Yesterday it was posted at Crabgrass how a 6-3 decision authored by Roberts had a very pernicious result, while Roberts opined more "money is speech" crap.
You can read the Roberts pile, online here, but the actual outcome is what counts in every practical sense. Money/speech sophistry aside, post-election you can see if your horse won the race and then place a bet. I.e., the "campaign" can still be taking donations, from you, and funneling post-election money indirectly but almost fast as a speeding bullet to the personal (not campaign) bank account of the candidate until any/all loan money amount earlier lent by the candidate to the campaign, without any dollar limit, has been fully amortized. (It is not what James Brown envisioned, as "The Big Payback." Actually it is the technically the "not a bribe, no sir, payback" - fully legal, nobody goes to the slammer, because the Supremes so rule and the deep pockets sport a big grin.)
Yesterday's Crabgrass posting noted what seems a crystal clear objection to the practice the Roberts opinion legitimized by force of majority vote among Republican appointees to the Court - legitimizing what wealthiest of office seekers can do to screw over you, me, US! It disadvantages the chances of candidates lacking substantial wealth (OUR sympathetic and progressive candidates).
That crystal clear item is the one Richard Painter authored less than a year ago, after the Court of Appeals decision did what, days ago, the Supremes blessed in a follow-up hat tip to wealthy farts - deep pocket money gaining yet another hateful advantage over US and over worthwhile and decent candidates such as AOC or Cori Bush, who are impecunious relative to the nation's heavy wallet 0.1%.
If you have not read the Painter J'accuse piece, start there.
- THE SCALE OF THINGS -
Ted Cruz was the perp forcing the issue, having "loaned" his campaign $260,000, recouped $250,000 (the limit the FEC enforced), and then sued over the last ten grand wanting it from the campaign account to himself. Held: Love that Ted!
So is it litigation over somebody's ten grand, or is there much more money on other tables, money ripe for an unlimited take back after love-to-Ted's been put into a formal Roberts opinion?
March 13-19 is Sunshine Week, an annual celebration aimed at
promoting transparency. This story is part of a series highlighting
OpenSecrets’ work to improve transparency around key areas related to
money in politics at the state and federal level.
Candidates vying for House and Senate seats in the upcoming midterm
elections poured over $100 million of their own money into self-funding
congressional campaigns in 2021 — and state candidates gave millions
more, a new OpenSecrets analysis found.
During the first year of this election cycle, six House candidates
and 13 Senate candidates gave $1 million or more to their campaigns.
Five of those candidates spent at least $5 million of their own money
self-funding their campaigns over the course of the year.
The majority of 2021’s self-funding candidates are Republican.
According to OpenSecrets data, Republicans last year self-funded $85.6
million, compared to Democrats’ self-funding $22.7 million.
In recent years, more self-funding occurred in the second half of the
election cycle compared to the first half. The self-funding numbers of
2021 are considerably higher than the amounts self-funded in the first
half of past election cycles.
During the first year of the 2020 cycle, congressional candidates
self-funded $56 million. By the end of the cycle, that number rose to
$172 million. In 2018, congressional self-funding jumped from $83.8
million by the end of 2017 to $317.1 million by the end of the cycle.
As the election approaches, the self-funding figures among the
current congressional candidates are expected to change — both due to
further self-funding in 2022 and repayment of loans financed by the candidate after the election.
The majority of the higher self-funding candidates are running in races labeled “toss-ups” or “lean” Republican by the Cook Political Report. Forty-five percent of the self-funding in 2021 came from three races: Ohio, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
Investment banker Mike Gibbons, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio,
self-financed the most of any candidate in the 2022 cycle — $11.4
million. Gibbons’ contribution makes up about 94% of the total
contributions his campaign received.
As 2021’s top self-funder at the federal level, Gibbons’ $11 million
sum is markedly higher than previous top self-funders’ contributions in
the first year of the election cycle. In the 2020 cycle, the highest
congressional self-funder was former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) with $23.7 million — though less than a quarter of that came in the first year of the election cycle ($5 million).
In 2018, Sen. Rick Scott
(R-Fla.) won his Senate seat after being the top congressional
self-funder with $63.6 million. Scott has a history of winning after
self-funding, spending $90 million to win two gubernatorial bids in 2010 and 2014 – totaling over $153 million in funding across the three races.
Scott announced his candidacy months before the election, and thus
does not have self-funding figures from the first year of the cycle.
However, Rep. David Trone
(D-Md.) — the highest self-funder in the 2018 cycle to announce his
congressional candidacy in 2017 and third highest self-funder overall —
self-funded $2.3 million in the first year of the cycle. Trone went on to ultimately self-fund almost $18 million in the 2018 cycle.
Trone, who is up for reelection this year, self-funded about $550,000
in 2021, more than 93% of the campaign. Like Scott, Trone has a history
of self-funding though he found comparably less success. In 2016, he
self-funded virtually his entire campaign with $13.4 million — the most a
House candidate had ever self-funded at the time — but lost in the
primary to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who self-financed a mere $2,700.
