In the wake of the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that a ban on political spending by corporations is a restriction of free speech, lawmakers vowed to change Iowa law to address the situation. Earlier this week the state Senate passed Senate File 2354, which would require corporations spending their money on campaign activities to report expenditures just like other campaign committees and add disclaimers on advertisements they pay for.

But state Rep. Charles Isenhart, D-Dubuque, wants to amend the House version of the bill to bar corporations from receiving state tax incentives for five years after making a campaign expenditure.

Jeff Patch, communications director for the Center for Competitive Politics, says the amendment’s inclusion would be a “poison pill” for an otherwise decent piece of legislation. While his group originally opposed the legislature’s efforts to reign in corporate spending on political campaigns, several amendments have made the bill much better, he said, although there are still some concerns.

But the latest amendment would “torpedo an otherwise sound bill that would offer Iowans reasonable disclosure of this political activity.” The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United clearly put all associations — corporations, unions, nonprofit advocacy groups — under the same First Amendment standard governing independent speech in elections, he said, but the amendment singles out corporations, which would not stand up to judicial scrutiny.

“If the bill includes a controversial provision — unrelated to Citizens United, someone is inevitably going to sue the state and would likely successfully obtain a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the law in the 2010 cycle,” he said. “Iowa lawmakers shouldn’t take potshots at business political activity at the expense of a clear campaign finance landscape for all candidates and associations during the already underway spring primary season and fall general election.”

The Des Moines Register reports that Isenhart withdrew the amendment but promised to bring it back up when certain details, including enforcement, are worked out.

Jonathan Narcisse, right, talks with then candidate Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign (submitted photo).

But even though he’s running in the Democratic primary and worked hard for Culver’s 2006 campaign and Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential bid, Narcisse’s ties to the Democratic Party have always been tenuous at best.

His ideology doesn’t mesh well with the liberal-conservative labels that dominate politics today, a fact Narcisse is always happy to point out. His philosophy is probably best described as an equal mix of religious conservatism and economic populism, something Narcisse said has gotten him warm receptions from Tea Party activists and organized labor — two groups that he thinks could form the base of his constituency.

“When you travel this state you realize that even though Iowans may see different paths to the same destination, we really are focused on the same destination,” he said in an interview with The Iowa Independent. “We want accountable government. We want a prosperous economy. We want equity. We want a great education system. The difficulty has been achieving that. So we end up in these [Democrat and Republican] camps that keep us in constant turmoil while the political class serves the same greedy if not corrupt masters.”

He rails against “corporate welfare” and a bloated bureaucracy that is choking Iowa’s education system. He advocates for a complete overhaul of Iowa’s prison system that stresses rehabilitation and restitution.

But his social conservative credentials are not in doubt. He opposes abortion, believes marriage should be between one man and one woman and thinks the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage was an example of a court overstepping its bounds. Over the years, the newspapers that he has published have always refused money from gambling, liquor, tobacco or “sexually oriented” businesses.

But Narcisse, 46, doesn’t want to get bogged down in the type of divisive politics currently gripping the Republican Party, where candidates have to outdo each other in their opposition to same-sex marriage.

“I want to end the era of single-issue politics. Put marriage, abortion, capital punishment and legalization of marijuana on the ballot,” he said. “Let Iowans decide, and once Iowans decide, it’s over.”

And what if Iowans choose a path he disagrees with?

“If Iowans are making the decision, we live with the outcome and move on,” he said.

And so he begins his journey to knock out a one-term governor he helped get elected. But whether he wins or loses in June, Narcisse will be on the November ballot — either as a Democrat if his challenge is successful or an independent if it is not.

Money and politics

Narcisse has no shortage of big ideas for state government. But the cornerstone, he said, is taking on the powerful and vested interests that have dominated Iowa politics for too long.

“If we end the era of corporate welfare, if we end the era of literally seeing politicians voting monies to their friends and buddies and supporters, we can have small, accountable, transparent government,” he said. “We can have a low-tax, free market economy while also funding things like great education and compassion. It’s not an either or.”

That’s the key, he said, to doing everything else he hopes to do as governor.

“The reason we don’t focus on the issues I talk about is because politicians have been purchased to focus on certain issues,” he said, adding: “We need meaningful campaign finance reform.”

