Oregon in the Spotlight With Hot Ballot Measures

Oregon is in the national spotlight with a bevy of political hot buttons vying for attention on its 2014 ballot, including legal weed, gay marriage, immigration, and labeling of genetically modified foods, just for starters. Although Oregonians have until July to collect signatures for initiatives in the 2014 election, several high-profile measures have already made the ballot. For example, an immigration-related measure will be there, seeking a public vote on a law, passed in the last session of the state legislature, to give "driver privilege cards" to those who don’t have the documents required to get a driver’s license. The driver’s card would be restricted from use for identification or voting. Gay marriage is on the ballot, too, as Oregon joins at least eight other states with 2014 gay marriage initiatives. The Oregon measure would repeal a state constitutional amendment, passed in 2004, which banned same-sex marriage. The initiative, called the Oregon Freedom to Marry and Religious Protection Initiative, would also protect religious institutions from being forced to perform same-sex weddings. Meanwhile, proponents of legal recreational marijuana are busy collecting signatures to make sure, although they hope the Oregon Legislature will send a legal weed measure to the ballot, that their issue goes before the voters in 2014. If legal weed proponents prevail, Oregon would follow the lead of Washington and Colorado, the first two states to legalize the drug for recreational purposes. Other measures seeking a spot on the ballot include required labeling of "genetically modified foods," a "right-to-work" push to allow public workers to opt out of unions and dues, and an end to state-controlled liquor sales. For more detail, go to http://watchdog.org/121127/oregon-2014-ballot/

California Campaigns Must Report Paid Social Posts

California's Fair Political Practices Commission, the state's campaign watchdog agency, has ruled that political campaigns must report when they pay people to post favorable or unfavorable content on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites. The commission said it acted out of concern that the public might be deceived into thinking paid content on blogs is objective political commentary. A Los Angeles Times news story quotes Commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel: "The public is entitled to know who is paying for campaigns and campaign opinions, so the weight to be given to the views can be evaluated by voters." The new rules require disclosure by campaigns that pay someone $500 or more to post favorable or unfavorable content on Internet sites not run by the campaigns. The campaign’s periodic finance report would have to identify who is paid, how much is paid, and to which website or URL the posting was made. That reporting is not required if the blog or website itself identifies the content as paid for by a campaign. The new rules, which follow the lead of Maine, are unpopular with some in the "blogosphere" but were endorsed by open-government groups, including Consumer Watchdog, as a way to bring “sunshine” to a growing field of political communications. See the L.A. Times story at http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-state-adopts-new-rule-campaigns-must-say-when-they-pay-for-web-posts-20130919,0,1576392.story

Disclaimer Exemption Sought for Mobile Political Ads

A digital political advertising firm is asking the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to exempt banner ads for mobile devices from the disclaimer language required for most political advertising, according to a report in The Huffington Post. Revolution Messaging, a digital advertising firm founded by Scott Goodstein, who was external online director for President Barack Obama's first presidential campaign, is making the exemption request, arguing that mobile devices are too small to ensure that the disclaimer naming the group responsible for the advertisement would not "dwarf the ad entirely," the story says. All public communications by political committees are required by federal campaign finance law to state, in a "clear and conspicuous" manner, the name of the responsible political committee and whether it was authorized by a candidate. In previous opinions, the FEC has ruled that text message ads under 160 characters qualify for the disclaimer exemption, as do Google and Facebook ads, so long as the disclaimer appears on the landing page reached by clicking on the ad. Revolution Messaging is hoping the FEC will extend those precedents to mobile advertising. See the full story at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/mobile-advertising-fec_n_3908020.html

Donors Skittish As Enroll America Draws Scrutiny

The Obama administration’s efforts to raise private money to support implementation of its health care law have provoked such an uproar on Capitol Hill that potential donors are hesitant to contribute, according to a New York Times story citing people involved in the fundraising program. The partisan outcry in Congress began after it was revealed that Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius had made fundraising calls to business executives and nonprofit groups to assist Enroll American, a private nonprofit organization that will encourage millions of Americans to sign up for insurance this fall. Enroll America is led by veterans of the Obama White House and presidential campaigns. It plans to use campaign-style techniques to locate the uninsured. White House officials said that, while generally aware that Sebelius would be seeking support from outside groups, they did not sign off on the fundraising calls by Sebelius, per the New York Times story. Now two House committees have begun investigating the solicitations, and senior Republicans from the Senate and the House have asked the comptroller general of the United States to investigate the actions of Sebelius to determine if she was improperly circumventing spending limits imposed by Congress. One of the House panels, the Energy and Commerce Committee, has also asked health insurance companies to provide records of any contacts with administration officials seeking money or other assistance for President Obama’s campaign to enroll people eligible for subsidized insurance. For the New York Times story, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/us/politics/potential-donors-to-enroll-america-grow-skittish.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Nonprofit Leaders Fear IRS Scandal Fallout