The second biggest self-funder of 2021 was one of Gibbons’ many opponents vying for a Republican primary win: state Sen. Matt Dolan. Dolan, an attorney, self-financed $10.5 million — or nearly 97% of his campaign receipts.
The Ohio race has attracted the most money out of the 34 upcoming
Senate races, with candidates in the race collectively bringing in more than $50 million over the course of 2021. Almost $30 million of that — roughly 60% — came from candidates self-financing.
Another self-funding heavyweight is Jim Lamon, a Republican Senate
candidate in Arizona and solar energy entrepreneur who has thrown $8
million behind his campaign. The Arizona race
was deemed a “toss-up” by Cook Political Report, and has brought in
over $40 million in contributions as Republicans aim to take back the
seat flipped blue by incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) in a 2020 special election.
The fourth biggest congressional self-funder is political newcomer
Mehmet Oz. The celebrity doctor, a Republican, was expected to tap into
his capital as he seeks to claim the seat of retiring Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey (R). Since announcing his run in November, Oz has raised $5.9 million. However, $5.2 million of that came from his own wallet.
While most of the heavy self-financing fell on the Senate side, Shri Thanedar is the exception, as the Michigan state representative contributed $5 million to his bid for the open 13th Congressional district.
Thanedar, also the only Democratic candidate to self-fund at least $5
million in 2021, is an entrepreneur with a background in polymer
chemistry. He unsuccessfully ran for governor in Michigan in 2018 after
spending $10.4 million of his own cash.
Aside from Thanedar, most other House races attracted lower amounts
of self-financing. In fact, the second-highest House candidate
self-funder — Arizona Republican Elijah Norton — contributed less than
half as much to his 1st district campaign as Thanedar with $2 million.
Although self-financing has proliferated in recent years, on average,
less than one in four candidates go on to win after injecting millions
of their own money into the effort. An analysis of OpenSecrets datasince 2010 of candidates who self-financed at least $1 million shows
that only 22.5% ultimately won their race. The majority of the
self-funders who did not win lost during the primary.
Self-financing is becoming more commonplace at the state level as
well — most frequently in gubernatorial bids. Similar to congressional
self-financing, candidates who do self-finance large amounts tend to be
Republican.
For instance, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who won his bid in November, contributed $20 million to his campaign. Pete Snyder, a Virginia candidate who lost to Youngkin in the Republican convention, self-financed $5.8 million.
In comparison, Democratic nominee and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe
did not self-finance at all. During his unsuccessful bid in 2009,
McAuliffe self-funded $500,000 of his campaign’s haul. In his winning
2013 bid, he self-financed about $46,000.
The near exact opposite scenario occurred during the 2018 gubernatorial race in Florida, when Gov. Ron DeSantis
(R) won without self-financing. Two Democratic contenders, Jeff Greene
and Philip Levine — both of whom lost in the primary — self-financed $37.8 million and $26.5 million respectively.
In Texas, a GOP challenger to Gov. Greg Abbott (R) self-financed to the tune of $5 million last year. Former state Sen. Don Huffines
self-financed $5.2 million — and received an additional $2.2 million
from his twin brother Phillip as well. Huffines won 12% of the GOP primary vote, placing third behind Abbott’s 66.4% and former Rep. Allen West (R-Texas)’s 12.3%.
Phillip Huffines, who unsuccessfully ran for state Senate in 2018, self-financed $7 million. His brother Don gave $100,000.
Another recent example of self-financing is former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R)
who self-financed $57.5 million of his unsuccessful reelection campaign
in 2018. In 2014 — when he won — he had self-financed $37.5 million.
Rauner lost to billionaire Democrat JB Pritzker, who self-financed $114
million more than Rauner in 2018, for a total of $171.5 million.
There’s also Republican John Cox, who has poured more than $20 million of his own money into trying to defeat California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) both in the general election in 2018 and during the recent unsuccessful recall election.
The 2020 election also attracted record-shattering self-financing, topped by Michael Bloomberg’s $1 billion self-financed campaign. Tom Steyer’s $341.8 million pales in comparison, but is actually more than 19 times the amount that former President Donald Trump self-financed in 2016.
Correction March 15, 2022: An earlier version of this story
indicated congressional candidates raised nearly $100 million when the
number is actually about $109 million.
[red bolding added, links in original] And they say horse racing is the sport of kings. Clearly some such large self funding, particularly by losers, might be facing insufficient post-election outside contributions to break even. Nonetheless, each such mentioned amount, if given as a "loan" to a campaign, has the potential to see the perp recoup back a hundred cents on the dollar.
Smile, Mr. Ted. Smile, Mr. Roberts. (Of the Supreme neighborhood).
The Atlantic (carried by MSN) without ever spelling out the word "weasel" -
The day before the vote in Texas, Cruz lent his campaign $260,000.
This was a curious—and seemingly unnecessary—gesture: The campaign’s
final report showed it ended with $263,000 cash in hand.
Yet Cruz was not acting irrationally. He was preparing the ground for
a challenge of his own, an assault on the tottering remains of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law of 2002.
