taking concrete steps re money in politics in Oregon

[Dan Meek]

Solutions and AssemblyinSalem have been discussing steps toward concrete campaign finance reform in Oregon.� Attached are the documents I handed out at the Reclaim Democracy (Solutions subgroup) meeting on June 5.� They are:

1. an Occupy Portland resolution that was adopted by the G.A. in February 2012
   
   
2. a memo about enforcing Measure 47 (2006)
   
   
3. a memo about possible wording of an Oregon constitutional amendment to allow limits on campaign contributions and expenditures
   
   
4. the version of a possible constitutional amendment that emerged from Solutions and Reclaim Democracy meetings in February 2012.
   

Also included for discussion purposes is the text of House Joint Resolution 20 of 2003, which is notable because one of its chief sponsors was the House Majority (Republican) leader, Tim Knopp of the Bend area (now running for Oregon Senate), although it did not even receive a hearing.

My proposal is that we ask members of the Oregon Legislature (and candidates for those positions) to agree to support a definite Joint Resolution in the 2013 legislative session to refer to voters a campaign finance reform constitutional amendment.� My preference would be newjres.pdf or one of the other strong ones on newboth.pdf.

While initiatives can go only on the general election ballot in even-numbered years, the Legislature can place a referral on any ballot and often has placed referrals on the November ballot of odd-numbered years and on the May ballot of even-numbered years.

While asking legislators to support a "anti-corporate personhood/money in politics" resolution urging Congress to refer a constitutional amendment to the states for ratification (requires 3/4 of the states) is highly worthy, it does not require the legislators to actually vote on taking action to limit campaign contributions and expenditures--by referring an Oregon constitutional amendment to voters (the only way the Oregon Constitution is amended).� Instead, the "anti-corporate personhood/money in politics" movement asks Oregon legislators (and others) to ask some other body (Congress) to ask some other bodies (state legislatures) to approve a federal amendment.� I would like Occupy to do that but also take the more direct action outlined above.

Dan Meek d...@meek.net

��10949 S.W. 4th Ave ��Portland, OR 97219

��503-293-9021 ��866-926-9646 fax

[Kirk Leonard]

Thanks for these materials and info, Dan. I would point out, however, that unless SCOTUS lets the MT supreme court decision stand, there's no guarantee anything passed on contribution limits, or M.47 will stand in light of CU. If they overturn it, the only solution is a national constitutional amendment. Until then, disclosure laws may be the only, albeit weak recourse. We might want to focus on Oregon's lax laws on that.

----- Original Message -----

From: Dan Meek

Cc: Solutions Committee group ; assembl...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 5:48 PM

Subject: taking concrete steps re money in politics in Oregon

Solutions and AssemblyinSalem have been discussing steps toward concrete campaign finance reform in Oregon.  Attached are the documents I handed out at the Reclaim Democracy (Solutions subgroup) meeting on June 5.  They are:

1. an Occupy Portland resolution that was adopted by the G.A. in February 2012
   
   
2. a memo about enforcing Measure 47 (2006)
   
   
3. a memo about possible wording of an Oregon constitutional amendment to allow limits on campaign contributions and expenditures
   
   
4. the version of a possible constitutional amendment that emerged from Solutions and Reclaim Democracy meetings in February 2012.
   

Also included for discussion purposes is the text of House Joint Resolution 20 of 2003, which is notable because one of its chief sponsors was the House Majority (Republican) leader, Tim Knopp of the Bend area (now running for Oregon Senate), although it did not even receive a hearing.

My proposal is that we ask members of the Oregon Legislature (and candidates for those positions) to agree to support a definite Joint Resolution in the 2013 legislative session to refer to voters a campaign finance reform constitutional amendment.  My preference would be newjres.pdf or one of the other strong ones on newboth.pdf.

While initiatives can go only on the general election ballot in even-numbered years, the Legislature can place a referral on any ballot and often has placed referrals on the November ballot of odd-numbered years and on the May ballot of even-numbered years.

While asking legislators to support a "anti-corporate personhood/money in politics" resolution urging Congress to refer a constitutional amendment to the states for ratification (requires 3/4 of the states) is highly worthy, it does not require the legislators to actually vote on taking action to limit campaign contributions and expenditures--by referring an Oregon constitutional amendment to voters (the only way the Oregon Constitution is amended).  Instead, the "anti-corporate personhood/money in politics" movement asks Oregon legislators (and others) to ask some other body (Congress) to ask some other bodies (state legislatures) to approve a federal amendment.  I would like Occupy to do that but also take the more direct action outlined above.

Dan Meek d...@meek.net

10949 S.W. 4th Ave   Portland, OR 97219

503-293-9021   866-926-9646 fax

[Dan Meek]

Kirk,

CU said nothing about contribution limits.� It was about independent expenditures limits only.� But the U.S. Supreme Court could stark striking down contribution limits; that is true.

Also, disclosure need not be weak.� Measure 47, which the Attorney General of Oregon and Secretary of State of Oregon are refusing to enforce, contains this provision:

(6)(g)�����Every communication funded by an independent expenditure campaign which has spent more than two thousand dollars ($2,000) since the most recent biennial general election shall prominently disclose all contributors who have contributed amounts equal to or more than the fifth largest dominant contributor to the independent expenditure campaign.

Here is the definition in Measure 47 of "prominently disclose":

(2)(aa)��� "Prominently disclose" means that the communication states the following information about the dominant contributor or the self-funded candidate on all communications other than small campaign items: name, primary businesses engaged in, and total contributions and expenditures for the campaign at issue since the most recent biennial general election, with such statement:

������������������� (1)����� Current to within ten (10) days of the printing of printed material or within five (5) days of the transmitting of a video or audio communication; and

������������������� (2)����� Comprehensible to a person with average reading, vision, and hearing abilities, with any printed disclosure appearing in type not smaller than 8 points, any video disclosure remaining readable on the regular screen (not closed captioning) for a sufficient time to be read by a person with average vision and reading ability, and with any auditory disclosure spoken at a maximum rate of five words per second.

