Photograph by Mike Groll/AP Photo

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli waits for a news conference to begin on Jan. 7, 2013, in Albany, N.Y.

New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, wielding the power of the Empire State’s $160.4 billion pension fund, won the widest margin ever in a shareholder vote in favor of a resolution forcing corporate disclosure of political giving.

The almost 66 percent vote approving the resolution was made public today in a corporate filing by CF Industries Holdings Inc., a Deerfield, Illinois-based fertilizer company.

It beat the 53 percent Sprint Nextel Corp. shareholder-vote passing a similar resolution in 2011, according to DiNapoli.

The resolution’s victory shows momentum toward greater transparency in corporate political funding in the post-Citizens United landscape, he said in an e-mailed statement.

“The tide has shifted on the issue of political spending disclosure,” DiNapoli said. “Shareholders are standing up for transparency and accountability in how shareholder dollars are being used for political purposes.”

It’s the latest win for the 59-year-old Democrat, who has introduced more than two dozen such resolutions at companies in which the fund holds stock. Last month, five companies, including Southwest Airlines and Harley-Davidson, agreed to disclose political spending rather than go through a shareholder vote.

In January, DiNapoli sued Qualcomm, demanding it release political expenditure records. He’s been putting the pressure on companies after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling allowed unlimited spending by corporations and unions in political activities. It kept caps on contributions to political campaigns.

The New York pension fund owned 352,500 shares in CF Industries valued at $64 million as of March 31, according to Eric Sumberg, a DiNapoli spokesman.

Original post is NY Comptroller Scores Record Corporate Political Disclosure Vote by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

A Chevron Corp. station in San Francisco.

A coalition of advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission today over Chevron Corp.’s $2.5 million donation to a super-political action committee aligned with House Speaker John Boehner.

Chevron’s donation to the Congressional Leadership Fund was one of the few contributions from a publicly traded company to a super-PAC. The groups, including Public Citizen and Friends of the Earth, said the donation violated federal law because federal contractors are not allowed to make political contributions. San Ramon, California-based Chevron received $661 million in contracts from the Defense Department in the 2011 fiscal year, according to Bloomberg Government.

Super-PACs were approved by the FEC in 2010 following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which overturned decades of legislation and court decisions restricting corporate contributions for political purposes. Such PACs are allowed to take in unlimited corporate, union and individual donations and spend the money to elect or defeat those running for office, though must disclose their contributors and cannot give directly to a candidate’s campaign.

“The ‘pay-to play’ prohibition exists because of a long and seedy record of companies attempting to buy lucrative government business by filling the campaign coffers of politicians,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, which supports stronger campaign finance laws.

Chevron spokesman Lloyd Avram said the donation came from the parent company, which “does not conduct business with the federal goverment.” All federal contracts are held by corporate subsidiaries, he said.

“Chevron does not believe that the federal government contractor ban applies to this specific contribution,” Avram said.

In any event, the FEC is unlikely to take any action.

It has routinely deadlocked along party lines, 3-3, on enforcement measures.

Original post is Chevron’s $2.5 Mln Donation Challenged by Advocacy Groups by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Sen. Chuck Schumer arrives at a news conference at the Capitol in this March 21, 2012 file photo.

Advocates of stronger campaign finance regulations haven’t had much to cheer about when it comes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Republican-appointed majority voted, 5-4,  to overturn decades worth of legislation and precedents in its Citizens United decision in 2010, and then last week agreed to look at whether to throw out overall limits on donations to the political parties and candidates, now capped at $123,200.

The high court today, though, declined to hear a challenge to a ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates, gladdening the hearts of those who feared that the justices would further eviscerate campaign finance regulations.

“The court exercised prudence by choosing not to even consider striking down one of the remaining limits on money in politics,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.

Added Tara Malloy, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center: “At least today, the court has decided to stay its deregulatory hand.”

Original post is Campaign Finance Reformers Cheer Court for What It Doesn’t Do by Political Capital.

President Barack Obama, who pledged as a presidential candidate in 2008 to strengthen the Federal Election Commission and nominate members “committed to enforcing our nation’s election laws’, is now creating “an unprecedented vehicle for potential influence-buying, influence-selling and government scandals for his administration during his second term.”

So says Fred Wertheimer, a longtime advocate of more restrictions on campaign fundraising and president of Democracy 21, a Washington-based advocacy group, as he called on Obama to shut down his new grassroots lobbying group.

Wertheimer is referring to Obama’s decision to convert his re-election campaign committee to a nonprofit group, Organizing for America, which can take in unlimited corporate, union and individual contributions and can keep its donors hidden from public view.

While the committee has said it will disclose its contributors, Obama’s inaugural fundraising committee pledged to do the same, though simply provided a list of names without any identifying occupations, addresses or amounts.

Obama criticized the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which removed limits on corporate and union spending in campaigns. Now, Wertheimer suggested, Obama is “opening a cashier’s window with his name on it.”

The Obama campaign committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Original post is Obama’s ‘Cashier’s Window’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Tim Pugmire/Minnesota Public Radio/AP Photo

A billboard on Interstate 94 east of downtown St. Paul, Minn. makes an appeal to soldiers and military veterans to support a proposed voter ID amendment on the ballot in Minnesota.

Advocates trying to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision or otherwise enact new limits on campaign spending are finding a common cause with civil rights groups fighting Republican efforts to enact voter-identification laws.

They say the issues are related.

“Voter suppression is the flip side of buying elections,” Benjamin Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said on a conference call this week to discuss outside spending in the 2012 elections.

Rallies across the country are being held today, over the weekend and into next week to mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 21 decision, which overturned decades of previous court decisions and legislation and removed restrictions on corporate and union spending in elections. The decision led to the creation of nonprofit groups such as Crossroads GPS that hide their donors, and super-political action committees such as Priorities USA Action that can take in unlimited donations, often from the same contributors who already have given the maximum to the candidate the PAC is supporting.

Groups such the NAACP have been fighting efforts in Republican-controlled legislatures to enact voter-ID laws, which studies show disproportionately affect minorities and other groups that tend to support Democratic candidates. Studies by the Brennan Center at New York University show that there are virtually no cases of voter fraud that the ID laws are supposed to prevent.

“Groups who work on a wide spectrum of issues recognize that the threats posed to democracy by big money in politics and voter suppression are two sides of the same coin: an attempt to take political power away from the general public and to concentrate it in the hands of a few wealthy donors and special interests,” said Blair Bowie, democracy advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which favors stronger campaign finance laws. “We’ve realized that we’re going to need to combine our collective organizing power.”

Original post is Citizens United Foes, Civil Rights Pros: Common Ground on Voter ID by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington.

A coalition of groups pressing for disclosure of corporate political contributions said today that it is heartened by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to include plans for a proposed rule on its agenda.

“We congratulate the SEC for listening to investors and the public, in moving forward on a rule that would require publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group that supports stronger campaign finance laws.

An SEC spokesman, John Nester, said the inclusion of the topic simply means “the staff is considering whether to recommend a proposal.”

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, introduced legislation last week that would require all groups spending at least $10,000 to disclose their expenditures and their donors. And Sen.John McCain, an Arizona Republican and co-author of the 2002 law banning corporate and union donations to political parties, said in an interview that he was talking with other lawmakers about increasing transparency.

“It may take another scandal, and there will be one,” he said.

At issue is the increasing amount of secret money spent on U.S. elections since the Supreme Court in its 2010 Citizens United decision relaxed curbs on corporate and union campaign spending.

Groups that do not disclose their contributors spent $318 million on the 2012 elections, 85 percent to support Republican candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that tracks campaign spending.

In 2008, non-disclosing groups spent $79 million. Such groups include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Crossroads GPS, founded with the help of Karl Rove; Americans for Prosperity, linked to energy billionaires Charles and David Koch, and the League of Conservation Voters.

“Sometimes we feel like we’re walking around in a fog,” said Rep. John Sarbanes, another Maryland Democrat, on a conference call with reporters today. “You can’t see clearly exactly what’s happening in these campaigns because the money is hidden and the source of the money is unknown. There are legislative responses but there is a lot we can do at the regulatory level.”

Original post is Political Disclosure on SEC Agenda by Political Capital.

Photograph by Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly via Getty Images

The Federal Election Commission chairwoman, Democrat Ellen Weintraub (L), and the vice chairman, Republican Donald McGahn (R), shown here in 2008 in different roles.

The Federal Election Commission chairwoman for 2013 will be Democrat Ellen Weintraub, and the vice chairman will be Donald McGahn, a Republican.

These are the two leaders of the two FEC blocs that have prevented the commission from taking any meaningful action for years in enforcing campaign finance laws; the FEC hasn’t even been able to muster enough votes to begin responding to the Supreme Court’s call for more disclosure in its Citizens United decision.

One notable Weintraub-McGahn confrontation came in January 2011, a year after the Supreme Court’s decision.

Weintraub pushed for the commission to begin considering a rule to provide for increased disclosure. McGahn pushed back against it, saying holding hearings on such a rule would “shift the burden to private people to know to comment and try to articulate why this is a bad idea.”

Weintraub said McGahn reminded her of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” where Tevye objected to one of his daughters choosing her own groom. “Arranging a match for yourself?” Tevye asks. “What are you? Everything? The bridegroom, matchmaker, and guests in one? I suppose you’ll perform the ceremony, too? ”

In Weintraub’s telling, McGahn “wants to take off his commissioner hat, run around the table, sit down at the witness table and provide evidence and testify on behalf of the corporate community out there about how burdensome even proposing a regulation would be. Then he gets to run around the back of the table again and say, `Guess what, I just persuaded myself.”’

It could be an interesting 12 months.

Then again, it’s possible neither will be around that long. Both commissioners’ terms have expired, and President Barack Obama has yet to choose their successors. Proponents of overhauling campaign finance laws are pushing him to nominate individuals who will push for disclosure and more regulations.

