The Washington PostRuling allows contributions to activist groups for campaignsBy Dan EggenMarch 27, 2010 A federal appeals court on Friday handed another victory to conservative opponents of campaign-finance restrictions, striking down limits on individual contributions to advocacy groups that want to use the money for or against candidates in federal elections. But in a unanimous […]
Houston Chronicle The first trickleIn Texas, a campaign ad precedes a coming flood of corporate cashEditorialMarch 27, 2010 The U.S. Supreme Court shook American politics to the core with a 5-4 ruling in January freeing up corporations and other groups to independently spend as much cash as their directors wish in support of chosen candidates. […]
By Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court recently issued a radical decision that overturned two decades of Court precedents and a national policy that had its origins more than a century ago. The Court in a 5 to 4 decision declared unconstitutional a longstanding ban on […]
PoliticoElite donors dodge the DNCBy Jeanne CummingsMarch 16, 2010 Former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers took plenty of blame for the gate crashers at President Barack Obama’s first state dinner and for posing for fashion shoots in glossy magazines. But a previously undisclosed gripe about her provides another explanation for her abrupt departure last […]
National JournalBrave New World Of Political Spending For NonprofitsCharities And Other 501(c) Groups Could Find Themselves In An Uncomfortable SpotBy Eliza Newlin CarneyMarch 15, 2010 In the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling to deregulate corporate political spending, public attention has focused squarely on whether businesses and for-profit companies will now lavish big money […]
The HillChamber: Unions to gain from campaign finance decisionBy Kevin BogardusMarch 14, 2010 The senior attorney at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the Supreme Court’s loosening of campaign finance restrictions will have little effect on the group’s politicking. Steven Law, chief legal officer and general counsel for the Chamber, said the biggest beneficiary of […]
Associated Press Legislatures push back against campaign rulingBy Tom Breen March 13, 2010 The U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of decades-old campaign spending limits gives states scant time to face an election-year puzzle: Brace for a flood of new money in politics or find new ways to rein it in. Within days of the ruling, state […]
The question has been raised about whether the policy to ban corporate contributions and expenditures in federal elections dates back to 1947 or to 1907. It is clear from the history of the law that the policy to ban corporate expenditures originated in 1907. In 1907, Congress enacted legislation to prohibit corporations from "directly or […]
Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to enact legislation to correct the problems caused by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC. The President said that the decision “reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations […]
Democracy 21 Report: No Bark, No Bite, No Point In 2002, a task force of campaign finance and enforcement experts convened by Democracy 21 issued a 142-page report documenting the failure of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to carry out its enforcement responsibilities and setting forth a detailed proposal for establishing a new agency to […]
Sign up for Democracy 21’s email list(s) to receive “Wertheimer’s Political Report” our weekly newsletter released every Thursday and/or our regular news releases. (And, we won’t share your email.)
