Manhattan Contrarian Guide To Campaign Finance Law

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As a sophisticated observer of the political scene and reader of the Manhattan Contrarian, you undoubtedly know why we have strict and intricate campaign finance laws:  They are "to get money out of politics."  Or something like that.

Or are they really about protecting incumbents and putting roadblocks in the way of challengers?  Or, even worse, are they about giving partisan prosecutors some tools to take down inconvenient Republicans while Democrats get a pass?  I'll let you be the judge.

First, the basics of how this works.  Much of which, by the way, you can blame on the recently-departed John McCain, via the so-called McCain-Feingold campaign finance law of 2002.  One of his many mistakes in life -- but then, we all make mistakes.  The central provision of this campaign finance law is that contributions to "campaigns" for federal office are limited in amount, essentially to $2700 per election cycle for an individual or $5400 for a couple.  Obviously, for such a restriction to work, it must then be illegal for a "campaign" to pay "campaign expenses" from a source other than the funds contributed in accordance with the limits.  Equally obviously, since you have raised "campaign funds" for your "campaign" in accordance with strict limits and representations, it must be illegal to use the "campaign funds" for other than "campaign purposes."  And, to make this all work seamlessly, all "campaign expenses" over $200 must be reported and accurately described to the bureaucrats at the Federal Election Commission.  Needless to say, any violation of these rules is a crime.

So let's see how these rules get applied in a few recent examples:

Trump/Cohen . . .

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Things That Are Over -- Although Their Proponents Don't Admit It Yet

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Many things in this world end up failing miserably.  In the business arena, the capitalist system puts a mercifully quick end to thousands of seemingly good ideas that just don't catch on.  Do you remember the Edsel?  Or, maybe, the DeLorean?  Or the restaurant down your block that barely lasted six months?  But that's just capitalism.  In other arenas, particularly the political, failed ventures can continue long after they have failed and after the failure has become obvious to everyone who looks.  With vociferous backers and, generally, the coercive power of the state behind them, they can carry on and on, even though, in every real sense, they are over.  

There are lots of things out there that are over, but pretend not to be.  Perhaps some examples of this phenomenon may spring to your mind.  Many spring to mine -- this will be a good subject for a continuing series here at MC.  Let's get started today with a few easy examples. . . .

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Can The New York Attorney General's Office Be Rescued?

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You probably know that the population and economy of New York State are in long-term decline relative to the rest of the country.  For example, in the 1980 census New York had 17.6 million people, versus 9.7 million for Florida and 14.2 million for Texas; now in 2018 it is 19.9 million people for New York, 21.3 million for Florida, and 28.7 million for Texas.  For another example, back in the 90s New York had close to 9% of the nation's GDP; today it's under 8%.    

If you had to pick one factor as the most important cause of this situation, it would have to be the high taxes.  (Neither Florida nor Texas has an income tax at all.)  But taxes are not the only factor.  Don't underestimate the adverse business climate.  And at the top of the list of things contributing to New York's adverse business climate, we have the Office of the Attorney General.

At one time, the AG's Office in New York was relatively sleepy, particularly with most law enforcement jurisdiction vested in separately-elected county DAs.  In my lifetime up to 2000, none of the occupants of the AG's office ever was a serious contender for governor.  Then from 1999 to 2006 we got as AG the desperately ambitious Eliot Spitzer.  Spitzer figured out that he had at his command an old and vaguely worded securities-law-enforcement statute called the Martin Act, and that on threat of Martin Act enforcement, any bank would quickly pay a few hundred million dollars to avoid criminal prosecution.  After using that strategy and multiple shakedowns to keep his name in the news for years, Spitzer claimed the title of "sheriff of Wall Street," and rode that horse to become Governor in 2007 (a position in which he lasted barely more than a year).  Andrew Cuomo became Spitzer's immediate successor as AG, and next thing you know, he was governor too! . . .

So a new person will be elected to this office in November, with a primary in September.  Is there any chance that this ship can be righted?  The short answer is, the odds are poor.

