Here is a paper Bob Bauer gave this weekend at the Stanford Law Review symposium. Bob’s solution is more transparency and letting the parties raise more money and spend it in coordination with candidates. Some might say this is a cure worse than the disease.Source: “Getting a Handle on the Super PAC Problem”...
Nashua, N.H. Speaking at a country club in New Hampshire on Monday, Jeb Bush said he wants the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision to be overturned.Source: Jeb Bush: Overturn Citizens United...
Update, Jan. 30, 2016: A voter in Iowa tweeted about receiving a mailer from the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that hopes to goad him into heading to caucus by sharing the voting records of people he knows. The Cruz campaign confirmed that it had sent the mailer.Source: Do those ‘we know whether you voted’ warnings actually work?...
January 30 marks the fortieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Buckley v.Source: The struggle to preserve a free political system...
Books about who pays for American elections rarely hit the bestseller lists, but a rash of new titles tackling the once-obscure topic of campaign financing signals that publishers now regard political money as popular fare.Source: Political Money: New Best-Selling Book Genre?...
Never in U.S. history has a third-party candidate been elected president. Yet that hasn't stopped the prospect of an independent candidacy becoming a recurring sotto voce whisper in the 2016 presidential race.Source: The ‘Bleak’ History of Third-Party Presidential Bids...
In today’s political climate, finding public support for anything at 84 percent is almost unheard of. Yet, according to New York Times/CBS News poll last June, that’s how many Americans think money has “too much influence” in political campaigns.Source: Happy birthday to the case that was even worse than Citizens United...
Last week Michael Bloomberg, former three-term mayor of New York City, told his advisers to inform the media that he is laying the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign as an independent. This is the third presidential cycle in which he has contemplated such a run.Source: Ralph Nader: What Is Michael Bloomberg Thinking?...
The Law of Unintended Consequences dominates politics. Before the 2016 campaign, the leaders of both political parties wanted to limit presidential primary debates -- albeit for different reasons.Source: Big Money Backlash Has Turned 2016 Into Year of Populist Anger...
I have been aware of presidential elections since 1948, when my mother, driving my sister, brother and me home from St. Leo's School, heard on the radio that Dewey had conceded to President Harry Truman. “That can't be!" she exclaimed, reflecting the common conclusion that New York Gov.Source: Elective Politics' Darkest Hour...
