President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%↑
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd
(D) Adam Frisch
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
52%↑
48%↓
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
October 06, 2010 05:35 AM UTC
124 Comments
You remember when Republicans were for unlimited financing of campaigns, but with full disclosure, right?
Notsomuch anymore, I guess.
Why is it that the very bill meant to address foreign contributions to independent expenditures was voted against unanimously by the Republicans? Why wouldn’t they even let it come to the floor for a vote?
What is Ken Buck’s position on the DISCLOSE Act? Every single Republican in Congress or looking to run for Congress should answer this question. Why are Republicans in favor of allowing foreign money to influence our Federal elections?
Ken Buck is for full disclosure.
Has he asked his 527 and 501(c)(4) benefactors to disclose the identities of their contributors?
Despite what Dems say. It’s a documented Democratic tactic:
http://www.newsweek.com/2008/1…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1…
http://politically-direct.blog…
Obama gets notice about some mystery donors – returns the donations and the FEC is satisfied.
Clinton administration convicts dozens of people for violating campaign finance laws.
And in CO the legislature voted against lowering the donation threshold that requires personal reporting by name of donors from $20 to $5.
Yeah- those are the same
Foreign contributions are bad.
Mystery contributors are bad.
Why won’t Buck support the DISCLOSE Act?
http://www.kdvr.com/news/polit…
Why exempt the Sierra Club and the NRA?
To get it passed.
on campaign finance is clear. In essence – Free speech, equally applied, and 24hr internet disclosure.
Democrat position is free speech, unequally applied with random exceptions, and disclosure if caught cheating.
but unfortunately the GOP believes it is.
The NRA, specifically, was the main target of the exemption to which you’re referring. It was broadened to cover some other organizations that were more D-friendly, but the original exemption was an attempt to get the measure past the Republican blockade.
Why do Republicans want these exemptions?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…
Van Hollen and Dem leadership wanted the act full of loopholes to get it passed while giving their members something to run on.
Why would you say that when it’s so easy to prove wrong?
I had made an assumption, being mostly a consumer of liberal news, that the Republicans had asked for the exemption – it’s kind of easy to do when the NRA is lopsided in supporting Republicans, and when liberal groups were the first to protest.
But conservative groups protested, too. And the real reason the exemption is in there is neither because of favors done by Democrats or Republicans, but rather because Democrats feared an NRA campaign blitz. Which is kind of like preventing one calf from running over you while a whole herd of cows is busy trampling you flat…
from companies with ties to Iran and genocide in Darfur? We can go there if you’d like.
There is a distinction between [U.S.] “companies with ties” and foreign … What? Companies? Governments? … we don’t know and the USCOC isn’t telling.
I wonder whether you see the distinction and whether you think it matters. Give us an insight into how you think about this topic. Thanks in advance.
Read about it yourself.
http://buckforcolorado.com/ben…
You’ll put Gary Harmon out of a job.
They were Russian and Chinese companies, not U.S. companies.
The topic is campaign contributions by unnamed foreign sources channeled into the US by the USCOC and then into campaign contributions (fungible funds and all that). Could be from companies, goverment-owned companies, government agencies–we don’t know and USCOC ain’t sayin’.
The press release is about investments by Michael Bennet the individual which, in any case, are known.
Since you didn’t mention this distinction, I think it’s fair to assume you didn’t (or don’t) see it (and, evidently, Buck’s painfully obvious effort to confuse two very different issues). Thanks for the insight into your thinking.
that SEIU stands for Service Employees INTERNATIONAL Union? Dems have been playing this game for a long time.
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
KEN BUCK CANNOT COORDINATE WITH OUTSIDE GROUPS!
Therefore, he cannot tell them anything. It is their problem, and their problem alone.
Try to relax. Do some math.
Especially when he gets criticized for the 527 ads.
What the Democrats want to expose is the false momentum in hopes of energizing their deflated base.
When your base has a functional unemployment rate of 17%, even they know that their guy legislated unemployment.
http://www.slate.com/id/226987…
candidates have no clue who is behind the 527s that support them? Let me put you on the list for my next pyramid scheme. Everybody on the planet gets to be a zillionaire!
Can’t is a pretty strong word.
Nitpicking aside, I’m not indicating that Ken Buck is directly receiving foreign cash, but he is definitely benefiting from it in the form of the USCOC’s ad campaign.
At what point does the search for Party Power end and the defense of the integrity of our nation begin?
