Skepticseye.com

. . . but of great personal interest, the Antiochian Orthodox Church of America has voted to leave the National Council of Churches. See the Orthodoxy Today blog for more.

To Alexis de Tocqueville, who would turn 200 today.

Ah, Friday. As the week winds to a close, I reflect on how quickly time passes, and how deadlines once distant have a way of creeping closer.

Yet I remain undeterred in my quest to salvage interesting tidbits from old campaign finance materials. Today, it is Perry Belmont, grandson of Commodore Perry, son of August Belmont, student of Henry Adams, politician, and father of the Publicity Law movement (what we might now call “transparancy” or “disclosure”). An ardent Democrat, Belmont believed that publicizing sources of campaign and party funds was all that would be required to deal with campaign finance corruption. (This was the position of the Democratic Party in the early years of the previous century.)

Here’s Belmont on “reformers”:

The impatience of the “reformers” with our constitutional safeguards disclosed a preference for imported methods of government. Well-intentioned, but lacking personal practical experience in any of our legislative bodies, the reformers created a lack of confidence in their conception of governmental and financial policies.

Belmont, An American Democrat (2d ed. 1941), p. 497. And here’s Belmont on Teddy Roosevelt:

[W]hen Mr. Roosevelt in the exigencies of his pursuit of a third term, assumes to rail at both parties, charging “that both are corrupt” he should be told that it is but justice to American standards and to the great men of his own party to recognize the fact that in any other country but our own, an unduly prolonged lease of power would have been far more injurious . . . So far as campaign funds are concerned, Mr. Roosevelt has always been very much of a reactionary, especially about his own.

An American Democrat, p. 511. Draw your own parallels.

Bob Bauer is speaking to the American Constitution Society today, and has posted an advance copy of his comments here. Making the case that progressives should oppose conventional reform of campaign finance and indeed should be opposed to the web of regulation in place, he writes in part:

[P]rogressives have to depend on politics—energetic and uninhibited politics—to advance their program. This is where a campaign finance reform supporter heads down the wrong path. The campaign finance reform supporter assumes that entrenched power, possessing the lion’s share of the resources, will have an insurmountable advantage that may be overcome only with legal controls. So we have detailed regulation of the rules of politics in the name of “political equality,” which, it is assumed, will give the “average citizen” a fighting chance.

This is delusional, on several grounds.

Later:

Just as reformers believe that the use of money to influence politics is crudely beyond the pale, so they believe that the style of communication in rough-and-tumble politics, financed with this money, fails the test of rational, orderly and properly informed argumentation. Much as reformers may deny it—as many do—this is the source of the attack on “negative campaigning,” which has been a plank of the reform program for many years. Campaign finance controls include measures to tame political speech—to keep it clean—because those supporting these restrictions are troubled by its power, believed in turn to be unrelated to its merit. Yet the speech it prefers—the rational, orderly and expert speech—is often not the language of true progressive politics but instead supplies the chosen language of resistance to progressive change.

And:

The progressive challenging the existing order will always occupy the position of David in the confrontation with Goliath, and it is not to David’s advantage, in these already disadvantageous circumstances, to face restrictions on the type, size and number of rocks that may be loaded into the sling.

The LA Times reports that California labor unions, in response to a measure on the ballot that would restrict their ability to collect dues used for politics, are proposing a shareholder consent initiative of their own.

While the situations may seem analogous, one important aspect of Proposition 75 is that it covers public-employee unions only, and addresses those unions’ ability to use the machinery of the state to collect political funds.

In general, the sooner we move away from the fiction that unions and corporations should be regulated “the same” in campaign finance, and start dealing with the organizations as they actually operate, the better.

I think what regulatory-type reformers really want, however, is a world where only natural persons can contribute, and rich persons not that much. I think an effective populist argument can be made for this point, but in the end it neglects the fact that groups of people may have interests as groups that are not reflected when people act as individuals.

