WI Gov. Scott Walker implicated in criminal probe

[Unabogie]

I don't know that the author Matt Volz was being particularly careful with his words there, nor is it obvious that he has any experience in campaign finance law (not that I do either!).

His LinkedIn profile says he's a generic reporter with a generic education:

Columbia University - Graduate School of Journalism
M.S., Journalism
2001 – 2002

University of Richmond
B.A., International Studies
1991 – 1995

So, I'm not going to put a lot of stock in a background paragraph he wrote in a news story.

My understanding is that coordination on issue advocacy is allowed. It is express advocacy (specifically advocating for or against a particular candidate) which is regulated. This is the concession that campaign finance laws must make to the 1st Amendment.

Additionally, super-pacs are not 501(c)(4)s like the groups at issue in the John Doe case in Wisconsin. 501(c)(4)s are supposedly social welfare organizations which must spend less than half of their time and money on campaign politics. Super-pacs have no such restriction, but at the cost of donor confidentiality. Super-pacs, historically, have been heavily involved in express advocacy, which is why coordination with a campaign looks bad on its face. It would be very hard to disentangle express from issue advocacy coordination with a super-pac, so my guess is that lawyers for campaigns just tell their clients not to coordinate with super-pacs, ever. Although, as Colbert and Stewart pointed out, there is a giant loophole in that it is possible for effective coordination to take place via public statements in the media.

Ha, you are too funny. If you don't like an AP story because it disagrees with your biases, you present as counter-evidence the guy's LinkedIn profile and wash your hands of it.

How about this?

http://columbialawreview.org/coordination-reconsidered_briffault/

. The distinction between the two types of campaign spending turns not on the form—the fact that contributions proceed from a donor to a candidate, while expenditures involve direct efforts to influence the voters—but on whether the campaign practice implicates the corruption concerns that the Court has held justify campaign finance regulation. As a result, not all expenditures are exempt from restriction.2 Independent expenditures undertaken by an individual or group in support of a candidate or against her opponent are constitutionally protected from limitation. In the Court’s view “[t]he absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments from the candidate.”3 But, as Buckley found, expenditures by supporters of a candidate that are coordinated with the candidate benefited are in reality “disguised contributions” that pose the same corruption dangers as outright contributions.4 Congress can regulate such coordinated expenditures as contributions, and, indeed, has done so5 in order to distinguish between “independent expressions of an individual’s views and the use of an individual’s resources to aid in a manner indistinguishable in substance from the direct payment of cash” to a candidate.6 As the Supreme Court has noted approvingly, “Congress drew a functional, not a formal, line between contributions and expenditures.”7 This coordination/independence distinction is, thus, critical to maintaining the integrity of the foundational contribution/expenditure distinction.

 

[sunmaster14]

Ha, you are too funny. If you don't like an AP story because it disagrees with your biases, you present as counter-evidence the guy's LinkedIn profile and wash your hands of it.

Huh? I didn't wash my hands of it. I addressed it. That's what all of those other words I wrote beginning with "My understanding ..." was about.

How about this?

http://columbialawreview.org/coordination-reconsidered_briffault/

Just read the abstract, but it looks to me like the paper is focusing on the distinction between contributions and expenditures. That is, just regulating contributions to a candidate's campaign is not sufficient because coordinated expenditures by a separate entity are, for all intents and purposes, no different from the campaign spending the other group's money.

That doesn't speak at all to the issue of express advocacy vs issue advocacy. Just to give you an example, suppose that Walker was an environmentalist who was really concerned about the fate of polar bears. And there was a 501c4 which advocated doing something to save the polar bears. Would it have been illegal for Walker to consult with the 501c4 about how to spend their money on raising awareness of the threat that polar bears face? Would that be a campaign finance law violation? Obviously not. Just because he is running a campaign, it doesn't mean that he has thrown away his 1st Amendment rights, nor does it mean that those who seek his advice have done so as well.

Does this carve out for issue advocacy undermine the campaign finance laws? Absolutely. It's one of the reasons that campaign finance laws are dumb. But the Supreme Court has made this carve out explicit. The whole reason that they're willing to accept legislative limitations on protected speech is because of the possibility of quid pro quo arrangements between a candidate and his donors. A balance has been struck to mitigate the likelihood of quid pro quo problems while at the same time protecting speech. That balance involves this express advocacy vs issue advocacy distinction.