Foreign contributions to political campaigns is just a bad idea.
The old “wa-a-ah! No fair blamin’ me! Johnny did it too” defense that has been failing to impress moms or prosecutors since there were moms or prosecutors.
Gee, I missed that.
Try again. Are you saying that it’s okay because Clinton did it? If not, why bring him up?
Do you want to debate politics, or just score points? Are you a Haners or a bjwilson83?
…be consistent. I don’t remember a lot of diaries during the primaries when Hillary was raking it in.
And maybe because the sources had to be disclosed back then? That was before Citizens United, after all. You should keep that in mind before suddenly deciding something is unfair.
I think the Supreme Court opinion on CU is freaking great.
Or something similar? What would you change, if anything?
Not unless it treats unions just as it does business. And includes the Sierra Club and the NRA.
You might want to call a few Republicans in DC to tell them that. They didn’t want it without the exemptions, and now they don’t want it with the exemptions.
I’d prefer if unions weren’t allowed to make political donations at all, particularly public employee unions.
That’s one of the least just examples in this country: you get to hire your boss and give yourselves raises and benefits that are unsustainable and make yourselves totally unaccountable as well.
Or because it validates the money = free speech principle?
That’s a different and off topic discussion. Not an uninteresting one, but you’re avoiding the issue of whether your initial reaction to this diary was fair or not. I think it’s not, based on what I pointed out.
But not in such a one-sided manner. Foreign cash and influence finds its way into our system fairly easily, on both sides.
To the CU opinion, I like people that run big businesses being able to give money to politicians, especially because shadowy, creepy unions already do, and they are ruining business. At least give business a fighting chance to save themselves.
if they applied to all organizations and citizens equally?
Do you have any concerns over the fact that you DON’T KNOW exactly who is making these contributions?
Yes, it bothers me, but it’s rampant.
… I get that. But I’d like to know if you’d support capping contributions. And am I correct if I detect a bit of fatalism in your last phrase?
I’d like to see publicly-funded campaigns at all levels. The amount of money we waste on these assholes and their campaigns is staggering – we could invade all kinds of other countries if we had public financing.
🙂
Seriously. I think it ought to be that way, too.
But Carville/Begala had an interesting idea for public financing.
You can’t prohibit private contributions because of free speech issues. Carville/Begala said fine, let people contribute. But for every $ of private contributions that goes to a candidate, the opponent gets an extra $ of public funding. No free speech issue there. But no incentive to raise private contributions either.
I abhor the notion that donations are an expression of free speech, because that means more money = more freedom, or the realization that all are created equal but some are more equal than others. But it’s currently the law of the land, if I understand Citizens United correctly, so something like this proposal could at least provide some balance.
Or…
We could just do it like on the Apprentice and give each candidate $1000 and have them make the best of it.
With realistic budgets, of course. But if we’re stuck with campaign donations being free speech as per the Citizens United case, it wouldn’t be constitutional.
You’ll be drummed out of the GOP talking like that. Of course since you voted for Obama, or at least said you were going to, that ship has probably sailed. Unless none of your R friends know.
Don’t tell them I’m pro-gay marriage, too, or they won’t send me the update for the secret handshake!
never respond to accusations of wrong doing by righties in any way except by saying Dems have done something just as bad or worse. Never. Period. It’s become predictable to the point of being the signature rightie response. It’s pretty amusing. Just once I’d like to see a response dealing with the merits of the rightie in question’s actions in the particular situation under discussion.
Let me give you an example. If you confront me with John Edwards sleazy behavior I will gladly grant that he’s a scum bag. Heck I’ll gladly grant that Clinton, in his personal life, is a sleazy idiot who can’t, for the life of him, keep his pants zipped. I will not issue a knee jerk response excusing them because Newt’s behavior in his personal has been even scummier, which it has.
I find it just plain childish that righties never seem to be able to resist using comparisons to make excuses in exactly the same way we all did when we were four years old, pleading our cases by whining about brothers or sisters doing the same thing but not getting caught or punished. Grow the hell up.
doesn’t make it any more logical. Only logic analysis would make it more logical. Got any?
A lot of people don’t know this, because they haven’t read Perelman’s original papers, but here’s an excerpt from the work that won Gregory Perelman the Fields Medal.
Mathematics is actually a lot easier than many people think.
So says one of his supporters in a complaint to the FEC during the primary.
He’s just as guilty as everyone else about using the 527 ads against Ken.