Narcisse said he’ll put his money where his mouth is and refuses to accept donations from out-of-state political action committees. He also promises on day one of his administration to take on powerful interests in state government and work to make the system more fair.

“We must get away from the trickle-down economics that have been advocated by both parties, that have given money to Microsoft and Google hoping that somehow they create money that filters down to the rest of us,” he said. “We must understand that the way to grow Iowa is by letting Iowa stimulate Iowa. High-paying jobs and low working class taxes.”

Narcisse proposes eliminating taxes on any income earned after 40 hours of work in a given week, a proposal he said would benefit those forced to work long hours just to stay afloat. He also wants to lower the regressive sales tax to three percent by 2014 and eliminate many tax subsidies and credits for business.

“Do we really want to tax grandma to death, tax working moms to death, tax the middle class to death while we create all these loopholes for people who can afford lobbyists?” he said. “Think about it, we offered money to Bill Gates and Google… these are billionaires. Meanwhile people working 40, 50, 60 hours a week are taxed to death and are bearing the burden of taxes in this state.”

Education bureaucracy

Narcisse has dedicated more time to education reform than probably any other issue, and it is the area where his campaign’s message goes into the most detail. He said he can demonstrate how the state can afford to pay for a child’s education, from pre-school through college, with the revenues that currently exist. The first step, he says, is dramatically cutting the education bureaucracy.

“We’re spending hundreds of millions to a billion dollars or more lining the pockets of folks who make six or seven figures who could care less about our kids,” he said.

He wants to eliminate superintendents and much of the services that are duplicated district by district across the state. He also wants to eliminate many of the positions in the Department of Education that don’t directly relate to educating students. Then train school boards to do what they should doing, which he says is run a district, and spend most of the money invested in education at the building level and in the classroom.

“This would reduce class sizes and increase teacher pay,” he said. “There is not a teacher in this state who should walk into a building making less than $50,000 to $60,000 a year in our public schools. But we’ve pumped that money into administration. Only a fraction of our education money actually makes it to the classroom.”

There would even be enough money to pay for college tuition for Iowans, but it wouldn’t be free. Students would have to pledge to community service during their summer breaks, and for each year of college the state paid for, they would have to live and work in Iowa after graduation.

Outsider campaign

Whether or not Narcisse is successful during the Democratic primary, he sees it as a chance to build his name recognition and form a statewide network for the fall campaign. He assumes the Republicans will nominate former Gov. Terry Branstad, but will happily take on whomever emerges.

Steve Deace, a controversial Christian radio host who has been friends with Narcisse for many years, said the Branstad-Culver matchup would give Narcisse his best shot at victory.

“That race, based on what we’ve seen from Branstad at this point, would represent the old status quo versus the new status quo, and in this anti-incumbent atmosphere an insurgent candidate like Narcisse, who is very smart about how state government works, could appeal to the disaffected bases on both sides,” he said, adding that Narcisse’s campaign would bring in “minorities and union workers on the left” and “Christian conservatives and small business owners on the right.”

But if Bob Vander Plaats emerges from the GOP primary, Deace said it would be very difficult to dislodge the Christian conservative base from the Republican Party in the fall.

Narcisse admits his campaign is facing long odds. He knows he’ll have to raise millions just to be competitive, and the two-party system makes it difficult for any independent, regardless of political philosophy. But he remains confident and believes Iowans are looking for a new type of leader in 2010, and if nothing else, his campaign will advance ideas that would otherwise be ignored.

On a day that saw state Democratic leaders craft legislation to restrict corporate donations in Iowa campaigns,  Democratic leaders in Washington, D.C.,  introduced their own legislative package designed to nullify the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision empowering corporations to spend uncapped sums to influence federal elections.

Calling the High Court’s ruling a “radical decision” that could “drown out the voices of American citizens,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., called on Congress to consider the bill quickly. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is the upper-chamber sponsor.

The highlights:

• Ban on expenditures from foreign interests.
• Ban on expenditures from Federal contractors.
• Ban on expenditures from TARP recipients.
• Disclosure to the public through enhanced reporting through the FEC and LDA.
• Disclosure to shareholders directly and through the SEC.
• Stand By Your Ad (CEO and donor disclosure).
• Lowest Unit Rate (air time for candidates and party committees).
• Coordination Rules (tightened between outside groups and candidates).

