Restrictions on the timing of campaign finance activity have met with mixed results in the courts. The injunction just issued in Houston blocks a ban on candidate fundraising in municipal elections to have taken effect except for the period beginning February of each election year through early the following year. Gordon v. City of Houston, No. 14-CV-3146 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 9, 2015). Other, but not all, cases have turned out badly for bans on contributions during legislative sessions. 

Larry Lessig’s PAC has run into regulatory difficulties, apparently botching compliance with disclaimer requirements, and the Center for Competitive Politics decided to make an example of him by filing a complaint with the FEC. Example of what?  That those advocating for regulated politics should sample the fare they are urging on others and experience the same indigestion. In the Wall Street Journal, Scott Blackburn of the CCP has suggested that the moral of the tale was the need for more “sensible” campaign finance laws.

In policy and legal academic circles, political parties have come back into vogue. If a New Year's “in” list was constructed, the parties would have a fair chance of being included. In discussions of polarization, in particular, parties are increasingly thought to have something to offer to a solution or an improvement: stronger parties, better funded, would offer their leadership more control over their membership, and with that control might come the capacity to induce bi-partisan compromise and achieve better governance. 

When skeptics of compelled disclosure warn about the dangers of reprisal and harassment, the answer most often is that the Supreme Court has already addressed this contingency. Groups that can make a showing that they are uniquely vulnerable to harassment can apply for an exception. In this way the conversation drifts quickly to NAACP v. Alabama.

The skeptics, however, remain unpersuaded, and in a recent blog posting, Lyle Denniston points out that changes in politics may account for their discomfort. He refers specifically to the “deep polarization of the parties and the effect that has on coarsening the content of political expression.” He suggests that in this climate, the concern with donor privacy has broadened sufficiently that “privacy in political expression” now figures prominently in disclosure debates and requires a balance that the Supreme Court will be eventually called on to strike.

As the Denniston posting was published, a federal district court in Colorado entered an order in the latest phase of litigation over a state disclosure requirement modeled on the federal “electioneering communication” provision. This case serves as a good example of contemporary disclosure controversies, bringing out key disagreements over how disclosure laws should apply to smaller-scale issues speech.

The Washington Post sensibly suggests that campaign finance reform policy must be recast and that this a job for Congress. The paper’s perspective on the current state of affairs is bleak. Post editors are unhappy with the permissive rulings of the Supreme Court and about the expanded realm of what is often, usually imprecisely, referred to as "dark money." But their emphasis is on "new ways" to improve the law and its enforcement. They suggest a focus on transparency and they call on Republicans who will soon control the Congress to reconsider their reversal on disclosure policies.