He had to swear under penalty of perjury that the allegations he was making were true.
If they were not true, he perjured himself.
How do you prove he didn’t believe the nonsense?
We’ll make our own judgment then.
It’s not about you.
I know, you never saw Buck coordinate with an outside group, so therefore it has never happened. But the point is USCOC and their choice to channel foreign contributions into political campaigns. You can’t possibly think that’s a good idea – conservatives have hated that forever.
I haven’t personally seen all kinds of crap happen.
ONE CAN ONLY DRIVE 55 IN A 55-ZONE!
ONE CAN ONLY DRIVE 55 IN A 55-ZONE!
ONE CAN ONLY DRIVE 55 IN A 55-ZONE!
ONE CAN ONLY DRIVE 55 IN A 55-ZONE!
in any capacity other than a grunt.
It’s very easy to tell a 527, without “coordinating,” when you don’t like the ads they’re running. You simply call a press conference and publicly deplore the ads. Honorable candidates do it all the time.
The fact that Buck hasn’t done it tells me that the ads are OK with him.
I haven’t seen a single politician do this in this cycle. An ethics complaint would be filed immediately.
then it’s never, ever happened in human history.
Why would anyone file an ethics complaint over a politician distancing her- or himself away from an outside group’s ads?
with his own eyes, it didn’t happen or it doesn’t exist. That explains why evolution is just a fairytale — otherwise, he’d be seeing monkeys evolving into humans.
How nice that they can’t exist because Beej hasn’t been there to see them. The TV stuff could be just like the fake moon landings, you know.
The war in Afghanistan, the Empire State Building, Bigfoot. Good thing none of them exist!
meant Iraq and Afghanistan. Freudian slip?
n/t
You are completely full of shit.
A candidate publicly deploring an ad? An ethics complaint? Filed by whom? Candidates can’t have their own opinions? Stated in public instead of in a smoke-filled room?
Never mind. I don’t really want you to answer those questions, because the answers don’t matter. You’re completely full of shit, so any answer you provide will be shit.
Besides, you’re a Republican. You have no concept of ethics.
Collateral damage.
See here.
I’m not sure Republicans have done it, because it’s the kind of thing that requires principles beyond wanting to win.
Don’t think “I haven’t seen it” is going to work for you anymore. “Argument from authority” only works if people believe you know anything.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/…
I trust you’ll file the ethics complaint personally, then?
That man should be prosecuted for breaking campaign laws for telling the public that the deplorable ads were deplorable.
until you post the same capitalized line 27 times. 11 times just isn’t convincing enough honey.
Meanwhile, despite the attempted treadjacking, this isn’t about Buck controlling or coordinating with USCOC.
It’s about USCOC funneling foreign contributions into political campaigns. A bad idea.
The USCOC may be the agent, but… Possibly a question of emPHAsis, but I think an important one. “This candidate brought to you by the Kingdom of …. or The People’s Republic of… I would be interest in knowing that, and I doubt that I’m alone.
Those same foreign interests are also focused on avoiding any legislation or measures that would hamper the continued export of American jobs and legislation (i.e. tariffs) to counter undervalued currencies (read: China’s trade imbalance).
The USCOC isn’t the real target here; the target is the source of the foreign funds, AND the realization that certain certain candidates are benefiting without denouncing it and without demanding that it stop.
Neither is this a Democratic issue–is it? Feel comfortable with huge expenditures from [name that oil producing country] [n ame that foreign manufacturer with a huge trade imbalance] influencing elections with advertising labeled as “U.S. Chamber of Commerce”?
Curious that a story of this magnitude can’t make it to the Front Page of this blog.
Phoenix:
You might take a look at Vince Carroll’s piece last weekend before you accuse the chamber of commerce of illegal activity.
http://www.denverpost.com/carr…
And if the point of your story is that Buck should do something about what a third party is doing as to their ads you might consider that it would likely be illegal to do so.
Other than that great diary.
Clearly ColoradoPols front page material. You said all the right things, Republicans are bad, they should do things which they are not permitted to do, their money is tainted and woe is me because when the Dems get their ass kicked it surely will have nothing to do with how they have governed.
Bravo.
Though it is revealing that the two most prolific Buck-shills on CoPols immediately react to defend Buck. For something that the USCOC is accused of doing.