Image independent expenditure ads with such disclosures required to be in each ad.� Such ads may well prove counterproductive, because people will know where they are actually coming from.

Also, the only solution is not a U.S. Constitutional amendment, which requires not only a 2/3 vote in each house of Congress but also ratification by 38 states.� Even John McCain won 22 states in 2008.� Where are the 38 states that will approve the constitutional amendment?� It is easy to see at least 12 states that would block it:� South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Arizona, Wyoming, Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana.� That's 17 right there, not including other likely dissenting states, such as Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska.� That makes 23 states.� So about half of those states would suddenly have to radically change their political leanings.

But Congress has authority under the U.S. Constitution to define and limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.� Congress need only adopt a law that removes federal court jurisdiction to review the constitutionality of limits on political contributions or expenditures.

Congress has removed federal court jurisdiction over several matters in the past.� Even Wikipedia knows this:

During Reconstruction, Congress withdrew jurisdiction from a case the U.S. Supreme Court was then in the process of adjudicating. In terminating the case Ex Parte McCardle, 74 US 506 (1869), the Justices acknowledged the authority of Congress to intervene.

We are not at liberty to inquire into the motives of the legislature. We can only examine into its power under the Constitution; and the power to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of this court is given by express words.... It is quite clear, therefore, that this court cannot proceed to pronounce judgment in this case, for it has no longer jurisdiction of the appeal; and judicial duty is not less fitly performed by declining ungranted jurisdiction than in exercising firmly that which the Constitution and the laws confer.^[22]

In 1882, the Supreme Court again conceded that its own "actual jurisdiction is confined within such limits as Congress sees fit to describe.�^[23]

In 1948, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter conceded: "Congress need not give this Court any appellate power; it may withdraw appellate jurisdiction once conferred."^[24]

More recent examples of jurisdiction stripping include the following:

• Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (inter alia, stripped the federal judiciary of its jurisdiction to review certain Immigration and Naturalization Service decisions),
• Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 (restricting the remedies available to prison inmates),
• Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (limiting the number of habeas corpus petitions available to prison inmates),^[25]
• Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, ruled an unconstitutional denial of the right of habeas corpus pursuant to the Suspension clause. Boumediene v. Bush.
  

Even Justice Scalia says:� �[T]he aptly named � Exceptions Clause� of Article III, � 2, which, in making our appellate jurisdiction subject to `such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make,' explicitly permits exactly what Congress has done here."�� Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006).

Dan Meek d...@meek.net

��10949 S.W. 4th Ave ��Portland, OR 97219

��503-293-9021 ��866-926-9646 fax

On 6/10/2012 8:11 PM, Kirk Leonard wrote:

Thanks for these materials and info, Dan. I would point out, however, that unless SCOTUS lets the MT supreme court decision stand, there's no guarantee anything passed on contribution limits, or M.47�will stand in light of CU. If they overturn it, the only solution is a national constitutional amendment. Until then, disclosure laws may be the only, albeit weak�recourse. We might want to focus on Oregon's lax laws on that.

----- Original Message -----

From: Dan Meek

Cc: Solutions Committee group ; assembl...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2012 5:48 PM

Subject: taking concrete steps re money in politics in Oregon

Solutions and AssemblyinSalem have been discussing steps toward concrete campaign finance reform in Oregon.� Attached are the documents I handed out at the Reclaim Democracy (Solutions subgroup) meeting on June 5.� They are:

1. an Occupy Portland resolution that was adopted by the G.A. in February 2012
   
   
2. a memo about enforcing Measure 47 (2006)
   
   
3. a memo about possible wording of an Oregon constitutional amendment to allow limits on campaign contributions and expenditures
   
   
4. the version of a possible constitutional amendment that emerged from Solutions and Reclaim Democracy meetings in February 2012.
   

Also included for discussion purposes is the text of House Joint Resolution 20 of 2003, which is notable because one of its chief sponsors was the House Majority (Republican) leader, Tim Knopp of the Bend area (now running for Oregon Senate), although it did not even receive a hearing.

My proposal is that we ask members of the Oregon Legislature (and candidates for those positions) to agree to support a definite Joint Resolution in the 2013 legislative session to refer to voters a campaign finance reform constitutional amendment.� My preference would be newjres.pdf or one of the other strong ones on newboth.pdf.

While initiatives can go only on the general election ballot in even-numbered years, the Legislature can place a referral on any ballot and often has placed referrals on the November ballot of odd-numbered years and on the May ballot of even-numbered years.

While asking legislators to support a "anti-corporate personhood/money in politics" resolution urging Congress to refer a constitutional amendment to the states for ratification (requires 3/4 of the states) is highly worthy, it does not require the legislators to actually vote on taking action to limit campaign contributions and expenditures--by referring an Oregon constitutional amendment to voters (the only way the Oregon Constitution is amended).� Instead, the "anti-corporate personhood/money in politics" movement asks Oregon legislators (and others) to ask some other body (Congress) to ask some other bodies (state legislatures) to approve a federal amendment.� I would like Occupy to do that but also take the more direct action outlined above.

Dan Meek d...@meek.net

[John Springer]

Best idea I've heard.

- John in Portland, where it's probably raining.




On Jun 11, 2012, at 2:34 PM, Dan Meek <d...@meek.net> wrote:

> But Congress has authority under the U.S. Constitution to define and limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Congress need only adopt a law that removes federal court jurisdiction to review the constitutionality of limits on political contributions or expenditures.