That
law, more formally known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or
BCRA, limited how campaigns could repay loans from candidates. A
campaign has 20 days in which it can repay such loans in full. After
that deadline, it can repay no more than $250,000.
When Cruz’s
campaign finished repaying him, the deadline had elapsed. So his
campaign committee settled only $250,000 of the loan, leaving $10,000
outstanding—which Cruz then sued in federal court to recover, arguing
that the law’s provision was a violation of his First Amendment rights.
That set in motion more than three years of litigation with the Federal
Election Commission that came to a conclusion in Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.
Cruz
had prudently set the amount of his loan so that a legal defeat would
cost him only $10,000. But he won. And his win has ripped another hole
in a law already shredded by past decisions involving the FEC including Citizens United (decided by the Supreme Court in January 2010) and Speechnow.org (decided by the D.C. Circuit two months after Citizens United).
Federal Election Commission v. Cruz now
joins the list and pushes the BCRA further toward nullity. The majority
opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts rejected the loan
restriction as impermissibly burdensome on candidates’ free-speech
rights. Since the 1976 case Buckley v. Valeo, candidates have
been allowed to spend limitless amounts on their own campaigns. What
possible justification could there be, therefore, for limiting the
amount they can lend? Roberts argued. Even to restrict the terms on
which loans like this can be repaid is to limit a candidate’s right to
political speech unconstitutionally.
The Roberts Court will have its place in history, in infamy, in halls of hubris horrors.
The item continues - going from a sentence largely saying it all, to explanation -
Political contributions that will line a candidate’s own pockets, given
after his election to office, pose a special danger of corruption. The
candidate has a more-than-usual interest in obtaining the money (to
replenish his personal finances), and is now in a position to give
something in return.
The majority dismissed
this concern as conjecture and took comfort in the surviving
restrictions on political contributions as sufficient protection against
corruption or the appearance of corruption.
Bullshit when written reads as what it is, but does "the majority" really care? They have the power. Disrespect does not matter as much. Continuing -
The big winners from the Cruz decision
are candidates rich enough to write themselves a big check, but not so
rich that they can afford to say goodbye to the money forever. A true
billionaire might not bother to recover a campaign loan, but a plain
multimillionaire may want or need to. So, big day for them.
Beyond
that, it’s doubtful that this case really represents a milestone in
itself. It is rather part of a larger restructuring of campaign finance
since 2002, in which the biggest change has been the rise of the super
PAC.
Once upon a time, the most important players in any election
were the campaigns themselves. They raised and spent money under the
direction of candidates and their campaign managers. The Supreme Court’s
anti-BCRA decisions have reapportioned spending power from the
campaigns to the super PACs, which can raise and spend [anonymously as to PAC participating individuals and] on a greater
scale than almost any candidate. Super PACs not only are independent of
campaigns but are also specifically prohibited from coordinating with
campaigns. The rule requiring separation of candidates and super PACs
calls for a great deal of careful lawyering [...]
For example, super PACs will now
publish negative polling information to the world so that their
preferred candidate can legally read it. In February this year, for
example, the super PAC backing J. D. Vance’s senatorial candidacy in
Ohio published
a 98-page PowerPoint presentation that documented how badly Vance was
being hurt by the Club for Growth’s attack ads against him as a Never
Trumper. That’s not something a campaign would normally want to admit.
But the shared information proved useful. Vance’s backer Peter Thiel had
separated himself from the super PAC, to which he had given
$10 million last year, so that he could still act as an adviser to the
Vance campaign. Alerted by the public sharing of research he had funded
but could not privately read, Thiel was able to use his campaign-adviser
status to maximum effect by helping gain a late endorsement for Vance from ex-President Donald Trump. The endorsement arrived on April 15, and Vance won the primary three weeks later.
[...] In a world of enormously potent
and enormously unregulated super PACs, perhaps the FEC’s old focus on
policing campaigns has become obsolete, even counterproductive. The
question for today may be: How do we put candidates back in charge of
their campaigns and restore their responsibility rather than allow them
to take refuge in the deniability of secretive, overly mighty super
PACs?
The question may be how the Roberts Court's excessive favoring of those monied into the realms of 0.1 - 1% against the rest of us might be deterred, short of the big payback.
Packing a court with new persons, nominated by Joe Biden for today's Senate's approval is distasteful in that neither Biden nor today's Senate is progressive, and new bodies that are stiffs are little help at all. Give Biden packing power, and later there'd be a need to do another expansion. A Court more numerous than the College of Cardinals, but little different, could result and that is not a palatable thought.
Without closing until more source links are given:
The New Republic "Soapbox, - American Politics Just Got a Little More Corrupt Thanks to Ted Cruz and John Roberts.
Vox - The Supreme Court just made it much easier to bribe a member of Congress.
- and you can find more if you search, coverage equally depressing, but a prime challenge would be to find any coverage at all of the Roberts shit job calling it better than "shit job."
A shit job for an asshole. Bless Ted Cruz. Bless Roberts and five other GOP appointees to high station. All seemingly in good health. Each dogmatic. Relatively young - Surely so compared to Dem House leadership, that being a separate depressing story.