It reflects badly on Buck. But it is not about Buck. Buck has raised about 25% of what has been spent on his behalf – and no one has cared and Buck
shillssupporters have deflected claiming it’s not about Buck.Declaration Alliance, America Crossroads, USCOC, etc and so on. But now that there is foreign money, the deflection morphs into defense. INstinctively, everyone knows this looks bad. But it is not about Buck.
I read the title as being about foreign cash influencing politics. Maybe it’s because I’m up on the current state of financing, but I knew immediately that PR’s diary would be about the orgs that can raise and spend unlimited funds without disclosing donors, and that those orgs are prohibited from coordinating with campaigns, so I didn’t think it would be about Buck at all.
Come on, Ari. The title is:
This clearly contradicts this statement:
And MADCO, the fargin’ bastage that he is, would probably admit that.
If it said Senate Candidate propped up by Foreign Cash it would be the same story.
So it pokes Buck in the eye. It’s about the money.
Sorry, LB, but it seems to me that you just can’t read something objectively.
PR was talking about the one campaign in Colorado most affected by this. He probably could have brought in Gardner too, but I don’t think shady orgs are buying up huge amounts of adtime for him.
So laugh away, as it’s your name. You’d be better to be curious about who’s trying to get your guy elected from the shadows, but no one can force you to do that.
Yet again Coloradopols post an article on the front page attempting to undermine Ken Buck’s campaign. You libs need to get busy writing. Coloradopols had to dig to find a diary written 24 hours earlier to meet their demand for propaganda.
How about this. Bennet voted for ObamaCare. How about we check his FEC filings since he cast that vote to determine exactly how his vote is being repaid:
BLUE SHIELD OF CALIFORNIA POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 08/25/2009 1000.00
BLUEPAC – BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD ASSOCIATION PAC 06/15/2009 1000.00
BLUEPAC – BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD ASSOCIATION PAC 08/31/2009 2500.00
BLUEPAC – BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD ASSOCIATION PAC 09/11/2009 500.00
BLUEPAC – BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD ASSOCIATION PAC 09/11/2009 500.00
HUMANA INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 12/15/2009 2500.00
HUMANA INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 03/12/2010 1000.00
HUMANA INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 05/25/2010 1000.00
HUMANA INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 08/09/2010 500.00
MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 06/09/2009 1000.00
MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 11/17/2009 2000.00
MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 12/29/2009 2000.00
MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 03/29/2010 2000.00
MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 05/03/2010 -2000.00
MEDCO HEALTH SOLUTIONS INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (A.K.A. MEDCO HEALTH PAC) 09/30/2009 1000.00
MEDCO HEALTH SOLUTIONS INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (A.K.A. MEDCO HEALTH PAC) 12/28/2009 4000.00
MEDICAL FACILITIES OF AMERICA INC PAC 05/19/2009 1000.00
MEDTRONIC INC. MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY FUND 02/13/2009 1000.00
MEDTRONIC INC. MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY FUND 09/16/2009 1000.00
MEDTRONIC INC. MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY FUND 03/25/2010 1000.00
METLIFE INC. EMPLOYEES’ POLITICAL PARTICIPATION FUND A 05/07/2009 1000.00
METLIFE INC. EMPLOYEES’ POLITICAL PARTICIPATION FUND A 06/24/2010 1000.00
NATIONAL COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS ASSOCIATION – PAC 03/03/2009 1000.00
NATIONAL COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS ASSOCIATION – PAC 03/03/2009 1000.00
NATIONAL COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS ASSOCIATION – PAC 03/15/2010 1000.00
NATIONAL HEALTH CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 12/15/2009 2000.00
NEXION HEALTH FUND FOR QUALITY LONG TERM CARE INC 12/15/2009 1000.00
NEXION HEALTH FUND FOR QUALITY LONG TERM CARE INC 04/13/2010 1000.00
NOVARTIS CORPORATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 06/19/2009 1000.00
PACIFIC PULMONARY SERVICES POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 12/01/2009 4000.00
PFIZER INC. PAC 05/26/2009 1000.00 29992234594 PFIZER INC. PAC 06/16/2009 1000.00
PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH & MANUFACTURERS OF AMERICA BETTER GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE 03/23/2009 1000.00 PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH & MANUFACTURERS OF AMERICA BETTER GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE 06/25/2009 1500.00
