We probably won’t be allowed to know who the speakers are behind the ads, but at least we’ll know how these ads came to be:
Does the term “the White House” refer to President Obama? That was the semantic question facing the six-member Federal Election Commission on Thursday as it considered a request by the conservative advocacy group American Future Fund to run TV commercials that refer to “the White House” or “the administration” — or even use Obama’s voice — without triggering a rule requiring groups that fund election-related ads to disclose their donors.
After an occasionally contentious one-hour debate, the commission couldn’t decide, deadlocking along party lines.
Until recently, tax-exempt advocacy groups had been able to engage in a limited amount of political activity without revealing who was financing their efforts. But in March, a federal judge in Washington ruled that groups that run a type of advertising called “electioneering communications” must identify their contributors.
An appeal of the case is set to be heard in September. But in the meantime, conservative advocacy groups are scrambling to find ways to air ads this summer without triggering the disclosure requirement.
To be considered an “electioneering communication,” a TV spot must air in the 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election and refer to a “clearly identified” candidate for federal office, without advocating for his or her election or defeat.
In its request to the FEC for an advisory opinion, American Future Fund proposed eight alternative ads that criticize the administration’s energy policy and healthcare overhaul but stop short of using Obama’s name. The group is hoping to avoid running ads that qualify as electioneering communications, because it “does not want to risk being compelled to violate its donors’ privacy expectations,” Torchinsky wrote.
“Only those familiar with President Obama’s voice will know that it is President Obama speaking,” Torchinsky wrote.
That notion was met with incredulity by one of the FEC’s Democratic commissioners, Ellen Weintraub, who expressed surprise that Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert had not yet “made a joke out of this one.”
“The voice of the president is so clearly recognizable to the citizens of this country,” she said. To underscore her point, Weintraub played audio clips of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan for the half-filled hearing room. “And those are dead guys … but their voices clearly identify them.”
She chided the American Future Fund for lacking “civic courage” in its effort to avoid disclosure, saying, “A better-informed electorate is actually a good thing … it’s not something to hide from.”
After she concluded, Republican Commissioner Donald McGahn applauded sarcastically and admonished her for referring to former presidents as “dead guys.”
There are so many conservative-libertarian groups running ads it’s hard to keep the names straight. The names probably won’t mean anything to the average viewer anyway, they’re just strings of poll-tested words that reveal nothing. The American Future Fund reads like all the others, “free market principles…”
At first I thought oil and gas interests were behind this one, but looking at the whole site I think I’d have to go with “a focus on destroying organized labor.” That might be a game ordinary viewers of the ads could play at home: guess which moneyed interest or industry is behind an ad.
Breezeblock
I can’t decide whether this country is turning into a joke, heading down the crapper, or both.
I think I’ll hedge my bets and say both.
Yay for Liberty and Junk.
mistermix
The only thing surprising about this is that the FEC bothered having a one hour dog and pony show before the 3-3 vote.
PeakVT
the commission couldn’t decide, deadlocking along party lines.
What kind of dishonest shits are the Republicans on that board, anyway? In pretty much any news report about a presidential action, “the administration” and “the White House” are used interchangeably with the president’s name. I’m sure someone could find dozens of clips from Faux as examples.
Linda Featheringill
I vaguely remember similar discussions several years ago, asking how much of the White House statements were truly in the interest of open government and how much was in fact meant to improve the chances of reelection. I have a hazy recollection that a Republican president was involved.
It is a reasonable question of course and I certainly don’t know how to cure the problem. But this conversation has been going on for quite a while.
grandpa john
Hmm so all those staunch upright citizens of unimpeachable moral character and integrity don’t want people to know who
they are huh? So they are covering their asses in case it back fires.
http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/jun/08/potential-train-wreck-shortage-farmworkers-fla/
TRACY X. MIGUEL, Naples (Fla.) Daily News
NAPLES, Fla. — In the heat of the immigration debate across the nation, increased border patrolling and the recovering economy, southwest Florida vegetable farms are struggling to get workers through the season.
Chuck Obern, owner of C & B Farms, a vegetable farm, in the Devil’s Garden growing area in Hendry County, said he has struggled to find farmworkers in the last couple of years.
“There is a fear factor that has increased among immigrants because of immigration laws or pending immigration laws and the Americans’ attitudes toward immigrants,” Obern said.
