“This faux judicial restraint,” Scalia wrote in his opinion, “is judicial obfuscation.”
Two years later, Roberts and Alito may be preparing to heed that criticism and directly overturn precedents allowing restrictions on corporate political spending. The justices next week will hold an [...]
Coakley, 56, a former prosecutor elected attorney general in 2006, didnt wait for Kennedy to decide. “Why should she?” said Alex Zaroulis, a Coakley spokeswoman.
“Shes not waiting for a signal,” said Jeffrey Berry, a political scientist at Tufts University in Medford, [...]
The agency that enforces the laws governing political money is gridlocked by ideological differences. Courts have eaten away parts of the law, ruling them at odds with constitutional guarantees of free speech. And President Barack Obama, who made campaign promises to step up the Federal Election Commissions enforcement, is in no position to deliver on [...]
Clintons campaign raised $541,276 in donations between April 1 and June 30, including $5,000 from the political action committee of New York-based New York Life Insurance Co., FEC records show. She had $2.5 million in the bank at the end of June, more than enough to pay off the remaining debt to Penns firm, Penn, [...]
The high court was expected to release a decision on the Citizens United movie as part of its end-of-the-term wrap up, but in an unusual move the justices said they will hear arguments in the case again in a special session Sept. 9.
In advance of the rare session, the court told the lawyers in the [...]
From staging fundraisers in Las Vegas to financing ski trips, current and former lawmakers have spent PAC money on a broad range of seemingly personal activities over the years, all the while maintaining they are doing so for strictly political purposes.
In the wake of the disclosure of Edwards affair with videographer Rielle Hunter, Edwards has [...]
Newer members, Republican and Democratic, are finding it is easier to take in campaign money from finance, real-estate and insurance political action committees now that they are incumbents. Those industries donated at least $483,203 to the 14 freshmen members of the House Financial Services Committee in the first quarter, according to reports filed this week. [...]
A handful of incumbents who lost last fall have yet to land new full-time jobs.
They include former Reps. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, Thelma Drake of Virginia and Nick Lampson of Texas. Theres also former New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu, whose latest Washington assignment is only part-time.
A former top Bush administration official, too, has had [...]
The suburban Los Angeles Democrat made the $150,000 loan in 1998, when she was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Through Dec. 31, her campaign committee has used donations to pay Napolitano $221,780 of interest while reducing the principal by just $64,727, a review of her Federal Election Commission filings shows. [...]
Steele paid more than $37,000 to a Maryland company run by his sister, Monica Turner, for work related to his unsuccessful 2006 Senate campaign. If she was not reimbursed, both he and his sister would be violating campaign finance laws, said Steele.
“It was a legitimate reimbursement of expenses,” Steele said on ABCs “This [...]