PHARMAVITE LLC POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (PHARMAVITE PAC) 04/27/2010 1000.00
REHABCARE GROUP INC PAC 12/15/2009 1000.00
REINSURANCE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE INC (REPAC) 06/29/2010 500.00
RGA REINSURANCE COMPANY FEDERAL PAC 04/23/2010 2000.00
SKILLED HEALTHCARE GROUP INC POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (SKILLED HEALTHCARE PAC) 11/12/2009 1000.00
SOCIETY OF INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 05/17/2010 5000.00
SOCIETY OF THORACIC SURGEONS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 06/29/2010 1000.00
SOCIETY OF THORACIC SURGEONS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE 08/03/2010 1000.00
SUN HEALTHCARE GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE D/B/A SUN HEALTHCARE P.A.C. 05/15/2009 4000.00
SUN HEALTHCARE GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE D/B/A SUN HEALTHCARE P.A.C. 12/11/2009 3500.00
SUN HEALTHCARE GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE D/B/A SUN HEALTHCARE P.A.C. 04/20/2010 1000.00
SUN HEALTHCARE GROUP, INC. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE D/B/A SUN HEALTHCARE P.A.C. 08/20/2010 3500.00
TRAVELERS COMPANIES INC. PAC, THE 03/26/2009 2500.00
TRAVELERS COMPANIES INC. PAC, THE 09/09/2009 1000.00
TRAVELERS COMPANIES INC. PAC, THE 09/11/2009 1000.00
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED PAC (UNITED FOR HEALTH) 03/13/2009 1000.00
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED PAC (UNITED FOR HEALTH) 09/17/2009 1000.00
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP INCORPORATED PAC (UNITED FOR HEALTH) 12/15/2009 1000.00
WALGREEN CO PAC 03/17/2009 1000.00
WELLPOINT, INC. WELLPAC 06/12/2009 1000.00
WELLPOINT, INC. WELLPAC 10/15/2009 1000.00
That explains why Buck is letting 527s and 501(c){4)s do his talking for him.
No pesky disclosure.
You can’t exactly come back with an equivalent list for Buck, because the Republicans have decided to file everything through non-disclosing groups like the USCOC and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS.
The RNC is receiving almost no funds these days, and the DSCC and DCCC have consistently outraised their Republican counterparts through the campaign cycle. All the money is going into these shadow groups, and if you think that’s coincidence – that it’s not a coordinated party effort to avoid disclosure – then you’ve got a mighty fine reality filter.
Let’s highlight that second paragraph because it needs to be repeated:
Try linking, like this:
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-b…
Can’t you see that the right-winged nuthatches on this site just go apeshit for long lists of capitalized blather?
Doesn’t really matter what . . .
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
MAYBE IT’S AN ATUMNAL MATING RITUAL?
(Aye carumba, me so horny now!)
1. Are against leglaizing drugs (keeps profits high)
2. Are “law and order ” candidates that send Americans to prison easily (they recruit distribution and muscle metworks)
3. Are against immigration reform (Coyote buisness)
So I ask which party are they most likely to funnel money?
The answer is clear.
Despite the replies suggesting this post is about the chamber, the purpose is clearly to try and suggest that Buck has some kind of nefarious ties to the alleged illegality. The chamber’s actions in this case are no more illegal than the Unions pooling the dues of their members and then donating them to campaigns without identifying the members who contributed the dues.
The title of the blog was written specifically to make the insinuation that Buck is somehow involved with this activity that is perfectly legal and acceptable under current law.
Now if you wanted to make an argument that all donors of all forms must transparently name their donors we might have something to talk about. Until you want to have that discussion though, this hack job you have put together is laughable.
OK, let’s spell it out…
If a foreign government gives a campaign contribution to a senate candidate, that’s illegal.
But, if same foreign government gives the same campaign contribution to the USCOC, who then runs political ads, that’s legal.
USCOC solicits foreign contributions.
USCOC funds political ads from its general fund.
In Colorado, one Senate candidate (Buck) raises very little money. Almost all his paid media comes from organizations like the USCOC.
Therefore, Buck significantly benefits from foreign contributions to aid his campaign.
The same arguments do not hold for Bennet and the false equivalency of unions and foreign contributions. Union contributions to candidates are legal. Bennet pays for most of his paid media.
The suggestion that USCOC is using foreign money is based on the premise that all it’s general fund is pooled foreign and domestic. In the same fashion, union dues are pooled into the general fund.
