In the middle of October, three weeks out from Election Day, Donald Trump’s campaign and allies finally started to reach parity on television advertising with Hillary Clinton. As the race grew tighter, Hillary Clinton was in need of new allies.Source: Trump SuperPAC Lawyer: 'CBS Censored Our TV Ads To Help Hillary Clinton'...
Over the 40-some years that I have been working or closely observing the political-campaign business, the rules of the game haven’t changed much.Source: How the Political Rules Changed in 2016...
Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1107 on Sept. 9, eliminating a longstanding, voter-approved ban on public financing of local campaigns. While the bill breezed through the Legislature, its critics have not quieted down.Source: Courthouse News Service: Taxpayer Group Fights California Political Reform (In the News)...
Many powerful California Democrats have signaled that they intend to run for Governor of California in 2018. On December 14, one of the few Republicans who had been considered a strong contender for Governor, Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, said she will not run for Governor in 2018. See this story.Source: California Republican Ashley Swearengin Won’t Run for Governor in 2018,...
Look at this list and you can absorb the potentially awesome power of congressional oversight.Source: If Congress is truly going to check executive power, it needs to allocate more money for staff...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington lawmakers acknowledge they spend a "sickening" amount of time raising money — and a bipartisan advocacy group sees President-elect Donald Trump as part of the cure.Source: Trump urged to tackle campaign finance in 'swamp draining'...
Speaking in early December at a ceremony to honor Harry Reid’s retirement from the US Senate, Hillary Clinton took aim at a target that would have been totally unfamiliar to audiences as recently as the summer of 2016: fake news.Source: Fake news is a convenient scapegoat, but the big 2016 problem was the real news...
DENVER — A federal judge dealt a severe setback Monday to a longshot plan to deny Donald Trump the presidency through the Electoral College, refusing to suspend a Colorado law requiring the state’s nine electors to vote for the presidential candidate who won the state in November. U.S.Source: Judge says electors must vote for statewide winner...
She says she hasn’t decided what she’ll do next, but that it likely will involve working for a foundation or, perhaps, in the private sector. She’ll depart the FEC having largely seen her standing goal of revealing sources of secret money in politics stymied.Source: Federal Election Commission: a forgotten tool in Donald Trump’s ‘drain the swamp’ effort...
Federal Election Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub’s attack on former FEC commissioner Donald F. McGahn was misleading [“A disquieting pick for White House counsel,” op-ed, Dec. 11]. Ms. Weintraub claimed Mr. McGahn said, “I’m not enforcing the law as Congress passed it.Source: Don McGahn was one of the most principled members of the FEC...