Original post is FEC `On the Roof:’ Balking Blocs by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, right, salutes while Jeanine McDonnell, daughter of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, center, and Christopher Devlin-Young, Gold Olympian alpine ski racer, exit the stage at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Aug. 29, 2012.

Although the Democrats defeated Senator John McCain in the contest for the White House four years ago, they still support the campaign finance law he co-authored — while his own Republican Party last week disavowed his signature legislation.

The Democratic platform calls for, “by constitutional amendment if necessary,” overhauling campaign finance laws. The platform, to be adopted tonight, also calls for full disclosure of donors to groups such as Republican-leaning Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as Priorities USA, founded by former aides to President Barack Obama.

These groups are spending millions of dollars on campaign ads without identifying who’s paying for them.

Republicans last week approved a party platform calling for repealing the sections of McCain’s campaign finance law that haven’t been thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court, most notably in its Citizens United decision. The platform also supports allowing groups to conceal their donors and calls for increasing or eliminating all limits on campaign donations.

“The rights of citizenship do not stop at the ballot box,” the Republican platform states. “They include the free speech right to devote one’s resources to whatever cause or candidate one supports.”

The Republican plank was authored by James Bopp Jr., a lawyer who has spent decades challenging campaign finance laws and initially filed the Citizens United case.

“Historically, politicians have always looked to campaign finance reform to attack their opponents and get an advantage,” Bopp said in an interview in the Republican National Committee reception area shortly before Mitt Romney was to deliver his acceptance speech.

“Republicans have been just as guity as Democrats,” he said. “Now the party is much more ideological and much more conservative. And it’s a conservative article of faith to believe in the First Amendment’s protection of political speech.”

As a senator, the Republican McCain teamed with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin in winning campaign finance reforms limiting contributions. Four years ago, when McCain was the Republican nominee for president, Bopp said the platform had to be silent on the issue.

“Now we don’t have a problem of a nominee who’s in favor of a half-dozen liberal policies that we have to accommodate,” he said.

Democrats say the public has a right to know who’s speaking.

“It’s one of the major differences between Republicans and Democrats,” Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said in an interview following a state delegation breakfast in Concord, North Carolina, today. “They call it free speech. I call it a terrible way to run elections. People who put money into politics ought to be open and it ought to be limited.”

Original post is Democrats: Campaign Finance Reform — Remembering McCain by Political Capital.

Photograph by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama at a campaign event in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 29, 2012.

The president answered ten questions from users of the social news website Reddit yesterday ranging from the mundane to the serious.

The news from the interview, which the president did from Charlottesville, Virginia, at the end of a two-day campaign swing, was his response to a question from Reddit user suzmerk who asked, “What are you going to do to end the corrupting influence of money in politics during your second term?”

Obama’s answer: I will “seriously consider” a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision that removed limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions.

“Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change,” he said, in a nod to voter’s concerns about the growing influence of outside money in presidential elections.

On its website Reddit says that at the beginning of the year it had roughly 34 million visitors a month. Obama’s visit yesterday clogged up the site, making it difficult to sift through thousands of comments and questions. The site allowed the president to pick and choose which questions he wanted to answer.

Another heavy question came from FifthSurprise: “What was the most difficult decision that you had to make during this term?”

Obama’s response: The troop surge in Afghanistan.

“Any time you send our brave men and women into battle, you know that not everyone will come home safely, and that necessarily weighs heavily on you.”

There were lighter moments too during the roughly thirty minute q and a session, like this one from user karlfranks: “Who’s your favorite basketball player?” The president’s response: “Jordan – I’m a Bulls guy.”

And this from silent1mezzo: “What’s the recipe for the White House’s beer?”

Obama’s response: “It will be out soon! I can tell from first hand experience, it is tasty.”

As of 11:09 a.m. EST this morning there were 23,056 comments posted on the president’s page.

Original post is Obama Answers Questions from Campaign Finance Reform to Beer by Political Capital.

Photograph by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images

A rally at the Supreme Court to mark the second anniversary of the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission may have overturned a century-old ban on corporations spending money on federal elections.

Yet that 2010 ruling, which also spawned the creation of independent expenditure-only committees known as super-PACs with unlimited fundraising ability, has not opened floodgates to corporate donations as some, including President Barack Obama, predicted.

A Bloomberg Government study finds that corporate money has largely stayed out of the 2012 election cycle so far, including the Republican presidential nominating process. Corporations contributed only 7.6 percent of the donations to super-PACs between December 2011 and March 2012.

The study by BGov analyst Melissa Avstreih  also finds that almost all of the $6.82 million in corporate donations came from privately owned companies.

Individuals, not corporations, are the major contributors to super-PACs.

This study doesn’t examine corporate contributions made to nonprofit groups registered as 501(c)4 organizations, which are exempt from disclosing the identity of their donors.

Original post is Super-PACs: Little From Corporations by Political Capital.