The umbrella organizations then disburse those funds as they see fit without having to identify the individual person/company the dues came from or even ask their permission. When a union gets asked why the forced dues of a member are being spent on a candidate the member disagrees with, the union basically says, it wasn’t your due, we used those for something else. The USCOC is given the same leeway under current law.
Any suggestion that putting Buck’s name into the title wasn’t intended to tie him to this is ridiculous. If there was no intention to insinuate Buck was a part of the alleged illegality, then the title would have discussed the USCOC, not Buck.
Until the CU decision, unions had to have a separate account for their campaign fund, and they (still) have to offer union members the opportunity to opt out of campaign funding.
And, yes, the USCOC dues are indeed pooled into a general fund that is both foreign and domestic. Once there they cannot be effectively separated, because even if tracked, the foreign cash can be used to run non-political operations, freeing domestic cash that would otherwise fund non-political operations into political use. And because the USCOC is not disclosing their expenditures, it is unclear that even that distinction is maintained.
So you’re wrong on a number of levels.
Unions make it extremely difficult to “opt out”. The standard should be opt-in. Additionally, closed shops requiring people to be union members if they want a job should be illegal. I look forward to seeing Colorado law changed on that front in the near future.
The problem with your assertion that USCOC can shift the books to say the foreign funds were not used in that manner is that it is no different than union members dues being shifted in the same manner. Dues that are ‘opted-out’ simply fund other activities in the same manner you highlight for the USCOC. The process is identical and will stand as the law is currently written.
Again, we can debate what changes should be made to the law, but your assertion that dirty underhanded dealing is happening is ridiculous. They have not violated the law any more than a union that abuses it’s members dues. Both actions should probably be outlawed, but as the law stands they have done nothing wrong.
Your accusations are intended to tarnish Buck. You started the post by saying “Buck ad campaign” clearly implying that the ads were Buck’s own. Don’t blame me for your poor use of diction if that’s not what you intended because it’s what you said.
Good luck with that. No one’s predicted a GOP retaking of the General Assembly this year (no one I know of, anyway), so even if Tanc pulls of the upset of all upsets, there’s no way such a bill will even be introduced.
Union contributions to campaigns are legal.
Foreign contributions to campaigns are illegal.
USCOC money launders foreign contributions.
USCOC uses those funds to support Buck.
1) Union dues sign-up cards are, IIRC, required to include the opt-out checkbox. Each union member has to fill it out, and sees the opt-out spot.
2) Union money spent on campaigning (until this year) had to go in to a separate campaign fund – unions were prohibited from spending general funds on campaigning. This is unlike the USCOC, where money is all in the general fund, foreign and domestic. So no, union funds were not fungible. They are now, thanks to Citizens United.
3) The ad campaign in Colorado is an ad campaign supporting Buck and opposing Bennet. Before this was an FP diary, the title was already too long without calling it ‘Chamber Ad Campaign Supporting Ken Buck Propped Up By Foreign Cash?” In fact, that headline would still be too long. Such are the realities of type.
We not really addressing each other’s points.
I’ll give it a try.
“USCOC is using foreign money” – I don’t think this is being challenged, right?
“In the same fashion, union dues are pooled into the general fund.” – Here’s where we start to diverge. I don’t think that unions pool domestic and foreign funds, do you? This is significant in the context that foreign contributions to federal campaigns are illegal.
“When a union gets asked why the forced dues of a member are being spent on a candidate the member disagrees with, the union basically says, it wasn’t your due, we used those for something else.” Never mind the “forced dues” issue (red herring), fungibility is the real issue. I think that we’re in agreement that funds are fungible, unless truly special precautions are taken (and they never really are).
So here’s the real issue (in my mind): USCOC mixes foreign and domestic contributions in a big pot, then doles it out to campaigns (uncoordinated, of course). The foreign contributions would be illegal if given to the campaigns. The USCOC is quite literally engaging in money laundering. They could, if they wanted, create separate accounts and solicit contributions for electioneering. They don’t.
And yes, this does tie back to Buck. While he has done nothing illegal, the title of the diary poses a valid question: Ken Buck Ad Campaign Propped Up by Foreign Cash? Whether this is newsworthy tends to depend on whose ox is getting gored, eh? We all tend to associate campaigns with their contributors.
[I’ll leave it there as anything further just tends to veer off into other topics.]