There are lots of opportunities for the government to regulate groups as such (in picayune tax and pension regulations, for instance), and plenty of situations where the individual members of those groups may not understand, or be motivated, to voice their concerns. The Supreme Court seems to agree (at least for the present), having recognized that, at least in the context of ballot measures, corporation and labor unions have a constitutional right to make expenditures.

Today’s Roll Call (paid subscription required!) reports that Senator McCain, as he ramps up his Leadership PAC “Straight Talk Express,” is “leaving” the Reform Institute’s leadership:

Sen. John McCain . . . sever[ed] his official ties with a nonprofit reform group and restarting his political action committee. While his Straight Talk America PAC gives him a renewed political platform, McCain also has formally stepped down from the board of the Reform Institute, a group he formed with his top strategists to push his signature issue of campaign ethics.

McCain said Wednesday that the “negative publicity” that came earlier this spring from his association with the institute and the fact that its fundraising was conducted by his long-time adviser, Rick Davis, prompted him to step down from the 501(c)3 group. “I’m no longer associated with it. I’m no longer on the advisory board,” he said.

Query, friends, if not being on a board of a group you “founded” is the same as not being “associated.” More:

This follows stories in March in The Associated Press and The New York Times that outlined how Davis served as the top staffer for the Reform Institute while also lobbying on behalf of clients who had interests before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee when McCain chaired the panel. In one case, Davis solicited a pair of $100,000 donations for the Reform Institute from Cablevision one week after the company’s chief executive testified before Commerce on a provision McCain was actively supporting. By cutting his own ties from the institute . . . McCain wants to inoculate himself from questions about whether he has held himself to the same standard as others. In addition, Davis said Wednesday he had dropped his title of Reform Institute president and now serves the group on a voluntary basis. He had been earning $110,000 a year.

Will Davis move over to Straight Talk? Take these groups on as clients of Davis Manafort? Can he make his mortgage? Ah, the suspense. More:

McCain’s re-election committee, Friends of John McCain, and Straight Talk America are housed in that same building, as is the Reform Institute.
While Davis’ official role with the PAC is still unclear, McCain’s leading fundraiser, Carla Eudy, is expected to continue in that role for Straight Talk. She is also the top money person for the Reform Institute.

(snip)

But Straight Talk will allow [McCain] to begin the political process of collecting chits by making donations to help candidates and underwriting travel to stump for them on the campaign trail.

I do not begrudge Senator McCain taking advantage of the laws as they are interpreted to do what he feels he must. I will always be puzzled by the regnant interpretation of the Act and regulations that permits leadership PACs to flourish. It is, in fact, a much easier argument to make that Leadership PACs are affiliated with the campaign committees of these federal officeholders (and thus not entitled to separate contribution limits) than it is, oh, to contend that 527s with some election-influencing “major purpose” are ipso facto political committees. Just to grab one issue.

So the selective application of legal rigor is annoying. But I’ll live.

I also think Leadership PACs are bad policy, a tool available to incumbents not challengers and of particular utility to members who occupy positions on certain congressional juice committees. Nevertheless, they are allowed, and McCain’s “straight talk” can move forward.

Bob Bauer argues that nominees to the Supreme Court should be able to discuss precedents without improperly committing to cases that might come before them. The highlight is his hypothetical exchange between a Senator and a nominee over the McConnell decision. A taste:

Senator: You have written that “The McConnell case is the low-water mark in constitutional jurisprudence in the field of campaign finance. It is largely incomprehensible, internally inconsistent, sloppy in its treatment of record evidence, unfaithful to precedent, and disingenuous in presentation. I felt vaguely ill when I first read it.” Is that not what you wrote?

Nominee: Yes, but I feel better now.

Senator: About the opinion?

Nominee: No, speaking more of my physical condition.

Now, who could he be thinking of . . .?

Kind and generous people are saying things about my potential service on a certain Commission . . . See here, and here, and here. While quite flattering, it is more likely I might be recruited as the starting quarterback for the Pittsburg Steelers, or swim the English Channel.

Still, dear reader, if curiosity has brought you here for the first time, please stick around a while. I try to leaven the hard-core campaign finance material with lighter fare, so hopefully there’s something for you.