Not that this has much chance to get anywhere anytime soon — especially considering the way Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) embraced the Citizens United decision. But it’s probably also more realistic for Congress to address the issue this way, rather than going the much tougher Constitutional-amendment route. ]]> http://iowaindependent.com/27706/another-legislative-fix-to-citizens-united/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/26988/a-bicameral-call-for-a-constitutional-amendment-to-nullify-citizens-united http://iowaindependent.com/26988/a-bicameral-call-for-a-constitutional-amendment-to-nullify-citizens-united#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:26:11 +0000 Mike Lillis http://iowaindependent.com/?p=26988

Hoping to nullify the Supreme Court’s recent decision freeing corporations to spend infinitely on federal elections, U.S. Reps. Donna Edwards, D-Md., and John Conyers, D-Mich., Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment “permitting Congress and the States to regulate the expenditure of funds by corporations engaging in political speech.”

“The ruling reached by the Roberts’ Court [sic] overturned decades of legal precedent by allowing corporations unfettered spending in our political campaigns,” Edwards said in a statement. “Another law will not rectify this disastrous decision.  A Constitutional Amendment is necessary to undo what this Court has done.”

It’s not only House leaders eyeing that option. Testifying before the Senate Rules Committee this morning, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., also promoted that idea.

“We need a constitutional amendment to make it clear once and for all that corporations do not have the same free speech rights as individuals,” Kerry said.

For campaign finance reform supporters, it’s exactly the right move.

“The court’s overreach is so shocking, and the certain consequences so damaging, that we must have a constitutional corrective,” Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. ”The First Amendment was never intended to protect the likes of ExxonMobil, Pfizer or Goldman Sachs, nor should it.”

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, introduced similar legislation immediately following the court’s decision. That bill would disallow a corporation or labor organization from using any operating funds or any other funds from its general treasury to pay for an advertisement in connection with a federal election campaign, regardless of whether or not the advertisement expressly advocates the election or defeat of a specified candidate.

Boswell’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether he supports the new legislation.

The politics of Sandy Greiner, a former Iowa representative and current president of the nonprofit group American Future Fund, will benefit in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that loosened corporate purse strings for individual candidates, Morain said.

From the Sacramento Bee:

… Entities like Greiner’s operate in the shadows. Their donors are anonymous. The power behind them is rarely apparent. It’s impossible to track the exact amounts they spend on campaigns in any timely fashion.

[The] Supreme Court decision opened the way for corporations and unions to spend directly on federal campaigns, which means that groups like Greiner’s will be infused with yet more money. Unless federal law is changed, they and their donors will remain hidden from the voting public. …

Pundits from the left fret that the ruling will alter democracy as we know it. From the right, proponents say the ruling reaffirms the First Amendment by granting corporations the rights as individuals.

Both views contain truth. Here’s another truth: The public will never know how much corporations or unions give to political groups such as Greiner’s. So long as donors want anonymity, the federal system provides ways to spend money without ever being publicly identified.

American Future Fund is a nonprofit corporation similar to the Sierra Club or the National Rifle Association. Such groups file tax returns publicly. But there is no requirement that they identify donors.

Anonymity is one reason people give to such groups. They don’t want the “annoyance” of being publicly identified, Greiner said. …

The American Future Fund, based in Des Moines, is a 501(c)4 nonprofit that advocates for conservative issues. In 2008 it garnered headlines by spending millions in competitive senate races around the country.

“In my opinion the law in Iowa prohibiting corporate contributions is probably unconstitutional and it means that a lot more money and campaign advertising will be pouring into Iowa elections,” said Charlie Smithson, director and legal counsel for the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

However, in a memo to legislative leaders of both parties, Smithson made it clear that the full extent of the changes are still unknown.

Smithson’s memo:

After looking at the decision and talking with legal experts on campaign finance around the country I think this is where we are at as far as Iowa Code section 68A.503:

1.  Corporations are PERMITTED to engage in independent expenditures from their treasury funds.  Independent expenditures are disclosed to the Ethics Board under Iowa Code section 68A.404.  This means that a corporation could spend its money to tell people to vote for or against a clearly identified candidate.  THIS POINT IS INARGUABLE.

