IRS
New York Post: It’s time to impeach the IRS chief for high crimes
George F. Will
As the IRS cover-up of its and [Lerner’s] malfeasance continues, the Republicans’ new House leaders should exercise this constitutional power: “The House . . . shall have the sole power of impeachment.” The current IRS director, John Koskinen, has earned this attention.
The Constitution’s Framers, knowing that executive officers might not monitor themselves, provided the impeachment recourse to bolster the separation of powers. Federal officials can be impeached for dereliction of duty (as in Koskinen’s failure to disclose the disappearance of e-mails germane to a congressional investigation); for failure to comply (as in Koskinen’s noncompliance with a preservation order pertaining to an investigation); and for breach of trust (as in Koskinen’s refusal to testify accurately and keep promises made to Congress).
Independent Groups
USA Today: John Kasich political ads chart new territory
Fredreka Schouten
The video doesn’t come from the Republican’s campaign, however. Instead, it’s produced and funded by an outside group that can raise unlimited amounts to back Kasich’s candidacy. And in a bold test of rules that bar candidates from coordinating with independent groups, Kasich shot footage for this and other ads in concert with the outside group.
Kasich’s camp and his allies argue that’s permissible because he was not officially a candidate when he taped material for the commercials.
“In order for there to be coordination, there must be a candidate,” Connie Wehrkamp, spokeswoman for the pro-Kasich group, said in an email. “The footage featuring Gov. Kasich was filmed before any decision was made to seek the presidency.”
KOAA: Harry Reid brings up Springs roads tax in criticism of Koch Brothers
Andy Koen
“In statehouses and city halls all across our great country, the Koch brothers and their vast spending network are turning local governments into agents of the Koch empire,” Reid said…
“I was pretty surprised to see Colorado Springs talked about on the floor of the Senate and for Harry Reid to be talking about our tax increase.”
A former member of Colorado Springs City Council, Dougan said her group is not actively campaigning against ballot issue 2C.
Before the question was formally referred to the ballot, her group paid a consultant to dig through the city budget to find money for roads. It also bought ads on Facebook and launched an online petition against raising taxes for roads.
“Everything we have done has been done before it became a ballot issue, it was just an educational, we just wanted to help the taxpayers understand their city government.”
SEC
New Yorker: How Dodd-Frank Hurts Governors in the Money Primary
Gary Sernovitz
Then, in 2011, largely in response to the pay-to-play scandals, the S.E.C. set forth new rules prohibiting “investment advisers” from doing business for compensation for two years with a state or municipal pension fund, if certain employees served as bundlers or gave material donations (more than three hundred and fifty dollars for candidates they could actually vote for, and more than a hundred and fifty dollars if they couldn’t) to “an elected official who is in a position to influence the selection of the adviser.” Finally, under the Dodd-Frank Act, the S.E.C. began regulating private-equity and hedge-fund managers as investment advisers, which made those firms and their employees subject to the restrictions on political donations.
The result is that sitting governors suffer two forms of fund-raising handicap. First, in the hard-dollar race, alternative-asset managers are less likely to give sitting governors the twenty-seven-hundred-dollar maximum contributions that a Republican Presidential candidate might expect to collect, like apples in autumn, at a midtown lunch. The second handicap relates to soft money.
Free Speech
Ars Technica: How net neutrality violates the First Amendment (according to one ISP)
Jon Brodkin
Major Internet service providers have seemingly given up on the argument that net neutrality rules violate their First Amendment rights. But one small ISP is continuing its fight against the Federal Communications Commission, claiming that it should be allowed to favor some Internet content over others because doing so qualifies for freedom of speech protection.
“With prioritization, broadband providers convey a message by ‘favor[ing]’ certain speech—that prioritized content is superior—because it is delivered faster,” Alamo Broadband argued in a brief filed yesterday as part of the broadband industry’s lawsuit against the FCC.
FEC
The Hill: Watchdog probes low morale at FEC
Megan Wilson
The Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) internal watchdog is launching an investigation into why employees at the agency have such low morale.
The FEC’s inspector general is responding to an annual survey taken by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in which the nation’s election regulator received an overall score of 43 out of 100 from its employees about how satisfied they are with their jobs…
The overall FEC satisfaction level ranks only above the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, whose employees gave it a 36, and the U.S. African Development Foundation, which received an overall satisfaction score of 18.
The data is separated into two categories: large agencies and small agencies.
The FEC even ranks below the agency that received the lowest score among the large agencies — the Department of Homeland Security earned a 47 out of 100.