 

[Unabogie]

Huh? I didn't wash my hands of it. I addressed it. That's what all of those other words I wrote beginning with "My understanding ..." was about.



Just read the abstract, but it looks to me like the paper is focusing on the distinction between contributions and expenditures. That is, just regulating contributions to a candidate's campaign is not sufficient because coordinated expenditures by a separate entity are, for all intents and purposes, no different from the campaign spending the other group's money.

That doesn't speak at all to the issue of express advocacy vs issue advocacy. Just to give you an example, suppose that Walker was an environmentalist who was really concerned about the fate of polar bears. And there was a 501c4 which advocated doing something to save the polar bears. Would it have been illegal for Walker to consult with the 501c4 about how to spend their money on raising awareness of the threat that polar bears face? Would that be a campaign finance law violation? Obviously not. Just because he is running a campaign, it doesn't mean that he has thrown away his 1st Amendment rights, nor does it mean that those who seek his advice have done so as well.

Does this carve out for issue advocacy undermine the campaign finance laws? Absolutely. It's one of the reasons that campaign finance laws are dumb. But the Supreme Court has made this carve out explicit. The whole reason that they're willing to accept legislative limitations on protected speech is because of the possibility of quid pro quo arrangements between a candidate and his donors. A balance has been struck to mitigate the likelihood of quid pro quo problems while at the same time protecting speech. That balance involves this express advocacy vs issue advocacy distinction.

See, this is the part where you're supposed to admit you were wrong and reassess your premises. You asserted that what Walker did was not illegal. You said, and I quote, "he's allowed to". Now you're saying that the law is dumb. That may be true, it may be false. What isn't true is that Walker was allowed to coordinate with Karl Rove, not about polar bears, but about Walker's own recall election. That's a coordinated disbursement and thus subject to campaign finance limits. Both the USSC and the law agree on this.

Here's the actual law.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/441a

Note that coordinating with a candidate about your independent expenditures makes those expenditures a campaign contribution, since it's an "in kind" gift of free air time.

Face it, he blew it. He's going to have to explain all this to a judge. Also, he can kiss his dreams of higher office goodbye.

 

[sunmaster14]

See, this is the part where you're supposed to admit you were wrong and reassess your premises. You asserted that what Walker did was not illegal. You said, and I quote, "he's allowed to". Now you're saying that the law is dumb. That may be true, it may be false. What isn't true is that Walker was allowed to coordinate with Karl Rove, not about polar bears, but about Walker's own recall election. That's a coordinated disbursement and thus subject to campaign finance limits. Both the USSC and the law agree on this.

Here's the actual law.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/441a

Note that coordinating with a candidate about your independent expenditures makes those expenditures a campaign contribution, since it's an "in kind" gift of free air time.

Face it, he blew it. He's going to have to explain all this to a judge. Also, he can kiss his dreams of higher office goodbye.

Do you understand how the law works in the US? There is the statute, which you have linked to. And there are the regulations, which flesh out the statute and try to resolve any ambiguities in the statute. And then there is the case law, in which the courts interpret the statute and the regs in a way which resolves ambiguities in both a consistent AND constitutional way.

The case law is what makes the express advocacy vs issue advocacy distinction. It was either make that distinction, or throw out the whole kit and caboodle as unconstitutional.

As for Walker explaining this to a judge, uh, his fellow defendants have already. Two of them in fact, and both agreed with them that even assuming that every fact the prosecutors asserted was true, there was no case.

ETA: By the way, I said the law was dumb because the best the courts could do with the law to keep it on the right side of the Constitution was to gut it in such a way that it is easily circumvented. I wasn't saying that Walker was innocent because the law was dumb. Instead, the fact that he is innocent probably shows why the law is dumb.

 

[Unabogie]

Do you understand how the law works in the US? There is the statute, which you have linked to. And there are the regulations, which flesh out the statute and try to resolve any ambiguities in the statute. And then there is the case law, in which the courts interpret the statute and the regs in a way which resolves ambiguities in both a consistent AND constitutional way.

