Critics have somehow managed to keep straight faces and say this legislation stifles free speech and even gone so far as to liken Karl Rove’s secret billionaires club, Crossroads GPS, to the NAACP in the Jim Crow South which was exempted from revealing its membership rolls for obvious reasons.”

In addition to the Campaign Legal Center, the reform groups signing the letters include the Brennan Center for Justice, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Demos, Issue One, League of Women Voters, People For the American Way, Public Citizen and the Sunlight Foundation.

To read the letter, click here.

Today, the Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21, Common Cause in Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, submitted an amici brief to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, to be filed upon leave of the court, in Three Unnamed Petitioners v. Peterson.  The brief urges the court to find Wisconsin’s restrictions on the coordination of expenditures between candidates and outside groups constitutional.  The consolidated case centers around a challenge to a so-called John Doe investigation of alleged illegal coordination between the campaign of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and outside groups.  That investigation has been halted until various challenges are resolved.

The court is considering the argument that if coordinated expenditures do not expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates, then they cannot be subject to regulation or limitation.  The U.S. Supreme Court specifically rejected that argument in McConnell v. FEC, holding that “there is no reason why Congress may not treat coordinated disbursements for electioneering communications,” i.e., a form of non-express advocacy, “in the same way it treats all other coordinated expenditures.”

“The Supreme Court has been unambiguous in its recognition that expenditures coordinated by outside groups with candidates are little more than ‘disguised contributions’ made to the candidates themselves,” said Tara Malloy, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel.  “These coordinated expenditures do not cease to be ‘disguised contributions’ to candidates simply because the audience is not expressly instructed to vote for or against a candidate.  Striking down Wisconsin's restrictions on coordinated spending would in effect strike down contribution limits to candidates altogether.”

The Legal Center was assisted in the filing of the amici brief by Susan Crawford of Cullen Weston Pines & Bach LLP.

To read the amici brief filed today by the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause in Wisconsin Democracy 21 and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, click here.

Today, the Campaign Legal Center joined with other reform groups in urging House Members to co-sponsor H.R. 425, the Stop Super PAC-Candidate Coordination Act, introduced in this Congress by Representatives David Price (D-NC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

The bill would prevent candidates from soliciting contributions for Super PACs and define common-sense coordination standards to prevent the widespread abuse currently occurring not only at the presidential level but at the congressional level as well.  

"Super PACs have eviscerated the contributions limits upheld by the Supreme Court, even under Chief Justice Roberts, to protect against corruption or the appearance of corruption,” said Meredith McGehee, Campaign Legal Center Policy Director.  “That 'protection' is now a farce and a fiction. Corruption and the appearance of corruption are in full swing. Candidates are personally soliciting contributions for Super PACs and those PACs are receiving million dollar checks.  Those writing seven-figure checks expect to be given a return on their investment.  This is a system rigged for the wealthy elite that is corrosive to American democracy and disempowers more than 99% of Americans. This is how oligarchies are run, not vibrant democracies.”

The proposed legislation defines coordination between a candidate campaign and an outside spender like a Super PAC to include the elements establishing the close ties that exist between a candidate and their individual-candidate Super PAC.  The bill would also strengthen the general rules prohibiting coordination between candidates and outside groups by treating as coordinated communications any payments for campaign ads made by any person pursuant to any general or particular understanding, or based on discussions with the candidate or the candidate’s agents about the payments or communications.

The groups signing the letter along with the Campaign Legal Center included the Brennan Center for Justice, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Demos, Issue One, League of Women Voters, People For the American Way, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.

To read the full letter, click here. 

Today, the Campaign Legal Center filed an amicus brief in Colorado Republican Party (“CRP”) v. Williams urging the Colorado Court of Appeals to overturn a Colorado District Court ruling that would allow CRP to accept unlimited contributions for a Super PAC it created and controls despite state limits on contributions to party committees.

“The Supreme Court has been very clear that party contribution limits are a valid means of preventing the corruption that can arise when large contributions are made to a political party, regardless of how the party uses that money,” said Megan P. McAllen, Campaign Legal Center Associate Counsel. “The Colorado Republican Party is trying to resurrect the soft-money abuses that plagued the federal campaign finance system for decades and that the Supreme Court found ultimately undermined the contribution limits and prohibitions.”

In 2003 in McConnell v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on unlimited “soft money” contributions to political parties in a challenge to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA).  BCRA (commonly referred to as McCain-Feingold) closed a loophole created by the Federal Election Commission that allowed the national party committees to accept unlimited contributions to spend on certain activities.  In McConnell, the Court found that “the close relationship between federal officeholders and the national parties, as well as the means by which parties have traded on that relationship, that have made all large soft-money contributions to national parties suspect.”

In May 2014, the Colorado Republican Party filed suit against the state seeking an order declaring that its Super PAC, whose officers are appointed as often as annually by the state party chairman, was not subject to the regular limits on what could be contributed to a political party. The State’s Republican Secretary of State and Attorney General chose not to defend the application of the state limits. However, Colorado Ethics Watch joined the suit as an intervenor-defendant in order to argue that the state contribution limits prohibited CRP from accepting unlimited contributions to fund its Super PAC.  In September, the Colorado District Court ruled in favor of CRP, and Colorado Ethics Watch appealed that decision. The Campaign Legal Center filed in support of that appeal.