Surely you don’t really believe that do you? Let’s start with SEIU (Service Workers INTERNATIONAL Union for the uninitiated)
SEIU is a massive contributor to independent expense organizations and represents international money just as the USCOC does. For reference, here’s the link on the SEIU website showing their locals in Canada:
http://www.seiu.org/local/inde…
SEIU is an international organization, just as many corporations are and brings their money in from international sources. Your suggestion about fungibility comes into play here. SEIU most certainly uses their money from north of the border to fund activities in the US and is thus able to funnel US money into electioneering that it would not have been able to otherwise. Pull the word SEIU out and I have virtually quoted your concerns about the USCOC.
Bottom line, what both organizations do is legal. USCOC is not directly using foreign cash any more than SEIU is. I deplore both tactics, but to pretend the door doesn’t swing both ways in this case is to prove you can’t look at things objectively.
I’ll repeat again since you can’t seem to understand. Both operations are handling their funds legally. We can debate whether it should be legal or not, but currently, it is.
My purpose was to say (third time I’m saying this now) that Ken Buck’s campaign is benefiting from the spending of foreign money that the USCOC is using to create campaign ads.
There was a limited amount of space in the title, and I wanted to emphasize that though this is a national story, it has ties to Colorado’s Senate campaign.
It would have to start with a Constitutional amendment…
All non-government organizations in this country gain their rights solely from the people that form them, plus the contractual powers granted them by Congress and the States. [The end result being that corporations are representative of their shareholders only; non-profits are representative of their members only, etc.]
Congress shall have the authority to limit the amount of money spent by individuals for Federal election campaigns. Congress shall also have the authority to limit contributions spent by individuals outside of their own political districts. The States also have this authority for their own (non-Federal) elections. These limits shall not infringe upon the rights of the People to free speech, but designate a special category of speech as defined below. [This is the explicit grant of authority currently lacking in the Constitution for Congress and the States to regulate campaign spending.]
An organization may collect from its members funds to spend on political campaigns, but those contributions count toward the member’s total campaign contributions. Congress may authorize a separate limit for national, non-candidate-specific ad campaigns, again limited by a total per-citizen contribution limit. [People may pool their political clout into organizations, but the overall campaign limits are still based on individuals.]
Congress shall have the authority to designate a time frame for the Federal general election campaign, and another for a party primary campaign. Congress shall have the authority to limit the collection and spending of campaign contributions to these designated time frames. During the primary campaign season, campaign ads must promote a single candidate, or promote a single candidate in a party primary over another candidate in the same primary. Congress shall have the authority to promote rules distinguishing campaign ads from issues ads and other political speech, provided that these rules must be those minimally required to accomplish this distinction. During both campaign time frames, the standard for slander and libel for speech toward candidates shall be the looser standard given against non-public figures, excepting that covered by campaign spending. The States shall also have this authority for their own elections. [This allows Congress to limit the campaign cycle which has grown out of control, allows news and other publications about political figures to continue, but imposes a stricter standard of speech on them to prevent abuse of “news” as campaign material. It also allows for better regulation of “issues” ads which are transparently candidate ads.]
There’s still a bit about opinion publications, blogs and other “individual, free-as-in-beer” speech that I haven’t quite figured out how to codify, but I consider this to be a better proposal than any currently floating around Congress… What do you think?
One problem with this is that it could potentially take away the right of an individual to donate themselves. Say a corporation made a contrbution. In the above case, that money would represent it’s stock owners contribution limits. You again run into the problem of limiting an individual’s right to contribute as they see fit. The same problem would come with Unions of course.
I’d prefer to implement a full disclosure law showing exactly who put what money where and what they used it for. No more organizations and committees donating money through 4-5 organizations to conceal the original donor. Eliminate the ability of various committees to shift money around and require them to spend it themselves directly. Despite thinking to the contrary, that’s not what the DISCLOSE law would do. I’m talking, every individual who put moeny in must be identified for any political action at all. No one’s speech gets stopped in any way, but we know damn well who spent it. This includes NRA, SEIU, etc.
Eliminate donations from teachers unions to groups like Accountability for Colorado and force the union to spend the money themselves if they want to trash a candidate (mushroom cloud over Greeley, really?).
Requiring direct expenditures would go a long way to clearing up monetary impropriety and political shenanigans. Add to this that anyone must disclose their donors if they wish to engage in electioneering and we’ve cleaned up a hell of a lot of the problem.
Granted, some of this is off the top of my head and there are certainly details to work out, but if you want honest accountability one of the best first steps is requiring direct expenditures.