Nonprofit leaders are worried about the negative impact on all tax-exempt charities from the IRS scandal over 501(c)4 social welfare groups. A recent article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy laid out some of the potential collateral damage from the scandal. For example, charities have wanted the IRS to beef up oversight of tax-exempt groups and give clearer guidance on "political activities" by charities and advocacy groups for many years, but that's unlikely until the political storm passes. Nonprofit leaders are also concerned that 501(c)3 groups, which cannot engage in partisan politics at all, will be tarred with same brush as 501(c)4 advocacy groups that can do politicking as long as it is not their primary activity. "All nonprofits are being smeared as though we are engaging in political activity," fretted Tim Delaney, president of the National Council of Nonprofits, in the article. One unhappy result may be that the non-political charities, who file about 60,000 applications for tax-exempt status a year, will face significant delays in approval as Congress reviews treatment of the 3,500 annual applications from advocacy groups. Without tax-exempt status, charities are significantly impeded; they may not solicit donations in several states and are not eligible for lower postal rates or most foundation grants. Charities now are also likely to shy away from anything that smacks of advocacy, including lobbying Congress on budget issues that affect them. For the whole story, see http://philanthropy.com/article/IRS-Tea-Party-Scandal-Could/139233/

Data Debunks IRS Rationale for 'Tea Party' Scandal

Top Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials have been saying that a “significant increase” in applications from advocacy groups seeking tax-exempt status spurred its Cincinnati office in 2010 to filter those requests by using politically loaded phrases such as “Tea Party” and “patriots.” Officials have cited an increase from about 1,500 applications for 501(c)(4) “social welfare” group tax-exempt status in 2010 and to nearly 3,500 in 2012. But the data doesn't bear out the IRS explanation, notes Doug Donovan in an article for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The IRS scrutiny of conservative applications began in March 2010, before an uptick could have been observed, according to data contained in the audit from the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration. Plus, the number of 501(c)(4) applications for all of 2010 was actually less than in 2009: According to the audit, 1,735 groups applied for 501(c)(4) exemption for the federal fiscal year that ended September 30, 2010 -- six months after the IRS began its scrutiny -- which was actually down slightly from 1,751 the prior year. The applications total did grow to 2,265 during the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2011, and to 3,357 for 2012, but by then the criteria the IRS was using to flag groups had changed to include searches for groups with names that contained “Bill of Rights,” “educating on the constitution,” and “limiting/expanding government.” For more, see the story at https://philanthropy.com/article/IRS-Rationale-for-Tea-Party/139277/

Will IRS Mess Undercut Campaign Finance Reform?

The scandal over IRS targeting of conservative and Tea Party nonprofits has at least one consequence so far: It has thrown the charge for campaign finance reform into disarray. Democrats in the Senate had planned on pushing for a new round of campaign finance reporting reforms aimed at limiting the impact of Super PACs and 501(c)4 "social welfare" groups, such as Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, which proliferated after the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010. Now Senate subcommittee hearings planned for June are on hold, so that, as Subcommittee Chair Carl Levin, D-Mich., explained, senators can prepare to investigate the IRS issue as well. Officially, Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insist that the IRS bias against conservative groups only underscores the need for campaign finance reform to clarify tax-exempt rules. But that is a position unlikely to win bipartisan support in Congress now. For more quotes from the politicos, check out the BuzzFeed article at http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/irs-scandal-could-blunt-potency-of-campaign-finance-reform

SEC Pressed to Require Political Donation Disclosure

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is being pressed by a coalition of Democratic officials, shareholder activists and pension funds to require publicly traded companies to disclose to shareholders all their political donations, according to a New York Times story. Per the report, SEC officials indicated that they may respond with a rule proposal very soon, while powerful business and conservative groups have already begun to fight a move they see as regulatory overreach. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable have all joined in a stand against requiring businesses to disclose political spending. House Republicans have hurriedly put together a bill to make it illegal for the SEC to regulate company political disclosure. Even the SEC is divided along political lines. The SEC has three Democratic and two Republican commissioners, and the Republican commissioners have publicly voiced their opposition to a disclosure requirement. But it will be hard for the SEC to ignore the issue; the petition for an SEC ruling on political donation disclosure has already received almost half a million comments, mostly pro, which is more than any petition in the agency's history, noted the news report. For more, see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/us/politics/sec-is-asked-to-make-companies-disclose-donations.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Nonprofit Political Spending Under New Scrutiny

