The Federal Election Commission is about to hear from a varied community of observers and participants who have views of what it should do—or not—after McCutcheon.   All the witnesses are aware that there are major, lines-drawn-in-the-sand disagreements within the agency over policy and authority. They know, from the start, that proposals to toughen rules on, say, earmarking, have a slim chance of success. But still the ones who favor new, more muscular regulation make their case. But they don’t make it in all the same ways, and in the differences lies the chance to make the best use of the advocacy they know will only get them so far. 

It is no secret that the campaign finance debate has become fruitless and repetitious – – in short, exhausted. Mark Schmitt of the New America Foundation, a powerful progressive voice on reform, is one among a number of who believes that the entire question should be rethought from scratch. He has published a paper through a collaborative effort of the Brennan Center for Justice and the New America Foundation, arguing for a new framework built around a conception of political opportunity. He should win a large audience for what he says about the staleness and inaccuracies in the policy debate, and for the suggestions he makes for a change in direction.

Writing off the Koch announcement of massive 2016 spending, Ron Fournier urges that we be realistic about campaign finance reform in the 21st century: no limits, just instant disclosure. He seems to be salvaging what he can from the current mishmash of changes in political practices, outdated campaign finance requirements and increasingly unsparing limits on Congress's constitutional authority. Without a sharp focus on disclosure, he argues, the 2016 election will go largely dark.

Fournier’s analysis has two considerable virtues: a call for the debate to adjust to constitutional and political realities and an emphasis on single-minded priority in the reform of the law. The debate is stuck, and one reason is that a fair number of interested observers are dedicated to fighting the same arguments heard since the 1970s. A whole host of objectives are being kept artificially alive for discussion. Political spending is to be reduced and the prohibition on corporate spending restored. Independent spending is to be curtailed because some of it is suspect, gutted by disreputable, if not invariably illegal, forms of coordination. Political discourse is being poisoned by attack advertising.

And, of course, there is too much "dark money" and disclosure law should be strengthened against it. Here is where Fournier recommends that reform energy be expended.

Rick Hasen has written a crisp reply to the posting here and defends his position that it is false—simply false—to say that Citizens United allows for unlimited foreign corporate spending in federal elections.   It is illegal, he argues, for foreign nationals to influence elections, and CU did not change that. In fact, in a later decision, the Court expressly upheld the ban on foreign national contributions and expenditures.

Just as Rick insists that the position taken here won’t “fly,” it is hard to see how his response really gets very far down the runway—particularly considering what he has astutely said before on much the same question of how to judge the Court’s performance in campaign finance cases.

Rick Hasen has twice posted in the last several days a sharp criticism of the President’s fifth anniversary statement about Citizens United. He objects to the assertion that Citizens United opened up the avenue for unlimited foreign corporate spending in the United States. Rick says this is false, citing in support of that position PolitFact’s prior rating of that statement as “mostly false,” which that fact-checking enterprise arrived at after originally rating the statement as “barely true.” And a review of PolitiFact’s analysis reveals that a statement merits criticism as “mostly false” if it is an ”overstatement.”

Readers will probably think very little is at stake in tracing the chain of reasoning from false to mostly false to barely true, or somewhat true, or whatever, and trying to sort out what fine differences distinguish one of these ratings from the others. But because Rick stakes out a strong position—that the statement is simply “false” —he should have a high degree of confidence that it is a black-and-white matter subject to no disagreement.