“An organization may collect from its members funds to spend on political campaigns, but those contributions count toward the member’s total campaign contributions.” “All non-government organizations in this country gain their rights solely from the people that form them”
In other words, corporations and other organizations have no rights on their own, except those they obtain from representing the people that comprise them (shareholders or members). Organizations may spend on campaigns, but only that which they collect from members, and that collection is counted against the member’s total.
Perhaps an explicit addition that organizations must explicitly collect these funds in order to spend in campaigns? I don’t have a problem with union “opt-in” per se, but I do have a problem with union opt-in when corporations can spend corporate profits without the explicit permission of their shareholders (i.e. absent the requirement that corporations present a campaign spending proposal, per-share, to the shareholders and each shareholder must explicitly approve their share…).
A Constitutional amendment is no place for specific logistics, but (since this isn’t the formal text for an amendment), the Congressional enactment resulting from my proposal would require (or legal rulings decide) that any transfer of funds from one organization to another must still keep to the limits described. Organizations under the amendment must be able to track their campaign spending according to per-campaign limits, so transfers must be specifically targeted at a campaign, from their own fund for that campaign to the second organization’s fund for that campaign. I have no problem with small organizations pooling their tracked campaign funds into a larger fund.
Full and rapid disclosure is required in order to effectively implement my proposal – you can’t, after all, find out if someone has exceeded their campaign donation limit unless everyone reports their campaign donation receipts in a timely manner.
I understood your position regarding my first point and that’s where we disagree. I don’t think it is wise to go that direction because it runs into the same problem that union opt-in has. Namely, people that wouldn’t want their contributions going that way would end up having problems getting their opt-out recorded. Now, if you were to organize it in an opt-in fashion and it required the listed donor’s consent before the money could be distributed I might be more likely to buy into your general formula there.
What chafes me about the current system is the anonymity. If everything and every were identified I think it would be a much better environment. Again though, the DISCLOSE Act doesn’t make it work any better than today other than to handicap more traditionally right leaning groups than left and I can’t get behind a law that would handicap my boys, which I’m sure you can understand.
The organization must COLLECT funds for campaigning. That’s opt-in.
And as I noted above, DISCLOSE’s exemption was designed to appease Republicans, to get them to vote for the bill (which they didn’t). I support removing the exemption, as does pretty much every Democrat I know who isn’t trying to “compromise” with Republicans.
DISCLOSE still doesn’t create anywhere near what would be a fair system, even with that exemption for the NRA removed (hmmm, remind again didn’t the NRA just endorse a few vulnerable Dems that helped put that exemption into place? payback?)
Until you require direct spending only and don’t permit those groups to funnel money around from group to group until there is no real way to track it, you will never have a truly open campaign financing system. Unless a bill addresses that type of funnelling, I don’t know that I could get behind it. A truly open bill would force unions, corporations and people like Stryker and Gill to openly say what they are doing.
If Mrs. Smith saw her name directly supporting mushroom clouds over Greeley via her teachers union dues we would likely see some serious changes to those activities quickly because real people wouldn’t want their names on ads like that.
If the money is trackable from campaign-specific fund to campaign-specific fund, and the original donor has given an organization the money to pool to better represent that donor’s interests, what does it matter that the money is transferred to another group?
Provided the disclosure is there and the limits are enforceable, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to backtrack one ad to the individuals who contributed to it either directly or via some other organization.
If you knew darn well that the ad buy will be directly traceable to you, you’ll think twice before donating to somebody who produces ads like mushroom clouds over Greeley.
I don’t think it has to list its contributors.
If it starts explicitly campaigning for ballot questions, it’s either in violation of election law or of its charter as an exempt organization.
Isn’t Caldera promoting the amendment to prevent Colorados from being mandated to buy insurance? Doesn’t that come out of the Institute?
Thank you for the info.
But he’s probably got the cash funneling through some non-disclosing legal entity.
Of course, given the absolute pillar of strength that is the severity of election law penalties here in Colorado, maybe not.
But it doesn’t have to list its contributors. It took in $1,240,000 lst year in round numbers. Spent about half of it on “lobbying.”
Laughably, it’s a 501(c)(3),
They won’t be 501-c-3 for very long paying for lobbyists.
Most groups have a 501-c-3 and a 501-c-4 arm.Move On works that way.
From The Hill:
The White House has now several times called out the USCOC for accepting foreign contributions into the same account that funds its campaign activities: