Heather Gerken writes clearly and with invigorating common sense about issues that aren't routinely given such treatment. She has set out to correct misreadings of Citizens United and she has an alternative reading of its importance. Rather than getting caught up in dreary doctrinal squabbles, she is calling for attention to the adjustments that campaign finance law and doctrine have induced political actors to make and the consequences for political institutions and the distribution of political power. Heather is progressive in her politics but refreshingly practical. In her Marquette Law lecture, she argues that by re-interpreting (or clarifying) the anti-corruption interest, Citizens United has helped move power to “shadow parties,” weakening the traditional political party and distancing the primary party actors in these shadows from the “party faithful” once relied on to press doorbells and hit the streets.

Rick Hasen asks whether, in a recent posting, I defended the Republican National Committee and Libertarian lawsuits challenging the limits on individual contributions for political party independent expenditures. He reads the post as just such a defense, while allowing for the possibility that I may disagree. My purpose was not to defend or support the actions. It was to question how the suit has been characterized by those who are unsympathetic to his goals. So I noted that the suit does not exploit a "loophole"; it is not a "soft money" lawsuit; and the RNC has not previously made this claim.

In an interesting Washington Post article, Professor Heather Gerken has proposed with co-authors a new strategy to advance  a core reform objective, the enhancement of transparency, as other options seemingly dwindle after CItizens United and McCutcheon. Heather is well known and well-respected for just such an insistence on thinking beyond the well-traveled, now largely exhausted policy choices. A good example is the Democracy Index, which she constructed to “harness politics to fix politics,” by generating political incentives for the improvement of performance on election administration through the publication of public rankings.

A conflict—the latest in the series—has broken out among FEC Commissioners about whether they have made public all relevant material on the General Counsel’s  view of Crossroads GPS and whether it is a "political committee."  In one report, the GC concluded that the evidence supported further investigation of the question, but the Commission deadlocked, and now a private lawsuit is looming.  Republicans seem to believe that the public record is incomplete and that the missing GC analysis would have a bearing on the legal merits of Crossroads’ position.   Whatever the facts of the matter, this ruckus reminds readers once again of the troubled condition of the Commission’s “case-by-case,” fact-specific approach to determining “political committee” status.

In the discussion of Super PACs,  seemingly different concerns tend to intermingle or become fused together, creating confusion.  Most obvious is the continuing disagreement about whether candidate support for an independent committee, particularly fundraising, results in “coordination.”  Some argue—some propose an amendment to the law to provide—that a candidate’s public endorsement of a committee, including but not limited to appeals for funds, is coordination.  Another view distinguishes among Super PACs and would subject single-candidate committees to stricter coordination than others.