C & B Farms has seen a decline in farmworkers of about 25 percent, from 400 farmworkers in 2007-08 to about 300 today. According to a Pew Hispanic Center study, after four decades the net migration from Mexico to the United States has stopped and may have reversed.
The Pew Hispanic Center is a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population and chronicle Latinos’ growing impact on the nation.
“If that trend continues — Americans aren’t doing those jobs and sooner or later we would have a problem,” said Gene McAvoy, Southwest Florida Research and Education Center extension director and regional vegetable agent.
“We are concerned for the future, especially if the economy is starting to come back. It’s a potential train wreck coming.”
McAvoy said it was tougher to find workers in Florida in 2011 compared to this year. In 2011, there was a farmworker shortage in late April into May and June.
Obern credits the decrease in farm laborers to toughened border-crossing security, the cost of crossing and the lower birthrate in Mexico.
“We know it’s harder to get across the border; now you have to deal with drug lords and whatnot,” McAvoy said. “It has become much more harder and much more expensive than it was a few years ago.”
In Immokalee, Fla., long an area heavy with farmworkers, there are currently about 12,000 present, according to Adan Labra, area coordinator for the Farmworker Association of Florida Inc.,
That represents a 45-percent decrease from the 22,000 there in 2000.
There are an estimated 2,615 Collier County, Fla., workers in the agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting and mining industries, and 2,520 in nearby Lee County, according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau reports of the American Community Survey.
Since 2000, the number of those employees has decreased by 30 percent in Collier and 20 percent in Lee counties.
The drop is due to heightened deportations of undocumented immigrants in Collier County and the high rate of unemployment, Labra said in Spanish. He said he knows some workers have returned to Mexico or moved to other parts of the United States.
“Every day the laws are getting harder,” he said.
Labra said a federal program is making it hard to legalize undocumented farm laborers who already live in the U.S. The H-2A temporary agricultural program establishes a means for agricultural employers who anticipate a shortage of domestic workers to bring nonimmigrant foreign workers to the U.S. to perform agricultural labor or services of a temporary or seasonal nature.
However, before employers may receive such approval, they must file an application with the U.S. Department of Labor stating there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified and available, and that the employment of aliens will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
If he used the program, Obern said, he would have to increase his employees’ wages to $9.50 an hour from an estimated $7.67, which is the minimum wage in Florida.
Today, Obern said farmworkers are making more money than several years ago, but farms have to compete against other nations where labor is cheaper.
“I would say that the great majority of people in the United States could not perform most farmworking tasks to the performance levels that we require,” Obern said, noting the physical hardships and weather conditions
Kay
@PeakVT:
The conservative-libertarian objective is to completely deregulate campaign finance.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before :)
It’ll work out about as well for the vast majority of the public as all the other deregulation debacles. The Wrecking Crew really is accurate.
grandpa john
@grandpa john:
AS I recall , this was amply displayed in Georgia last year when they tried to get people drawing unemployment or anyone else they could recruit, to harvest crop that were rotting in the fields
third of two
So who the fuck is this Torchinsky fellow? The article doesn’t say and I couldn’t find his name at the AFF website, but I’m guessing attorney.
Linda Featheringill
Back in the Stone Age, when I was young and strong, I worked in the family crops. But even then, I had to build up my work capacity at the beginning of each season. Very few people could just walk onto a modern farm and do a good job with the harvest. Or even a half decent job, as far as that goes. The working day during harvesting is what? 12 to 14 hours? Most people would be hard put to work at this job more than 4 hours straight.
Maude
@Linda Featheringill:
Most people wouldn’t make 20 minutes. It is hard labor.
beltane
@Linda Featheringill: I am physically fit and more accustomed to working outdoors than most Americans my age, and yet I still once passed out while hilling up potatoes in the hot sun. Most Americans of the Rugged Individualist variety would find that farm work is the functional equivalent of a death panel.
SiubhanDuinne
@third of two:
Actually, the article does say. From there, it was an easy step to Teh Googelz, which provided http://www.hvjlaw.com/torchinsky/
cmorenc
@beltane:
The ultimate form of Hellish agricultural stoop-labor has to be hand-picking cotton in humid 90-degree sun, dragging a burlap sack of picked cotton down row after row. Back when I was in high school, a local farmer donated the market price of all the cotton about twenty members of our service club could pick on a late-August day. That one day I spent picking cotton was enough to make me determined it would be my last one, ever, for any reason or cause.
