The conservative group that has seen some corporate donors flee because of its involvement in pushing for voter ID and stand-your-ground gun laws, has new troubles. Common Cause has filed a complaint with the IRS that the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, violated the limits of its charity tax status. Continue reading →
Yum Brands, the company that owns Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, says it's the latest corporation to break ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council — a group that brings state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists together to write legislation. Liberal groups are pressuring corporations to abandon ALEC, and a dozen companies have now dropped out. This week, ALEC did some damage control. It said it's shutting down its task force on public safety and elections, which wrote controversial measures on voter ID, "stand your ground" and immigration reform. But another issue remains. ALEC is a 501(c)(3)charity under the tax code. That means it's not supposed to do any "substantial" lobbying — and its donors get a tax write-off for their contributions. As a 501(c)(3)charity — ... Continue reading →
Fixing Washington, 126 Harvard Law Review (forthcoming 2012) (draf available) What to Expect When You’re Electing: Federal Courts and the Political Thicket in 2012, Federal Lawyer, (forthcoming 2012)( draft available) Chill Out: A Qualified Defense of Campaign Finance Disclosure Laws in the Internet Age, Journal of Law and Politics (forthcoming 2012) (draft available) Lobbying, Rent Seeking, and the Constitution, 64 Stanford Law Review (forthcoming 2012) (draft available) Anticipatory Overrulings, Invitations, Time Bombs, and Inadvertence: How Supreme Court Justices Move the Law, Emory Law Journal (forthcoming 2012) (draft available) Teaching Bush v. Gore as History, St. Louis University Law Review (forthcoming 2012) (symposium on teaching election law) (draft available) The Supreme Court’s Shrinking Election Law Docket: A Legacy of Bush v. Gore or Fear of the ... Continue reading →
Every local broadcast station has a repository of documents about political advertising that you have a legal right to see, but are accessible only by physically traveling to the station and asking to see “the public file.” These paper files contain detailed data on all ads that run on the channel, from when they air to who bought the time to how much they paid. It’s a transparency gold mine, allowing the public to see how campaigns and outside groups are influencing elections. But TV executives have been fighting a Federal Communications Commission proposal to make the data accessible online. They say making the files digital would be too burdensome— it “could well take hundreds of hours for a single station,” according to comments filed ... Continue reading →
Libertarians say it's like watching dear friends in an ugly divorce, as the billionaire Koch brothers try to take control of the highly regarded Cato Institute. The head of Cato says the Kochs are out to politicize the think tank. Continue reading →
Bobby Yip/Reuters/Landov Sheldon and Miriam Adelson at the 2008 opening ceremony of the Four Seasons Hotel Macau in Macau. One of the defining elements of the 2012 presidential campaign is money. Not that the candidates themselves have raised all that much; except for President Obama, they haven't. But two dozen wealthy Americans have put in at least $1 million each. Mostly, they're a mix of Wall Street financiers and entrepreneurs. One of the biggest donors is Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate who is worth about $25 billion. Since January, he has put more than $10 million into the superPAC backing Newt Gingrich. And that money has kept Gingrich's presidential hopes alive when the candidate's own campaign was out of cash. Why is Adelson doing this? ... Continue reading →
Posted on March 11, 2012 by ribbie If you’ve ever tuned on NPR, you are sure to have heard NPR’s Peter Overby. I don’t know if his voice sounds at all familiar to you, but when I first heard him, I immediately thought of Linus from Peanuts. Listen to this clip carefully and see if you too make the connection. I may be hallucinating, but I think maybe not. Like this:Be the first to like this post. Filed under: humor Tagged: | humor, Linus, Peanuts, Peter Overby Continue reading →