Senate hearings, a watchdog lawsuit, an IRS questionnaire and SEC deliberations are placing nonprofit spending on political campaigns under the microscope, according to a recent Bloomberg news story. Nonprofit 501(c)(4) "social welfare" groups, such as Obama-supporter-founded Priorities USA and conservative Karl Rove-inspired Crossroads GPS, have proliferated and spent more than $300 million on the 2012 election campaign, a 280% bump from the previous presidential election, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Now the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is querying Internal Revenue Service (IRS) officials on their failure to check nonprofit spending on partisan politics, reports Bloomberg. At the same time, the Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics is suing the IRS to force a ban on 501(c)(4) nonprofit political spending. Current federal law requires these nonprofits to be operated exclusively for social welfare activities, but IRS regulations require only that such groups are "primarily engaged" in promoting social welfare and "the common good." Some organizations have interpreted this IRS language to mean they can collect donations and spend on political action as long as the expenditures make up less than 50% of their outlay. The IRS is moving carefully on the issue, according to the Bloomberg story. It recently asked about engagement in political campaigns on a questionnaire sent to 1,300 nonprofits claiming tax-exempt status. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering a rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose donations to nonprofits, including those channeling big dollars into partisan issues. The issue is definitely heating up, so watch for more legal challenges of nonprofit spending on politics and failure to disclose donors, predicted experts cited in the story. For more detail, see http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&id=2099:april-16-2013-bloomberg-senate-scrutiny-of-nonprofits-spurring-disclosure-taxes-&Itemid=62

GOP Warns Against FCC Political-Ad Disclosure Rule

GOP senators warned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an April letter that the agency should avoid passing new rules requiring disclosure of those funding political ads. The letter to the FCC commissioners was in response to a Senate Commerce Oversight hearing last month in which Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.) urged the commissioners to do via rule-making what Congress has failed to achieve legislatively. The FCC letter was signed by more than a dozen GOP members of the Senate Commerce Committee, as well as minority leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). After the Citizen's United decision by the Supreme Court, which lifted a ban on corporate and union funding of campaign ads, Democrats responded by introducing the Disclose Act in 2010 and reintroducing it in 2012, but the bill failed to pass. Converting the bill's intent into an FCC rule would take the the agency beyond its statutory role to "weigh in on a partisan political dispute," which would "seriously undermine the integrity of the commission and imperil its independence," the GOP letter argued. For the news story, see http://www.adweek.com/news/television/gop-fcc-dont-take-political-ad-disclosures-148531

Senate Seeks to End Political Mail Discounts

Here's some unpleasant news for political campaigners: The Senate has approved a budget amendment to take away mailing discounts for political campaigns and committees. The move is aimed at generating more revenue for the struggling U.S. Postal Service, and it is estimated that the end of nonprofit postal discount rates for political mailers would bring in at least $15 billion in additional revenue annually. That would be a boon for the USPS, which is losing $40 million a day, and a blow to small political campaigns forced to pay full postage. For the news alert, see http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/289997-senate-votes-to-end-mailing-discounts-for-political-parties

FCC Cites Robocallers for Cell Phone Campaigning

Regulators have responded to the many mobile phone users complaining about unsolicited political "robocalls" last year. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently cited two robocalling firms for illegally sending campaign messages to cell phone users in 2011 and 2012. Dialing Services, based in New Mexico and specializing in Republican campaigning, and Democratic Dialing, based in Colorado and largely a Democratic campaign tool, are both accused of placing calls to consumers without their permission and of failing to properly identify themselves to those called. Communications law generally prohibits robocalls and auto-dialed calls, including voice messages and text messages, to wireless phones unless the users have granted permission for the contact, or there is an emergency. The FCC warned the two firms to stop making illegal calls within 15 days. If they fail to stop, or restart the practice, the robocallers can be fined as much as $16,000 per call. For the whole news story, go to http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-15/business/37754326_1_robocalls-fcc-investigation-fcc-staff

Will Democrats Sell Voter Data to Commercial Marketers?

Will Democrats start selling voter opinion data to commercial marketers? The National Voter File Co-op, formed in 2011 by state Democratic Party leaders to sell voter data to approved nonprofit groups, is looking into whether commercial interests, such as credit card companies or retailers like Target, also will want to buy their voter information, which includes opinions and preferences as well as public record data. The Co-op goal is to recoup money local Democratic parties have spent collecting and updating their local voter lists, which include voters of all parties. Each state Democratic Party will have the final say over whether to sell their voter information for commercial purposes, and sales will abide by individual state laws on how public voting records can be used. But experts note that state political data laws do not apply to opinion information provided by voters to the party, say through campaign canvassers, or collected from primary participation. So there may be controversy ahead for Democratic data marketers. In his "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights" released last year, President Barack Obama argued that when companies collect personal data from consumers, they should only share it in ways consumers expect. Does that standard apply to a political party? For the full story, go to http://www.propublica.org/article/will-democrats-sell-your-political-opinions-to-credit-card-companies

House Dems Unite on Campaign Finance Reform

Five House Democrats, members of a campaign finance reform task force, announced that they are uniting to seek a single legislative reform package even as they reintroduced three separate bills designed to empower small donors through public financing. The joint statement by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the leader of the Task Force on Election Reform, and the proponents of three different bills -- Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), David Price (D-N.C.), John Sarbanes (D-Md.), John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) -- emphasized that they will work through the task force to merge their ideas into one legislative package. All three pieces of legislation have as a main feature an alternative campaign funding system that would allow participating candidates to receive money from a public fund that matched small-dollar donations. The idea is patterned after the New York City public financing system, which provides a six-to-one public match for contributions up to $175. See the "Huffington Post" report at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/16/public-financing-congress-democrats_n_2488869.html