FRANKEN SOLICITS $1 MILLION. I received this eye-catching solicitation (with a subject, “A perfectly reasonable request”) a few days ago from Franken for Senate seeking “$50,000, $100,000, even $1 million” for his senate campaign. (Don’t worry, I’m signed up for literally dozens of campaigns across the political spectrum for academic reasons.)
AZ: REFORM DOOM. AZ Central. “So why, you ask, wouldn’t the Legislature want voters to see who is trying to influence their vote?”
CA: NO VIOLATION. Mercury News. “There was no violation of city election law last year when Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan accepted two campaign checks from Oakland A’s co-owner Lew Wolff, an investigation by the city’s Public Ethics Commission has found.”
MA: TEST FOR STATUTE. BG. “In the first test of its constitutionality, a state law that makes it illegal to lie in campaign ads is being challenged by a Republican political action committee whose treasurer is facing criminal charges over a negative mailing in the last election cycle.”
MN: PROGRAM END SOUGHT. Twincities.com. “State Rep. Steve Drazkowski is trying again to kill the unique to Minnesota program that allows residents to contribute to politicians and get their money refunded.”
NY: DELUSION. City-Journal.org. “Extending such a [public financing] system statewide would waste money, overregulate the electoral process, and create new potential for abuse.”
WI: LINKED REQURIED. GB Press Gazette. “A federal judge has ordered state election officials to post links to decisions striking down swaths of Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws on its website.”
AUS: MYSTERY DONOR. SMH.com. “The most generous contribution to a major party came from a China-based donor called ‘Zi Chun Wang’, who gave two donations totalling $850,000 to Labor. Google and news archive searches do not produce results for this name, suggesting Wang operates under another name.”
HAVE A GOOD DAY.