2.  There are arguments that this decision did NOT reach DIRECT contributions to candidates, PACs, and political parties.  So I believe we can argue that direct contributions are still NOT PERMITTED.  My guess is that will be challenged next, but as of today I think that can still be enforced.

3.  So what we are left with is a confusing situation for the regulated community and the public that corporations can do certain things and not other things.

So I would suggest the following:

1.  Instruct your members to NOT accept corporate contributions at this time.

2.  We need to think about what, if anything, to do with this situation.  At a minimum, we will need to amend Iowa Code section 68A.503 to make it clear that independent expenditures are permitted.

3.  If there are other issues you would like to explore in dealing with this, I am certainly open to those discussions.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said his office is also studying the 183-page decision.

“The decision relates specifically to independent expenditures by corporations and makes it unconstitutional to ban such expenditures,” Miller said in a statement. “The portion of Iowa’s statute that prohibits corporations from making independent expenditures that expressly advocate that voters should vote for or against a specific candidate is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s decision. The Court’s decision does not specifically address direct corporate contributions to candidates’ campaign committees, but the rationale of today’s decision raises questions in that realm, and we will review those questions over the next few days.”

The Center for Competitive Politics opposes campaign spending limits. It’s communications director, Jeff Patch, compared Boswell’s amendment to the 1919 passage of the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol for consumption.

“An effort by Rep. Leonard Boswell to dismantle the First Amendment rights of political speech would be the first concerted effort to limit constitutional rights — individual or associational — since Prohibition in 1919,” Patch said in a statement to The Iowa Independent. “That speaks to the desperation of some incumbents who want to censor businesses, unions and nonprofits from speaking out against them, as media corporations have done for centuries.”

Patch also took exception to statements by state legislative leaders Thursday in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning years of campaign finance law. Iowa House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said lawmakers will do “everything in our power to prevent this corporate decision from influencing our politics.” Those statements were echoed by activist group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, which called for lawmakers to respond to the ruling by passing campaign contribution limits. Iowa is one of only 13 states without these limits.

Patch compared these efforts to those of some Iowa conservatives, namely Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats, to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage by executive order.

“Does any Iowa politician understand the separation of powers?” he said. “When the U.S. or Iowa Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, legislators (or governors) cannot just pass bills (or executive orders) overruling the decision, as [Senate Majority Leader Mike] Gronstal and McCarthy suggest doing.”

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)

“Talk about an activist Supreme Court — they decided an issue that wasn’t really even in front of them,” Harkin said during a conference call with reporters. “In fact, the case that was in front of them, they decided the other way, but they reached into this other area and brought it out and made a decision on something that wasn’t really in front of them. Now, what’s the definition of an activist Supreme Court?”

After initially hearing arguments on both sides of the issue March, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts asked the litigants to re-argue the case with a broader focus. Instead of only arguing whether federal election laws should have applied in this particular case, Roberts asked the parties to argue whether the court should reverse rulings in two prior cases upholding the government’s ability to limit corporate and union election spending.

Harkin said after year’s of conservative outrage about “activist judges,” it was the conservative members of the Supreme Court that made this decision.

“What they basically did is overturn standing law — what has been standing law in this country since 1907,” he said. “A ban on corporate political spending.”

The court ignored “precedent here going back 100 years” in its decision, concluding that “money is equal to speech.”

“As recently as 1990, in Austin vs. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the court upheld a state law that banned corporations from making independent expenditures, using corporate fund,” Harkin said. “The court today just overturned the 1990 ruling. So, what has happened to precedent here? I think people ought to be very alarmed by this decision by this Supreme Court. What it means is that corporations now can just put whatever amount of money they want to into an election — specifically opposing or supporting a candidate. In the past at least they could only do issue ads, but now they can support or oppose a candidate openly, and right up until election day. No more bans on 90 day [before an election] and things like that. Someone described as us being back in the wild, wild west as far as campaigns go.”

The ultimate victor of this decision will be Republicans, Harkin said, because “all the things that Republicans are for, is what corporate America is for.”

“And I think you will see more money poured into these campaigns this year by corporate America than you have ever seen in your lifetime, and it will be poured in on behalf of Republicans,” he said. “Mark my word.”

Corporate America has enough strength and power on its own without the help of the Supreme Court, he said.

Harkin concluded that to overcome this decision Congress should amend the country’s constitution, although he admitted it will be easier said than done.

“So, hang onto your hat, it’s going to be wild ride this year.”

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa

The push comes in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling Thursday that overturned a 1990 decision that allowed the government to bar corporations and unions from spending general treasury funds on ads expressly urging a candidate’s election or defeat. It also overruled part of a 2003 decision that upheld The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as McCain-Feingold.

Jane Slusark, Boswell’s press secretary, told The Iowa Independent the Congressman’s resolution has been formally introduced and is being circulated for co-sponsors.

“I have introduced this important legislation because the Supreme Court’s ruling strikes at the very core of democracy in the United States by inflating the speech rights of large, faceless corporations to the same level of hard-working, every day Americans,” Boswell said in a statement. “The court’s elevation of corporate speech inevitably overpowers the speech and interests of human citizens who do not have the coffers to speak as loudly.”

Boswell said House Joint Resolution 68 would disallow a corporation or labor organization from using any operating funds or any other funds from its general treasury to pay for an advertisement in connection with a federal election campaign, regardless of whether or not the advertisement expressly advocates the election or defeat of a specified candidate.

“Corporations already have an active role in American political discourse through million-dollar political action committees and personal donations to campaigns,” Boswell said. “The legislation I introduced will prevent the Wall Street corporations that received billions in taxpayer bailout dollars from turning around and pouring that same money into candidates that will prevent financial regulation on their industry. No American should have to turn on the TV and see AIG telling them how to vote.”

A coalition of public interest organizations also called for a constitutional amendment. Those groups, which include Voter Action, Public Citizen, the Center for Corporate Policy, and the American Independent Business Alliance, say the court’s ruling poses a serious and direct threat to democracy.

“Free speech rights are for people, not corporations,” said John Bonifaz, Voter Action’s legal director. “In wrongly assigning First Amendment protections to corporations, the Supreme Court has now unleashed a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in US history. This campaign to amend the Constitution will seek to restore the First Amendment to its original purpose.”

For his amendment to become reality it would have to pass by a two-thirds vote in the U.S. House and Senate, then be ratified by 38 state legislatures or state conventions within the next seven years.

“Latham has been taking the health insurers’ money and living it up at the same time he’s part of the Republican fight to stop health care reform in Congress,” Kiernan said in a statement. “He should be ashamed of himself – this is not what Iowans expect of their elected officials.”

The reaction comes on the heels of an Iowa Independent investigation, which found that nearly a quarter of the money raised by Latham’s leadership PAC, known as For America’s Republican Majority (FARM PAC), was spent on trips around the country touted as fundraisers, mostly to prestigious golf resorts. During the 2008 election cycle, a little more than 34 percent of the PAC’s money went to political contributions, a practice that is supposed to be the main focus of these types of organizations.

A recent joint report by the nonprofit site ProPublica, ABC News and the Washington Post found that a majority of the money raised by leadership PACs goes to entertainment, administrative costs, fundraising and other categories that “are so vague that it’s impossible to know for sure how the money was spent.”

However, of Iowa’s five members of Congress and two Senators, all of which have leadership PACs, Latham is the only one conducting this type of spending, which campaign finance watchdogs contend turns PACs into political slush funds that flout laws governing fundraising conduct.

“Who’s contributing to Latham’s PAC so he can party like a rock star?” Kiernan’s news release said. “This should come as no surprise, it’s major health insurers.  Among the top ten for this year are Blue Cross Blue Shield and AFLAC.  Also on the list are Kirke Van Orsdel and USAA, both insurance providers. “

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, one of the largest donors to FARM PAC is Emergent BioSolutions, a multinational biopharmaceutical company that donated $5,000 in 2009. However, of the PAC’s top 20 contributors, only $5,500 comes from health insurers or health insurance executives.

“Latham will surely be a ‘no’ vote on any health reform package that emerges,” Kiernan said. “After all, it’s starting to get cold again in Iowa, and the beach calls.”