The Legal Center was assisted in the filing of the amici brief by Steven K. Imig and Teresa M. Abel of Lewis, Bess, Williams & Weese P.C.

To read the amici brief filed today by the Campaign Legal Center, click here.

Today, the Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21 and Public Citizen, filed an amici brief in Independence Institute v. Gessler urging the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm a District Court ruling upholding the Colorado Constitution’s “electioneering communications” disclosure provisions.  The state law is materially identical to the federal “electioneering communications” disclosure statute, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court as recently as the 2010 Citizens United decision.  Plaintiff’s challenge to the federal statute (Independence Institute v. Federal Election Commission) was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on October 6, 2014, sixteen days before the challenge to the Colorado law was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.  The Campaign Legal Center filed amici briefs in both cases.

“From the challenge in Buckley v. Valeo to the Watergate reforms right through to the Roberts Court’s ruling in Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court has been unbending in its support for disclosure and in its recognition that the public has a vital interest in knowing the identities of those who are trying to influence their votes,” said Tara Malloy, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel.  “The Independence Institute is asking the court to ignore Supreme Court precedent so that it and others can blanket the airwaves with ‘dark money’ ads in the final weeks before elections without ever revealing the interests bankrolling those ads.  Sadly, this case is just one of many similar challenges to disclosure laws nationwide, but fortunately the courts have been steadfast in upholding these laws.”

Independence Institute wished to run a broadcast ad referring to Governor John Hickenlooper (D-CO) shortly before Election Day without disclosing its donors.  The challenged law requires donor disclosure when groups spend more than $1,000 on “electioneering communications”—defined as certain television, radio and print ads that mention the name of a state candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary election. 

The U.S. Congress enacted the federal “electioneering communications” disclosure law, which is also being challenged by Independence Institute in a different case, to curb widespread evasion of earlier disclosure requirements that applied only to “express advocacy” ads.  Since then, the Supreme Court has twice upheld this law: first in McConnell v. FEC (2003) in a facial challenge, and again in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) in an as-applied challenge.

To read the amici brief filed today by the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21 and Public Citizen, click here. 

To read the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado’s order and final judgment, click here and here.

To read the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia order dismissing the challenge to the federal statute, click here.  

 In a letter sent today to the Justice Department, the Campaign Legal Center joined Democracy 21 in applauding the agency’s recent action to enforce the coordination standard in the campaign finance laws and emphasized how important it is for the Department to play an active role in enforcing the campaign finance laws in the 2016 election cycle.

The letter stated:

The Justice Department’s active supervision and enforcement of the campaign finance laws is necessary in order to ensure that those laws are not blatantly violated by participants in the 2016 elections. The FEC, the agency with exclusive civil jurisdiction to enforce the campaign finance laws, has proven to be wholly incapable of carrying out its enforcement responsibilities. 

We commend the Department for its recent prosecution of illegal coordination that occurred in the 2012 election between a congressional campaign and a Super PAC. As the Department announced on February 12, 2015, this was “the first criminal prosecution in the United States based upon the coordination of campaign contributions between political committees.”

In addition, we applaud the commitment made in announcing this criminal conviction when you stated, “The Department of Justice is fully committed to addressing the threat posed to the integrity of federal primary and general elections by coordinated campaign contributions, and will aggressively pursue coordination offenses at every appropriate opportunity.”

The letter further noted:

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, “The Justice Department is stepping up scrutiny of the increasingly cozy ties between candidates and their outside allies, a move that could jolt the freewheeling campaign finance atmosphere ahead of the 2016 elections.” M. Gold, “Justice Department Ramps Up Scrutiny of Candidates and Outside Groups,” The Washington Post (Feb. 27, 2015).

The letter noted the rise of Super PACs generally, and individual-candidate Super PACs specifically, following the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen United decision. With this rise, the problem of illegal coordination between candidates and outside spending groups has become a very serious issue.

According to Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel Paul S. Ryan:

Given that the Federal Election Commission has abandoned any pretense of enforcing the campaign finance laws, it is critical that the Justice Department closely review the relationship between presidential candidates and the individual-candidate Super PACs created to promote their candidacies.

While federal candidates are subject to a $2,700 limit on individual contributions, and a ban on corporate and union contributions, Super PACs can accept unlimited contributions from any source. Candidate coordination with Super PACs eviscerates the corruption-preventing candidate contribution limits.

Jeb Bush is already reportedly raising million-dollar contributions for the Right to Rise Super PAC associated with him—and has a $100 million fundraising goal for the first quarter of 2015.

With the FEC missing in action, the Justice Department must vigilantly monitor campaign activities to ensure that Bush and all other 2016 candidates comply with federal laws restricting their coordination with Super PACs associated with them, and bring enforcement actions where appropriate.

To read the full letter, click here.