Political Marketplace

 For Thursday, read Schatzinger, ch. 6.

Balancing Acts  (Schatzinger, ch. 2)

• Do corporations have rights?   Aren't corporations just groups of people?
• Is money speech?  Can people effectively express themselves without it?
• What is the line between responsiveness and corruption?
• Do voters have a right to know who is funding campaign communication?

The donor class

• The NYT article on donors to outside groups (Schatzinger and Martin, 54) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-election-super-pac-donors.html 
• LLCs to conceal identities https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/04/surge-in-llc-contributions-more-mystery/ 
• Essential Consultants LLC https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/politics/michael-cohen-shell-company-payments.html

Liberal dark money in 2018  (p. 63): 

http://www.epicjourney2008.com/2019/01/liberal-dark-money-in-2018.html

Following the Money

• Limitations of public information
• Guidestar/Candid and Form 990
• More at Candid
• SourceWatch (liberals investigating conservatives) and Capital Research Center (conservatives investigating liberals)

What do they get for their money?

Coordination.  

Karl Rove:  "And you can't talk to the campaigns directly. You can't coordinate with them. But you can play bridge."

• B-Roll:  Mitch McConnell and Steve Bullock doing stuff
• Micro-sites
• Personnel

Congressional Leadership Super PAC

• House Majority PAC and Senate Majority PAC
• Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund