Campaign Finance LitigationThe Legal Center tracks and participates in cases involving campaign finance and campaign-related media law at both the federal and state levels. They'd Let the Cash Flow Make no mistake: The Republican National Committee, through its counsel and now vice-chairman James Bopp Jr., is seeking something of a revolution in Supreme Court precedent on campaign finance regulation. But as is often the case in litigation, the “revolution” is disguised by the technical nature of the law and the procedural tactics of the challengers. Bopp Buzzer Beater Rejected The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Wednesday denied election lawyer Jim Bopp's latest attempt to halt the enforcement of federal campaign finance laws at the height of the presidential campaign in Koerber v. FEC. Soft Money Abuse By Host Committees With big donors like Anheuser Busch, Kraft, AT&T and the Service Employees International Union able to cut six- and seven-figure checks, money is no object for the convention host committees. These corporate and union behemoths aren't just providing free Cheez Whiz, Bud Lights and bartenders for this "rock star" event, they are taking advantage of one of the biggest loopholes in our nation's campaign finance laws. Campaign & Election Law Litigation Update, August 2008 It remains a busy time in campaign finance and election law, with a growing number of cases on court dockets around the country, particularly those challenging existing campaign finance laws. With many new developments, we have updated our “Cases of Interest,” providing a brief summary of pertinent cases and the Campaign Legal Center’s involvement. Public Financing After Davis: “The Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated” There has been much speculation in the weeks since the Supreme Court decided Davis v. FEC, striking down the federal law “Millionaire’s Amendment,” about whether and how the decision would impact lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of public financing program trigger provisions. Missing from this commentary, however, has been a thoughtful discussion of the differences between the Millionaire’s Amendment struck down in Davis and public financing program trigger provisions, which were not analyzed by the Court in Davis. Let’s Scratch Out the FEC Enforcement of the campaign finance laws is vital in a presidential election year, but the Federal Election Commission is still not up to the job. Its failure has been so persistent over so many years that Congress is now weighing a bipartisan bill that would replace the FEC altogether. Judge Gives SpeechNow Test Case Failing Grade Yesterday's SpeechNow.org decision reaffirms what the Supreme Court has made clear for decades: that laws designed to prevent the circumvention of contribution limits serve important governmental interests by protecting the integrity of campaign finance laws. Von Spakovsky’s Meaningless Stats The Campaign Legal Center takes exception with a recent op-ed by Hans von Spakovsky on the effectiveness of the FEC. Federal Court to FEC: "Strike III, You're Out!" Yet again a federal court has found the FEC’s implementation of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act to be unreasonable and to undermine the purposes of the law. As we have maintained from the outset, the court found that the Commission simply chose to ignore both the word and the spirit of significant portions of the law when it implemented BCRA. Tear Up the FEC to Create a New, Efficient Agency If the latest mess hasn’t convinced everyone that the Federal Election Commission is an irretrievable disaster, nothing will. While the standoff over nominee Hans von Spakovsky was resolved the months-long standoff served to again reveal in full glory the commission’s fatal flaws. |
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