News

Democracy 21 and Campaign Legal Center Urge FEC Commissioners to Reject Proposal from Commissioner Goodman

  Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center sent a letter today to the FEC Commissioners urging them to reject a proposal to be offered at the agency’s October 29 meeting by Commissioner Lee Goodman to provide “regulatory relief for political parties.” According to the letter: The most alarming suggestion in this proposal is to […]

Watchdog Groups File FEC Comments Supporting Rulemaking to Revise Flawed Regulations

  Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center filed comments today in support of a Public Citizen rulemaking petition seeking revisions of the FEC’s flawed disclosure and coordination regulations. The comments noted that the two organizations also filed comments last January, in a similar rulemaking proceeding, also seeking new disclosure and coordination rules.  The comments […]

Democracy 21 President Slams FEC Advisory Opinion Request From Democratic Super PACs

 Today, Democracy 21 joined the Campaign Legal Center in strongly urging the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to reject the request from Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC to follow the lead of a number of GOP Super PACs in breaking a variety of laws through coordinated activities with candidates.  The watchdog groups filed comments […]

California Adopts Strong New Anti-Coordination Rules; Similar Approach Used in Democracy 21 Model Bill

  The California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) last week adopted strong new rules to prevent coordination between outside spending groups and the California candidates they are supporting. The new FPPC rules are designed to protect the integrity of candidate contribution limits in the wake of the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision. Coordination between […]

How Chief Justice Roberts and Four Supreme Court Colleagues Gave the Nation a System of Legalized Bribery

Fred Wertheimer for Huffington Post The Supreme Court began its fall term this week. This seems like a good time to pause for a moment and revisit how decisions by Chief Justice John Roberts and four of his Supreme Court colleagues during the past five years have given the nation a system of legalized bribery. […]

O’Malley Issues Strong Campaign Finance Reform Plan, But Fails to Address Presidential Financing

Former Governor Martin O’Malley issued a strong campaign finance reform plan today that addresses a number of  important campaign finance issues. They include creating a public financing system for congressional races based on matching small contributions and addressing the dysfunctional campaign finance enforcement system by restructuring and strengthening the Federal Election Commission and making enforcement […]

Fred Wertheimer for Huffington Post: “IRS Appears Headed Toward New Rules that Will Continue to License Secret Contributions in Federal Elections”

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen appears to be headed toward issuing new IRS regulations that will continue to license section 501(c)(4) groups to improperly launder massive amounts of secret contributions into federal elections. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Commissioner Koskinen reportedly stated that section 501(c)(4) groups can engage in political intervention so long as […]

Fred Wertheimer for Huffington Post: “Government Corruption Is and Remains the Fundamental Danger of Individual-Candidate Super PACs”

The Huffington Post Government Corruption Is and Remains the Fundamental Danger of Individual-Candidate Super PACs By: Fred Wertheimer  Governor Scott Walker and former Governor Rick Perry dropping out so early in the Republican presidential primary race has raised questions about whether individual-candidate Super PACs are as big a problem as originally believed. (Both Walker and Perry […]

Fred Wertheimer for Huffington Post: “National Political Parties Walk Away From Ordinary Americans to Chase Super Rich for Million Dollar Donations”

  An article published yesterday by The Washington Post, revealed that the Democratic and Republican national parties have set up programs to seek contributions of $1 million or more for the 2016 election. The Democratic and Republican national parties have now joined the 2016 presidential candidates as supplicants chasing the richest individuals in the United […]

Fred Wertheimer for Huffington Post: “The Koch Brothers’ Magic Trick”

In August, 2015, Charles and David Koch gathered their fellow billionaires and multimillionaires at a semi-annual meeting of the Koch network “to save” the country, in the words of Charles Koch. It was not exactly the same kind of meeting that occurred in July 1776 when the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia to create a […]