Tan
Somehow I am reminded of how certain people wore hoods when
participating in certain activities.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Huh. Wonder why that is.
RalfW
The obsession with anonymity, whether NOM or Crossroads GPS or the latest Freedom Freeness for Citizen Liberty America is a massive tell.
They know that what they’re doing is wrong, or they wouldn’t be afraid to put their names to it. Particularly the corporate funders. If consumers knew they were getting screwed each time they bought Processed American Singles or a gallon of gas, they might just take action.
This is why we cannot tolerate a President Mitt. The Supreme Court would be a democracy-destroying juggernaut for decades if he gets to put another couple Scalias and/or Roberts on the court.
RalfW
@grandpa john:
Maybe this is why no one but low skill immigrants will do farm work:
NancyDarling
@cmorenc: My mother would agree with you. When she married my dad in 1927, she told him if he ever raised a single stalk of cotton she would divorce him. She worked her uncle’s cotton fields back in the day when you “chopped” cotton to get rid of the weeds—no aerial crop dusters in those days. My grandmother was pregnant with her 4th child when my grandfather was placed in a veterans home due to a Spanish-American War brain injury. She used to take that baby to the fields where he would curl up and sleep on the end of her cotton sack as she pulled it up and down the rows. They were tough, sturdy stock.
Steve
@RalfW: It’s worth recalling that the same court that decided Citizens United voted 8-1 that it’s legal to require disclosure of donors’ identity. The roadblock right now is the Republicans in Congress that refuse to pass the DISCLOSE Act.
Mojotron
…but stop short of using Obama’s name…
I imagine the bell goes CLANG! in the ad.
JPL
@RalfW: I’m prepared for the Supreme Court to uphold DOMA and yet overturn ACA. IMO, the fix is already in. Mitt will just add to that.
Jay in Oregon
Conservatives and libertarians have never met a rule they didn’t try to duck, or a system they haven’t tried to game.
So the obvious solution is to have fewer rules and systems. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY!
Villago Delenda Est
@PeakVT:
Well, they’re typical contemporary Republicans, so naturally, they’re dishonest shits.
That high-pitched sound you hear is guys like Everett Dirksen and Barry Goldwater whirring rapidly in their graves.
Odie Hugh Manatee
You know, a top marginal tax rate of 90% would go a long way in solving these problems. Rich people with money are a problem and we have far too many of them.
It long past time to tax them back into oblivion.
Villago Delenda Est
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
In short, they’re cowardly scum.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Villago Delenda Est: The Grand-Daddy Republican of them All is probably spinning fast enough in his Tomb he could generate enough power to run the rest of the Mall.
gorillagogo
Here some suggested names for future conservative front groups:
Americans For America
American Patriots For America
Americans For Freedom
Patriotic Americans For Freedom
Freedom-Lovers For America
American Freedom-Lovers For Freedom-Loving American Freedom
Freedom-Loving American Patriots For Freedom
Patriotic American Freedom-Lovers For Freedom-Loving Patriots
Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Baked Beans And Spam
American Freedom-Loving Patriots For A Patriotic America
The Patriotic Freedom-Loving American Institute For Freedom
Mike Lamb
I know it shouldn’t be, but this is shocking to me. That anyone can argue with a straight face that people wouldn’t understand who was being referenced when they use Obama’s fucking voice is unbelievable. In my opinion, an attorney making that argument in front of any type of tribunal should be censured by the bar. It’s not a good faith argument.
burnspbesq
@third of two:
If you had taken 10 seconds to click through to the article, you would have learned that Mr. Torchinsky was indeed acting as counsel for the organization that asked the FEC for a ruling.
He was doing a job. Nothing more. There is no reason to assume that he agrees with the views he was being paid to advocate.
Is it possible that you don’t get that?
Jay in Oregon
@gorillagogo:
Someone who had some cash to burn could probably turn a profit buying up those domain names and reselling them when the latest Koch-funded think tank gets established.
burnspbesq
I suppose it would be silly of me to ask you to support your opinion by reference to published opinions interpreting Rule 3.1 of the DC rules of professional conduct.