The case law is what makes the express advocacy vs issue advocacy distinction. It was either make that distinction, or throw out the whole kit and caboodle as unconstitutional.

As for Walker explaining this to a judge, uh, his fellow defendants have already. Two of them in fact, and both agreed with them that even assuming that every fact the prosecutors asserted was true, there was no case.

ETA: By the way, I said the law was dumb because the best the courts could do with the law to keep it on the right side of the Constitution was to gut it in such a way that it is easily circumvented. I wasn't saying that Walker was innocent because the law was dumb. Instead, the fact that he is innocent probably shows why the law is dumb.

So all I've done is present an AP article, a Columbia Law Review discussion, and the text of the actual law. While you've deftly swatted all that away with your assertions and opinions and nothing else.

It's a good thing you let the evidence lead you to your conclusions, because I can't imagine what your posts would be like if you let political bias get in the way.

 

[sunmaster14]

So all I've done is present an AP article, a Columbia Law Review discussion, and the text of the actual law. While you've deftly swatted all that away with your assertions and opinions and nothing else.

It's a good thing you let the evidence lead you to your conclusions, because I can't imagine what your posts would be like if you let political bias get in the way.

I refer you to the actual judicial opinion by the actual judge in the case. Starts at page 4 of the PDF. Or is a federal district court judge's opinion on what the campaign finance law is not good enough for you?

 

[Unabogie]

I refer you to the actual judicial opinion by the actual judge in the case. Starts at page 4 of the PDF. Or is a federal district court judge's opinion on what the campaign finance law is not good enough for you?

Care to quote the relevant parts instead of pointing to a long document? And isn't the controversy here that judges have attempted to stop the investigation, but those judges are accused of being partisans and the issue is now before an appellate court? In that case, your assert that "he was allowed to" doesn't hold water. We know about the judges. We're waiting for a decision. We do know that other people in other states have been successfully prosecuted for violating the same law.

 

[sunmaster14]

Care to quote the relevant parts instead of pointing to a long document? And isn't the controversy here that judges have attempted to stop the investigation, but those judges are accused of being partisans and the issue is now before an appellate court? In that case, your assert that "he was allowed to" doesn't hold water. We know about the judges. We're waiting for a decision. We do know that other people in other states have been successfully prosecuted for violating the same law.

It's a scan and not a proper PDF, so I can't cut and paste excerpts, but if you want to cut down on your investment, the relevant analysis starts on p. 13 of the opinion (p. 16 of the PDF) and continues for about a dozen pages. It's not a difficult read. Note that here the defendants are the prosecutors, and the plaintiffs are the targets of the investigation.

ETA: Actually I can copy and paste, although not so well. It looks like a scan, but the PDF understands the words. Here is an interesting section:

Stated another way, the "constitutional line" drawn in McCutcheon after its 40-
year analysis is a ringing endorsement of the full protection afforded to political
speech under the First Amendment. This includes both express advocacy speech -
i.e., speech that "expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified
candidate," Buckley at 80, and issue advocacy speech. Only limited intrusions into the
First Amendment are permitted to advance the government's narrow interest in
preventing quid pro quo corruption and then only as it relates to express advocacy
speech. This is so because express advocacy speech is enabled by the infusion of
money which can be called "express advocacy money."

 

[Unabogie]

It's a scan and not a proper PDF, so I can't cut and paste excerpts, but if you want to cut down on your investment, the relevant analysis starts on p. 13 of the opinion (p. 16 of the PDF) and continues for about a dozen pages. It's not a difficult read. Note that here the defendants are the prosecutors, and the plaintiffs are the targets of the investigation.

ETA: Actually I can copy and paste, although not so well. It looks like a scan, but the PDF understands the words. Here is an interesting section:

Explain how this says a candidate can coordinate with Super Pacs?

 

[BenBurch]

He broke the law, knew he was breaking the law, tried to cover up that was breaking the law, and now he is declaring victory before the battle is even met!

History shows how this ends.

 

[Brainster]

Whoops!

"At the time the investigation was halted, Governor Walker was not a target of the investigation," said Randall Crocker, an attorney for special prosecutor Francis Schmitz.

