Supreme Court Will Rule on Contribution Limits

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will hear a case challenging the per-biennial cycle limit on campaign contributions from individuals.

Source: Paul Blumenthal -- Huffington Post

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Venice City Council to Join Amendment Movement — 8/28 Meeting

Venice City Council voted 4-2 Tuesday to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution asserting that corporations are not people and money is not speech.  Once its staff completes its own resolution of support, council will join a nationwide groundswell of about 300 municipalities supporting the amendment in the wake of the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission, which removed restrictions on the amount of money that could be contributed to political campaigns.

Source: Steven J. Smith -- Venice Gondolier Sun

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Citizens Group Seeks Campaign Finance Reform — 8/14 Venice Council Meeting.

VENICE — About 50 people assembled at Tuesday’s Venice City Council meeting to support a request that it place a resolution on the agenda of its Aug. 28 meeting in favor of campaign finance reform.  Venice resident Wendie Highsmith delivered a five-minute address during the audience participation segment of the meeting, formally requesting the City Council “to join with other cities and towns across the country to pass a nonpartisan resolution in support of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that corporations are not persons and money is not speech.”

Source: Steven J. Smith -- Venice gondolier Sun

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There’s No Hiding It: Citizens United Wasn’t About “Speech” — It Was About Takeover of American Democracy

In all the hullabaloo over the Supreme Court’s decision on health care, another of its rulings quickly fell off the public radar. Before deciding the fate of the Affordable Care Act, the Court announced it would not reconsider  Citizens United , the odious 5-4 decision two years ago that opened our elections to unlimited contributions.

Within minutes of that announcement, right-wing partisans were crowing about the advantage they now own, an advantage not due to ideas or personalities but to the sheer force of money.

Source: Bill Moyers -- Alternet.org

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Worst Government We Can Buy?

This has been a busy week for the U.S. Supreme Court. It handed down decisions on Obamacare and the Arizona immigration law and, in what I consider the most important action of the week -- perhaps the year -- overthrew a 100-year-old Montana law prohibiting political contributions by corporations.

The court did not get into much discussion of the case. Just said it was covered by the decision in the 2010 Citizens United case -- arguably the worst decision by the court since the Civil War.

Source: Waldo Proffitt -- Herald-Tribune

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Senator Marco Rubio’s Chief of Staff Maintains Financial Ties To Lobbying Firm

Lobbyists, hoping to persuade lawmakers and their staffs on any number of important issues, breeze in and out of the halls of the Capitol every day. But a growing trend that has alarmed ethics experts is the extent to which influence peddlers have burrowed into government to take jobs that place them in positions of power. A stunning example of this phenomenon is Senator Marco Rubio’s right-hand man.

Source: Lee Fang -- Republic Report

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ALEC Is a Lobby, Not a Charity

ALEC IS A LOBBY, NOT A CHARITY

Panel in Hacking Case Finds Murdoch Unfit as News Titan

LONDON — A damning report on the hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers concluding that Mr. Murdoch is “not a fit person” to run a huge international company has convulsed Britain’s political and media worlds and threatened a core asset of Mr. Murdoch’s American-based News Corporation.

Source: JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA -- The New York Times

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G.O.P. Fund-Raiser Faces Inquiries Into His Races

WASHINGTON — Last year, House Republican leaders tapped an up-and-coming Florida lawmaker, Representative Vern Buchanan, to lead the party’s fund-raising for candidates nationwide, a crucial part of their efforts to keep control of the House in November.

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Justice Department investigating Buchanan in campaign contribution case

The Justice Department is investigating District 13 congressional Rep. Vern Buchanan in connection with illegal campaign donations that supported his past campaigns for Congress.

Buchanan’s campaign said in a statement to the media that its officials “look forward to cooperating fully” with the inquiry, but declined to discuss details of the investigation’s focus.

Attempts to reach the Justice Department for comment late Tuesday were unsuccessful.

The investigation came to light three months after Buchanan’s former business partner Sam Kazran told a federal judge that Buchanan left threatening phone messages and tried to coerce him into signing a false affidavit to cover up Buchanan’s alleged role in the illegal donation scheme dating back to 2005.

Source: Jeremy Wallace -- Herald Tribune

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