Mojotron
Does anyone remember this move of Bush’s?
Maneuver gave Bush a conservative rights panel
WASHINGTON – The US Commission on Civil Rights, the nation’s 50-year-old watchdog for racism and discrimination, has become a critic of school desegregation efforts and affirmative action ever since the Bush administration used a controversial maneuver to put the agency under conservative control.
Democrats say the move to create a conservative majority on the eight-member panel violated the spirit of a law requiring that no more than half the commission be of one party. Critics say Bush in effect installed a fifth and sixth Republican on the panel in December 2004, after two commissioners, both Republicans when appointed, reregistered as independents.
“I don’t believe that [the law] was meant to be evaded by conveniently switching your voter registration,” said Commissioner Michael Yaki, one of the two remaining Democrats.
The administration insists that Bush’s appointments were consistent with the law because the two commissioners who reregistered as independents no longer counted as Republicans. The day before Bush made the appointments, the Department of Justice approved the move in a memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’s office.
Other presidents have been able to create a majority of like-minded commissioners, but no president has done it this way. The unusual circumstances surrounding the appointments attracted little attention at the time. But they have had a sweeping effect, shifting the commission’s emphasis from investigating claims of civil rights violations to questioning programs designed to offset the historic effects of discrimination.
Violet
This is a great idea! Is there any way to publicize this idea and make it sort of fun? It would make more people aware that moneyed interests are behind the ads that are annoying them during election season. It needs a catchy, memorable name like “Who Owns Romney?” or (less partisan) “Who’s Trying to Buy the White House?” or “Who’s Trying to Buy My Vote?”
Mnemosyne
This reminds me of some of the aftermath of Prop 8 here in California where there was a lot of public breast-beating because it turned out that the owner of a popular West Hollywood restaurant was a Mormon who had donated a lot of money to Yes on 8 and all of those mean, uncaring gay people stopped going to her restaurant when they found out. So there were many calls for greater anonymity in political donations so large donors like her wouldn’t have to face any consequences for their actions.
There was, of course, very little coverage of how her customers felt when they discovered that she was happy to take their dirty, gay money while actively working to take their civil rights away from them.
StringonaStick
@Violet: How about we go one better here: Crossroads GPS, Rove’s outfit, is running “support the deficit reduction agenda” ads all the time on HuluPlus.
I think they need to be followed by ads saying “hey, Crossroads GPS is run by Karl Rove! Remember Karl Rove? He was the guy that helped pres Bush run up the huge deficit! Is Karl Rove really the guy with an opinion we can trust about the deficit?” Something along those lines.
Bill
@burnspbesq: There’s no need for published opinions interpreting the rule. The rule is clear on its face – a lawyer can not bring cases without bases in fact and law. Trying to argue that using President Obama’s voice and referring to the White House or the Administration does not clearly indicate President Obama seems like it wouldn’t pass that bar. Sure, they can try to argue against it, saying that there’s some disputed fact here, but proceedings for sanctions are at least less frivolous than this proceeding before the FEC.
Violet
@StringonaStick:
I think that’s a great idea too. Only problem with it is that it costs money.
TenguPhule
So only voters will know what the message means.
And Republicans accept this argument as a very serious one.
and I’m supposed to be the crazy one here?
burnspbesq
@Bill:
Only a non-lawyer could write that.
Please, fool, try harder next time.
Bill
@burnspbesq: Look, I’m not saying I would stand in front of the tribunal and actually say “it’s clear on its face!” What I was trying to say in a quick-and-dirty fashion is that – assuming that there hasn’t been much interpretation of Rule 3.1, which looks to be the case from my admittedly *extremely* quick check of the ethics opinions you can find at the link you sent – there is really no authority to point to other than the rule. Again, assuming that’s the case, my argument would be straight-forward: the rule says X and that there’s no way that the argument by the lawyer satisfies X.
If there’s no authority to point to, you go with what there is, which is only the language of the rule and the fact that the argument made by the interest groups could not be accepted with a straight face by any neutral arbiter.
Do I guarantee a win? Of course not. But I at least guarantee that I have a perfectly valid (and I would say strong) case.
third of two
@burnspbesq: Thanks, but SiubhanDuinne has alreadly pointed out my
lack ofreading comprehension skills in an earlier reply.