Free Republic

Comments on issues currently in the news.... --At stake in November were 472 congressional seats (37 Senate seats and all 435 House seats). A record 42 doctors were candidates -- making doctors candidates in about one-twelfth of the 472 congressional races. This is the decisive datum: Of those 42 physician/candidates, 33 favored the repeal of ObamaCare. --Maybe they understand, among other things -- as Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf does -- that ObamaCare will cost the nation jobs. In February testimony before the House Budget Committee, Elmendorf put the number of jobs lost by 2021 as a consequence of...

The Democrats can’t garner votes in the 2010 general elections by bragging about their legislative achievements—greater government control of our health care, more wasteful spending than ever in human history. Nor can they run on the results of their governing—chronic high unemployment and economic stagnation. So, of course, they complain about the election process, specifically about campaign spending by what they label “special interest groups.” These are not to be confused with the groups pushing special interests—government employee unions, trial lawyers—that give big bucks to them. The “process posse” has bemoaned this year’s Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United...

Democratic groups catching up late on election spending Campaign 2010: Who's spending where? By T.W. Farnam and Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, October 27, 2010; 5:45 AM Unions and other Democratic interest groups are rapidly closing the gap with their conservative opponents in spending on the midterm elections, using fresh support from well-heeled donors to quicken the pace of expenditures in the final days of the campaign. This Story Democratic leaders from President Obama on down have assailed the spending by outside conservative groups, complaining that the business lobby and other Republican allies are pouring millions of dollars...

Fueled by family money and spurred by a primary fight, spending by candidates for Minnesota governor already has eclipsed money spent on the entire 2006 gubernatorial race. Campaign finance reports show the five leading candidates have spent $8.5 million in advance of the Aug. 10 primary. DFLer Mark Dayton, who did not release his numbers until reports were made public Tuesday, has spent more than $3 million in his escalating ad war against DFL candidate Matt Entenza, who leads the pack with more than $4 million spent. Both have shoveled millions from their own pockets into expensive media campaigns, while...

Sen. Chuck Schumer is pushing hard to limit corporate campaign spending -- and to maximize his own campaign's take from corporations. But that hypocritical chutzpah is entirely fitting when it comes to the so-called DISCLOSE Act -- which is a naked effort to squelch the speech of Americans who might criticize Democrats in this year's campaign season. Democrats are trying to rewrite campaign-finance law to limit corporate (and grass-roots) spending on politics. And Schumer -- who faces no meaningful opposition this fall -- is looking to raise every buck he can from the folks he wants to crack down on....

Legislation that aims to counteract the landmark Supreme Court ruling allowing corporate and union campaign spending could be introduced by the end of the week. The bill would set up an election-year fight over a recent high court decision just as the Senate considers a nominee to fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) are expected to unveil their legislation by the end of this week, although an announcement could slip into the beginning of next week, a Democratic aide said. The Democrats are working to line up...

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) introduced a constitutional amendment today to overrule a recent Supreme Court decision on campaign spending. The court ruled 5-4 last month in Citizens United v. FEC that Congress cannot regulate independent expenditures by corporations and possibly labor unions. The ruling could dramatically increase third party spending on elections. Dodd's amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) would explicitly grant Congress the authority to regulate campaign fundraising and expenditures for federal elections. The amendment would also let states regular such activity in their own elections. "I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court’s conclusion that money is speech,...

Corporations have re-acquired their First Amendment rights to free speech.The Supreme Court ruled this morning that corporations may spend as freely as they like to support or oppose political candidates, and struck down a big part of the McCain-Feingold limits on business spending on federal campaigns. Amazingly the reason for the ruling had nothing to do with a campaign ad, but it was a movie critical of Hilary Clinton, that accused her of breaking campaign law. By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said companies can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to...

To revise the old Woody Allen line: Eighty percent of success is not showing up. While Mitt Romney may have nominally "won" the Iowa Straw Poll over the weekend, the real victors were the ones who stayed away from Ames: Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson (who has made something of an art of not showing up, in recent months). The paradox could mean the end of the straw poll as a GOP touchstone. And that would be nothing but good news for the Republican Party. Let's look first at how Mr. Romney comes out of all of this....