Candidates and Campaigns
Des Moines Register: Hillary Clinton says she wishes super PACs were banned
Tony Leys
“I and others have said we’re not going to unilaterally disarm while the Republicans and the Koch brothers are out there raising money that they don’t even tell you where it came from,” the Democratic candidate told hundreds of voters gathered on the sun-dappled lawn of Cornell College…
However, she acknowledged that her cause also is being supported by super PACs, which don’t face such limits on donations, although they do report donations. “I would hope that we would get to a point where those would no longer be operating,” she said. “But that’s not where we are today, and the bulk of the super PAC money is on the other side with the Republicans.”
New York Times: Hoping to Be Invited to the Debate, Lawrence Lessig Waits by the Phone
Alan Rappeport
Hopeful that he will still be asked to join the debate, though he has not been in contact with its officials, Mr. Lessig said he had been brushing up on a range of issues with his campaign consultants and that he was prepared. And he says that he is ready to talk about more than just campaign finance.
“I’m not going to be the ‘rent is too damn high’ candidate,” Mr. Lessig said, referring to his crusade to overhaul campaign finance. “But the objective would be to make it central and make the priority of resolving it inescapable.”
If he is shut out of the first two debates, however, Mr. Lessig acknowledged that it would most likely be time to pack it in and write about the experience.
“I didn’t intend this as a research project, but I’m sure after it’s over I’ll be reflecting on the craziness of it,” he said.
The Atlantic: Larry, No
Robinson Meyer
I can imagine understanding Lessig’s candidacy not as a firm policy proposal but as a provocation, as a statement about How Bad Things Have Gotten. When Lessig speaks, you can hear the urgency and anxiety in his voice. But by running for president, he’s still made an issue that unites 84 percent of Americans into one about him, his resume, and his skills as a communicator.
Lessig’s previous plan to reduce money in politics was a “super PAC to end all super PACs” called Mayday PAC. It raised $10 million in 2014 to endorse a set of Congressional candidates whose only commonality was that they supported reducing the influence of money in politics. It proceeded to lose all but one race, its sole winning candidate a long-time Republican in a comfortably GOP district. A haughty Politico story afterward quoted an unnamed Democrat who said Mayday PAC’s radio ads—which prominently featured Lessig voice-over—“may be the worst political ads I’ve ever seen or heard.”
USA Today: Donald Trump’s candidacy raises novel ethics questions
Fredreka Schouten
Federal law doesn’t explicitly prohibit President Trump from continuing to run the sprawling real-estate and brand-marketing empire that is the Trump Organization, federal ethics experts say. And the conflict-of-interest rules that bar Cabinet secretaries and other high-ranking executive branch officials from overseeing matters that boost their personal bottom lines don’t apply to the president.
“The president holds a constitutional office, and it’s very difficult constitutionally to restrict the president’s activities,” said Robert Kelner, a Washington lawyer who specializes in ethics and election laws. “Were he to be elected, it would be an interesting test case.”
Yahoo: How a team of Obama veterans helped Bernie Sanders pull in a record number of donations
Alyssa Bereznak
Goodstein recalls that when he joined Obama’s campaign in January 2007, the iPhone had not yet been released and text messaging was still something people labored over on their flip phones. Now, he says, more people are comfortable donating money online, ad gateways have become more sophisticated and news breaks much quicker. Even organizing large rallies has become cheaper and easier to do on the fly.
“It’s a different world,” he told Yahoo News. “We’re excited that we achieved the millionth contribution a lot quicker [than with the Obama campaign], but it’s also because the Internet has grown up.”
Washington Times: Larry Lessig enters Democratic presidential race with first TV ad, targets Sen. Marco Rubio
S.A. Miller
The 15-second spot opens with question “Who owns Marco Rubio?” written across the screen, followed by video footage of Mr. Rubio, Florida Republican, at a podium giving a speech as corporate logos — Honeywell, Wells Fargo, KKP Financial Holdings, Goldman Sachs — pop up across the screen and begin to cover Mr. Rubio.
“This is what our political system has turned into,” the female narrator says. “Larry Lessig is the only presidential candidate with the will and the way to fix it.”
The States
New Mexico Politics: Guv undecided on allowing campaign reporting reform during session
Heath Haussamen
“Governor Martinez has always been open to discussing various proposals to reform campaign finance in New Mexico,” press secretary Michael Lonergan told NMPolitics.net. “In terms of what will be on the governor’s call for the session, however, we haven’t made any final determinations. That process is ongoing over the next few months.”
Racine Journal Times: GOP proposal rewrites state’s campaign finance laws
Matthew DeFour
Political campaign contribution limits would double, corporate contributions could expand and political action committees could accept unlimited contributions, which they would have to report, under a bill unveiled Wednesday by Republican lawmakers.
The bill substantially rewrites Wisconsin’s patchwork of campaign finance laws and administrative rules, which have been hobbled by a series of court cases centering on whether the government can regulate political speech.
