Campaigning from the White House?

Is this a thing? Does the administration's defense hold up? Should this be a thing? Or is this just a perk of being the incumbent? Should anyone be making a big deal of this to see if it is a thing? Read the original here.

White House says Obama Fundraising Appeal not Illegal
RealClearPolitics - Articles - Print Article
By Alexis Simendinger - June 28, 2011

President Obama appealed to supporters and donors in a videotaped message emailed by his campaign team to millions of people Monday -- a message filmed with the president inside the White House by a crew from the Democratic National Committee, according to a White House official who responded to RCP questions about the solicitation.

In the video, Obama tells supporters they can join him and Vice President Joe Biden for dinner if they win a contest offered by his campaign. "We're both really looking forward to it. Hope to see you soon," Obama says on camera. The script was written by the DNC.

The president's video is accompanied by a donor solicitation form in which supporters of the administration can check boxes donating from $5 to $700 to the Obama-Biden re-election effort. This may, or may not, constitute fundraising by a federal employee in a federal office building, a practice that is generally prohibited. Even if it is fundraising, the statutory barriers regarding the White House itself are vague.

In response to questions about whether the president and his political team had stayed safely on the legal side of the relevant statutes, White House officials made three arguments. First, they said, an open process for small donors to essentially win a raffle is not the kind of fundraising prohibited under the law -- and the president didn't make a direct appeal for donations, anyway. Second, they pointed to a longstanding advisory opinion from the Justice Department that differentiates between the residence portion of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. -- where the aide said Obama had been filmed -- and official rooms in the White House. Third, they said, Obama's approach is in keeping with the practices of his predecessors.

"It's no different than what happened under eight years of George Bush and eight years of Bill Clinton," the official explained, speaking on background.

This assertion appears to be half-true. Although the news accounts cited by White House officials do show that George W. Bush filmed political ads in the White House, they were not overt fundraising efforts. But directly raising money in the White House was indeed the context of the bitter controversy President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore provoked in 1995 and 1996 by aggressively raising millions of dollars in campaign funds during activities expressly designed to use the White House as a hook to attract donor interest.

Congress subsequently investigated Clinton's Pennsylvania Avenue courtship of donors, which included using the Lincoln Bedroom for donor sleepovers and offering intimate meetings and briefings with Clinton and other top officials inside the White House for the donors who could -- and did -- write big checks. Republican lawmakers, joined by some good-government advocates, howled that the president had sold White House access to raise money for his re-election.

Gore, who admitted that he solicited campaign cash from a telephone in his vice presidential office, famously argued during a West Wing briefing for reporters in 1997 that he had been operating within the law because there was "no controlling legal authority."

The Obama campaign video is a small part of an aggressive fundraising effort[1] being undertaken by Team Obama. It also comes on the heels of criticism that the president, who campaigned to change the way Washington works, was instead participating in some of its more questionable rituals, including a March 7 meeting with Obama arranged by the DNC in the Blue Room of the White House residence. The meeting, first described in a June 24 Politico story[2] about a list of attendees released by the White House, took place with business leaders who were former or current donors or fundraisers. White House press secretary Jay Carney told Politico the meeting was not "a fundraiser."

In the email message[3] that accompanies Obama's Monday video, however, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina explains to supporters that a minimum $5 donation is required to enter the campaign contest: "Make a donation today and be automatically registered for a chance to have dinner with President Obama and Vice President Biden together. We'll cover your airfare and the meal -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas."

White House officials queried about the solicitation by RCP on Monday emphasized that the law permits Obama and Biden to conduct solicitations from select rooms inside the White House, including the residence, which is treated as the president's home and not his official workplace. That determination is based on an Office of Legal Counsel interpretation of the statute originating in the 1970s, a presidential spokesman told RCP before forwarding a copy of the opinion. A White House official repeatedly stated that the Obama dinner solicitation was filmed in the White House residence. If true, that would be a mitigating factor, but some observers who viewed the video believe it might be the Map Room[4], a venerated ground-floor office in the mansion that was used as a situation room for Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War -- and where Obama himself often does official business[5]. A White House aide said Tuesday morning that he didn't think it was the Map Room, although he wasn't certain of the exact location.

The campaign's dine-with-Obama contest first began in mid-June and then added Biden to the prize this week. The campaign team is working intensively this week to solicit money from small-dollar donors to increase the size and composition of Obama's war chest prior to an important June 30, second-quarter deadline to report total campaign finance details to the Federal Election Commission.

"The web videos you're referencing don't ask for funds," the White House spokesman said. "However, even if we did it, the Office of Legal Counsel has determined that there are certain rooms in the White House in which you can do that."

He described Obama's campaigning from the White House as even more carefully scripted by the DNC than the filmed messages of Clinton and Bush. "We're going above and beyond what's required by law. The law would permit that in certain rooms. And we're not even doing what's permitted in certain rooms," he added.

To make the case that Obama acted in keeping with his predecessors, the White House sent RCP these references, as well as YouTube links:


2004: President Bush And First Lady Laura Bush Filmed Parts Of Their Campaign Ads In The White House Residence -- The Bush Campaign Pointed To 31 White House Images Used By The Clinton Campaign In 1996 For Precedent. "Bush and his wife filmed their parts of the ads last month in the White House residence. Campaign officials said both parties have used the executive mansion for political ads. By their count, President Clinton used White House images 31 times in 1996." [USA Today, 3/3/04]

2004: "The President's Reelection Campaign Filmed Mr. Bush In The White House During The Week Of Feb. 9 For Advertising To Be Aired In Swing States." "The president's reelection campaign filmed Mr. Bush in the White House during the week of Feb. 9 for advertising to be aired in swing states. Monday, it began the process of calling stations to inquire about purchasing ad time. The advertising campaign will emphasize President Bush's 'positive message' and present him as a man of 'steady leadership in the face of remarkable change,' Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said. He added that the advertising would show that the president has led 'with the strong leadership that challenging times demand.' " [CBS News, 2/11/09]

"This is not the Clinton coffees or the Lincoln bedroom," Obama's spokesman said. "This is something that was routinely done under Bill Clinton and routinely done under George Bush, so if you're going to start comparing this to those mega-scandals, you need to sort of back up and take a deep breath."

According to the advisory legal opinion on which Obama is relying as his re-election campaign begins, "Areas within the discrete private residence area included in the White House mansion, although not physically detached from areas formally given over to official office space or to areas used for ceremonial functions, may therefore reasonably be seen to fall outside the reach of the statute."

The statute governing campaign solicitations inside federal offices appears in Title 18, Section 607, of the U.S. Criminal Code and expressly includes the president and vice president. It states, "It shall be unlawful for an individual who is an officer of employee of the Federal Government, including the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, to solicit or receive a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an officer or employee of the United States, from any person."

References
^ aggressive fundraising effort (www.washingtonpost.com)
^ Politico story (www.politico.com)
^ the email message (donate.barackobama.com)
^ Map Room (www.whitehousemuseum.org)
^ Obama himself often does official business (www.whitehouse.gov)