With new restrictions on political giving, this was supposed to be a challenging year for candidates to round up cash in the race for governor. But with the contest barely under way, some experts already predict that the 2006 campaign will set a record for statewide political spending. Even with first-time caps on donations, the combined $130 million spent by then-Gov. Gray Davis and other candidates for governor in 2002 is almost certain to be eclipsed. Davis' campaign spent a state record $78 million that year, and some say that figure might be toppled, too. "All the factors, all the...

The Supreme Court returned to the battle over campaign finance yesterday, hearing oral argument on a Vermont law that sharply limits how much money state candidates can raise and spend. It is the first political-money issue to come before the court since Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. replaced Sandra Day O'Connor, who had generally supported campaign finance laws against charges that they abridge free speech. Alito's views are less clear. The three cases the court consolidated into yesterday's single argument are significant because part of the Vermont law, the limits on spending by candidates, were adopted to force the Supreme...

Forget soccer moms and NASCAR dads. This election is about "Desperate Housewives." Campaigns have raised more than $215 million this year largely for the sake of wedging 30-second sound bites between your favorite television shows leading into the Nov. 8 statewide special election. In a twist to make TV stations even more giddy, none of this year's issue-based campaigns can buy advertising at the federally mandated discount enjoyed by candidates. That means rates have gone skyward - so much that political consultant Bill Carrick reports one 30-second spot on "Desperate Housewives" in the nation's No. 2 market, Los Angeles, is...

WASHINGTON -- The South Dakota race that will determine whether Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle stays on Capitol Hill is the costliest congressional election so far this year. Daschle and Republican John Thune spent a total of $26.3 million through the first half of this month, a Federal Election Commission analysis released Thursday found. Of that, Daschle spent about $16 million and Thune $10 million. In all, Senate and House candidates competing in Tuesday's election have spent at least $711.6 million this election cycle, up about 15 percent from 2002, the FEC said.

Big, Smelly Pile of Campaign Coming In 2004 02/06/2004 Spending on the presidential campaign will surely set a new record this year, which is pretty much ho-hum news. We rather expect each new election cycle to set a new record, even in these times of modest inflation. But this year could beat the old record by a country mile, and alter the nature of the campaign in the process. Federal election law, as it applies to the race for President, divides the campaign into two distinct phases - the primary and general election phases. The dividing point, for each party,...

If they go to Washington, I want a T-shirt Many South Dakotans view the upcoming Senate race with trepidation. Although the Rushmore Policy Council has dropped its plans for an $800,000 anti-Daschle campaign, issue ads from groups like the Club for Growth are already forcing Sen. Daschle into campaign mode - a year-and-a-half before the election! It's a bit like starting now to get ready for Christmas - of December 2004! But rather than lamenting the long, expensive, and probably messy campaign in front of us, South Dakotans ought to be viewing this as a golden opportunity. We want our...

For Sanchez, Perry, the well isn't dry yet $5,323 for confetti? Candidates still pouring on the cash 10/13/2002 By WAYNE SLATER and PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News AUSTIN - Asked about putting millions from his own pocket into the race for governor, Democrat Tony Sanchez said in last week's debate that he had been "very, very blessed." So have the hotels, limo services, printers, pollsters, consultants and pizza parlors that have stepped up to help serve the millionaire businessman's record-shattering candidacy. No campaign in Texas history has seen so much spent in pursuit of office - $58...

Sanchez spending soars He and Perry total a state record $74 million; Democrat could make national history, too 10/08/2002 By WAYNE SLATER and PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News AUSTIN - Democrat Tony Sanchez has spent nearly $58 million in a record-shattering bid for governor, assuring the most expensive race in Texas history at a pace likely to break $100 million by Election Day. Fueled by his own deep pockets, the Laredo businessman is en route to spending more of his own money than any other political candidate in U.S. history. "It is truly extraordinary," said Cal Jillson,...

<p>WASHINGTON — Attacking early in a key Senate race, Democrats used a midwinter television ad to accuse Elizabeth Dole of attending "a secret fund-raiser" with former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay days after deadly terrorist attacks.</p> <p>Within hours, Republicans rushed their own commercial to the same North Carolina stations. It blamed Democrats for "another smear campaign, this time attacking Elizabeth Dole, former head of the Red Cross, questioning her patriotism."</p>