Crocker noted in his statement that "at no time" has Walker, a potential 2016 GOP White House contender, "been served with a subpoena."

 

[Unabogie]

Whoops!

Weird story. Considering that he said Walker was at the center of a criminal scheme, I'd venture to say someone here is wrong.

 

[sunmaster14]

Whoops!

A little more from the same article:

"Mr. Schmitz has made no conclusions as to whether there is sufficient evidence to charge anyone with a crime," Crocker added.

My spidey senses are telling me that one Francis Schmitz and his attorney are worried about a turning of the tables. The hunter may soon become the hunted; the predator may soon be the prey. I suspect we will be hearing very little from Mr. Schmitz going forward, except perhaps an occasional statement along the lines of "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully exercise my 5th Amendment right and decline to answer that question."

 

[Reginald Hobbes]

Weird story. Considering that he said Walker was at the center of a criminal scheme, I'd venture to say someone here is wrong.

From the statement

"While these documents outlined the prosecutor's legal theory, they did not establish the existence of a crime; rather, they were arguments in support of further investigation to determine if criminal charges against any person or entity are warranted," Schmitz's attorney, Randall Crocker, wrote in the statement, which essentially reiterated the context of last week's document release. "Mr. Schmitz has made no conclusions as to whether there is sufficient evidence to charge anyone with a crime. It is wrong for any person to point to this sentence in a legal argument as a finding by the special prosecutor that Governor Walker has engaged in a criminal scheme. It is not such a finding."

Anyone who jumped to the bolded conclusion is wrong.

 

[BenBurch]

He's going down so hard they will have a crater to name after him.

 

[The_Animus]

I take it all to mean that the protector, based on their investigation, believes Walker was at the center of illegal campaign coordination. However, the standard of evidence required to convict someone seems to vary wildly depending upon numerous factors. For instance, a white governor with rich and powerful connections probably sets the bar pretty high.

For anyone who lives here and has been following Walker closely all along it's obvious he's corrupt. It's just a question of whether he gets away with it.

 

[sunmaster14]

He's going down so hard they will have a crater to name after him.

Good one. May I suggest the Schmitz crater? Sounds kind of Yiddish. What is that stain on the floor? Oh, that's just some schmitz.

 

[sunmaster14]

<snip>

For instance, a white governor with rich and powerful connections probably sets the bar pretty high.

Not sure that the qualifier "white" is necessary, but do you know any governors who don't have rich and powerful connections?

 

[The_Animus]

Not sure that the qualifier "white" is necessary, but do you know any governors who don't have rich and powerful connections?

The legal system tends to treat people differently based on the color of their skin. It also tends to treat them differently when they are rich and connected.

If a poor black person had committed the same crime the evidence would have been enough and they'd be in jail already.

Yes it's a generalization and therefor not always true, but it's true enough. I'm just saying that the evidence required to bring charges against Walker is probably much higher than for normal people. I imagine bringing charges without certainty of victory would be the death of the prosecutors careers.

 

[theprestige]

The legal system tends to treat people differently based on the color of their skin. It also tends to treat them differently when they are rich and connected.

If a poor black person had committed the same crime the evidence would have been enough and they'd be in jail already.

Yes it's a generalization and therefor not always true, but it's true enough. I'm just saying that the evidence required to bring charges against Walker is probably much higher than for normal people. I imagine bringing charges without certainty of victory would be the death of the prosecutors careers.

Rod Blagojevich. White. State governor. Convicted.

Mike Easely. White. State governor. Convicted.

Ken Ard. White. Lieutenant governor. Convicted.

John Rowland. White. Governor. Convicted.

George Ryan. White. Governor. Convicted.

Edwin Edwards. White. Governor. Convicted.

Bob Taft. White. Governor. Convicted.

More politician-criminals here.

So much for your theory that justice can't be served to powerful white men.

As for your theory that a strong case is needed to bring down someone in power... I think the best explanation for the prosecutors moving forward with a weak case is not, as you insist, that Scott Walker is self-evidently guilty. Rather, the best explanation is that the prosecutors harbored an irrational dislike of Walker that prompted them to foolish acts. Let their fate be a lesson to other haters out there.