Late Breaking Disclosures…Not Involving A Mustachioed Man
Newsletter 28: Late night disclosures from campaigns and belated transparency from Biden’s Super PAC set for Friday evening
As longtime readers know… Revolving Door Project is focused on the promise and perils of the executive branch of the federal government. We believe that who is appointed to these jobs and for whom they fight -- themselves and their past or future employers, or the public interest -- is of enormous consequence.
That’s why we’re proud to be a co-convener and planner of an upcoming event, “Populism and Political Economy: Looking Ahead to 2020,” hosted at the Capitol Forum on February 5. Ideas for executive branch action across every topic area, from finance to antitrust and from labor to science policy, will be discussed by leading progressives. If you want to understand the push and pull within and around a potential Democratic Party presidency, it will be critical that you hear from and get to know the people in this room.
2020 (and Potentially 2021)
In less than a week, Iowa caucus-goers will cast their votes after having been inundated with candidates’ time and their legislative promises for over a year. One thing they could definitely have heard more about, however, is what each candidate would plan to do with his/her executive branch powers.
As we have highlighted before, in the absence of explicit commitments, motivated voters can look to other indicators for a sense of how a candidate would actually do the job of being president. They might, for example, consider the fact that Pete Buttigieg has been taking advice on antitrust policy from an attorney at Wells Fargo. Or might peruse a candidate’s list of bundlers with interest.
Unfortunately, one crucial source of information will remain hidden to them until the very last minute. The Super PAC that was formed to support Joe Biden will release the names of its donors for the first time on Friday, January 31, just three days before votes are cast. And, if Biden world past practice is guidance… we expect near midnight Friday night, so maybe 68 hours before votes are cast… assuming immediate analysis! Feel free to ping our founder Jeff Hauser at hauser AT cepr.net if interested in first blush takeaways… and we will potentially be back in your inbox over the weekend or next Monday morning with some rapid response.
This belated transparency is no small consideration; Biden’s Super PAC — “Unite the Country” — has spent millions on TV ads in Iowa and is on pace to spend $5 million in Iowa alone when all is said and done. Indeed, Biden’s SuperPAC has been spending more on TV in Iowa than the Biden campaign most weeks; perhaps relatedly, Biden’s Iowa numbers have solidified after a long downward trajectory throughout the fall.
Why do we care about these donors and the massive hand they are lending Biden? Well, just as candidates are likely to feel more beholden to someone who has bundled $100k for the campaign than someone who gave the federal maximum, so too are they going to feel indebted to a super PAC donor writing ten or hundred thousand, or indeed million, dollar checks. The figures behind this PAC are prime candidates for appointments -- or at least input into appointments -- in a Biden administration. That should make them a top concern for voters.
And as our Max Moran notes, Biden is not the only candidate whose key funders have only been revealed belatedly and at a time designed for minimal awareness -- consider co-New York Times endorsee Amy Klobuchar. While we have praised Klobuchar’s long-standing attention to a president’s actual job running the executive branch, as we look at who is working hardest to fund her campaign we do have to wonder about whom she would appoint.
At least one candidate is not forcing voters to guess at her plans should she come to occupy the White House. In the past fortnight, Elizabeth Warren has made numerous explicit executive branch-focused commitments that go well beyond those that other candidates have laid out. Her plan to “Restor[e] Integrity and Competence to Government After Trump” not only confronts the damage that President Trump has done to the civil service but also many of the deeper problems that have plagued executive branch leadership for years. Her proposed remedies rely almost exclusively on the power of the president. That includes commitments to investigate and remove political appointees from the Trump era who may have broken the law and to end corrupt federal contracting deals that began under Trump. But it also comprises explicit commitments to replace these figures with qualified, unconflicted, public interest-minded political appointees.
Of course, there’s always more than can be said on this topic. What, for instance, would the candidates want their public interest-minded appointees to do with their power? As we mentioned above… attend the upcoming event “Populism and Political Economy: Looking Ahead to 2020,” hosted at the Capitol Forum on February 5 for some ideas.
While Sanders has not made as many explicit and specific commitments about the types of people he will appoint, he has made several promises about what he would do (or have appointees do) with their power. Most recently, he has promised to revoke Trump’s travel ban via executive order. In the past he has made other commitments to, for example, direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to use its existing authority to lower internet prices and improve service quality. As polling momentum fuels interest in what a Sanders presidency would look like, we suspect more specific executive branch plans will be forthcoming from the Sanders campaign.
Independent Agencies
With 2019 over we decided to take stock of the past year’s developments in independent agency leadership. Unfortunately, we found very little cause for celebration. One notable observation from our blog post, “Year in Review - What Changed at Independent Agencies in 2019.”: 2019 ended with more vacancies (43 out of 174) than the number with which it began (41 out of 174). While Trump put forward nominees and the Senate confirmed some of them, it was not enough to keep pace with the rate at which seats were expiring or being vacated. Partisan imbalance has proven similarly protracted. At the end of the year, just as at the beginning, 10% more of the seats destined for Democrats were vacant than those destined for Republicans (29 percent versus 18 percent). The number of floor speeches from Democratic leadership that decried this trampling of norms? Zero.
Even more concerning, it seems quite plausible that the rate of new nominations and confirmations will slow this year amidst the distractions of the presidential election.
Congressional Oversight of the Executive Branch
We know that it’s hard to pay attention to anything on Capitol Hill other than impeachment right now. But, if you are going to watch any non-impeachment-related hearing, we suggest that you make it the House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) hearing with Comptroller of the Currency, Joseph Otting. On Wednesday, committee members will grill Otting about his agency’s efforts to undermine the “Purpose and Intent” of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Otting’s vendetta with the CRA is a personal one. Using the CRA, community members nearly succeeded in putting a stop to the merger between OneWest (which Otting was then leading) and CIT Bank. That is among the reasons we included Otting on our Oversight Agenda for HFSC and on our Swamp Tour of DC last October. We’re happy to see that he’s finally being put in the hot seat.
Want more?Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last couple of weeks:
Drain the swamp? Spending on Washington lobbying rises to 9-year high
The Issue Dividing Democratic Candidates Is Hidden in Plain Sight
How Republicans made millions on the tax cuts they pushed through Congress
Year in Review - What Changed at Independent Agencies in 2019.
Can ‘Atlanta’s own AOC’ make it easier for working-class Americans to run for office?
Will Candidates Be Asked How They Would Actually Do the Job of Being President? With Ian Masters on 1/14
Federal Judge Halts House Lawsuit for Trump’s Tax Returns Because of … the Don McGahn Case?
Wells Fargo Attorney Moonlights as Buttigieg Campaign Policy Adviser