The two leading Democratic candidates in the race appear to be Zephyr Teachout and Letitia James.  Teachout is a progressive professor at Fordham Law, who gave Andrew Cuomo a run for his money in a primary four years ago.  James is the current "Public Advocate" of New York City -- a job with essentially no real responsibilities, but which has been used in the past as a launching pad by ambitious pols, most notably Bill de Blasio. . . .

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The Manhattan Contrarian Guide To Evaluating Environmental Scares: Glyphosate And Climate Change

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You may have seen that last week a California jury handed down a verdict finding Monsanto civilly liable for some $289 million in damages to a man who claimed that his blood cancer was caused by the weed killer glyphosate (brand name Roundup).  That's enough money to notice!  Especially since there are a few thousand more potential plaintiffs lined up to sue for allegedly getting cancer from exposure to Roundup.  And it's especially noticeable to the people at Bayer, who just finished buying Monsanto for some $66 billion a couple of months ago.

If you've been a reader here for a while, you will know that I don't think much of the "science" supporting a supposed causal relationship between glyphosate exposure and cancer.  See this November 2017 post "Can Intervention By The Rational Stop A Pseudoscientific Scare Backed By Big Money?"   

And indeed, I'm far from alone in my views as to glyphosate, this jury's verdict notwithstanding.  There appears to be some kind of near-consensus of the relevant scientific community on the side that glyphosate does not cause cancer.  But then there's climate change.  Over in that field, we find advocates of climate alarm making frequent claims of "scientific consensus" for their position of a causal relationship between human greenhouse gas emissions and projected catastrophic global warming.  In that field, I would dispute that there is anything close to a "consensus," but I could not dispute the proposition that a substantial plurality of those calling themselves "climate scientists" are supporting the cause of global warming alarm.  Even so, I think their claims are nonsense.

So how can you, as a reasonably informed citizen, hope to come to a rational view as to which scary scientific claims to credit and which to dismiss? . . .

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The Real Face Of Racism In America

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Accusations of racism seem to have reached new levels in the past few years.  These days, treating everyone with fairness and respect is no defense to the charge.  A statement as seemingly innocent as "I think the most qualified person should get the job," might be deemed a racist "microaggression," while President Trump's calling out to an acquaintance at a rally "Look at my African-American over there," is repeatedly cited as a key proof of his racism.  Companies, universities and a criminal justice system all bending over backwards to practice racial fairness are widely accused of systemic racism and oppression.  And, if you go along with a New York Times column last week, if you are "white" you are a racial "oppressor" by virtue of your very existence, no matter what you do or say, or how hard you try to act decently to avoid the accusation.

So I thought I might contribute to the dialogue by pointing out something that, in my view, is truly racist.  

Here is a new (July 27) paper from Brookings titled "Employment status changes put millions at risk of losing SNAP benefits for years."  The authors are Lauren Bauer and Diane Schanzenbach.  . . .

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Progressive Cities Go To Work On The Problem of "Homelessness"

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A persistent theme of this blog is that progressive social programs supposedly intended to solve  societal problems inevitably make the problems worse.  Of course, few pay close attention while this happens; and the performance of the journalism profession in reporting on the phenomenon is nothing short of disgraceful.  But if you look into this subject enough, you will realize that it is not actually possible for a bureaucracy to solve a major societal problem.  To solve the problem would be to undermine the very basis for the existence of the bureaucracy, and to put it at risk of cutbacks or even elimination.  Bureaucracies have as their fundamental imperative the need to continue and to grow.  Therefore, no problem entrusted to a bureaucracy will ever be solved, nor even substantially ameliorated.  In fact, the problem will certainly worsen over time, the better to justify a bigger budget and more staff for the bureaucracy. . . .

Recently, the progressive movement has turned some of its focus to the problem of "homelessness."  Now here we have a problem that is clearly different -- obviously much less complex and intractable than "poverty," and therefore subject to being immediately solved by well-intentioned and well-funded progressive minions.  As super-progressive New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in 2014, shortly after getting elected, "We are simply not going to allow this kind of reality to continue.”  After all, homelessness is just an issue of lack of housing.  So it's easy:  just hire some people, spend some money, build some housing, and presto! you're done.  Or at least, that was the fantasy. . . .

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