Good morning.  Here are some of the stories I’ve found this morning.  A note to my new subscribers — I tend to link to stories about campaign finance, lobbying and laws on lobbying, House and Senate ethics, and travel rules, and state laws on these topics.  I’m also interested in technology and politics and the legal issues created by new technologies.  I’m always interested in links you might want to share.  Feel free to email me at eric[at]politicalactivitylaw.com or you can be really slick and follow me on Twitter and direct message me there.

About that lobbyist ban

Gary Meltz urges the White House to ease restrictions on hiring lobbyists here.

Kevin Ring’s potential sentence

Is the topic of this Washington Times report.

Credit for “substantial assistance”

A former aide to Rep. Young is mentioned in this report on an aborted investigation.

Federal prosecutors in Washington revealed this week that a former aide to Rep. Don Young provided substantial help to the FBI in criminal investigations of two congressmen, including one in which he secretly recorded a conversation at the request of agents.

Democratic robocalls drawing attention in New Jersey

Here’s a story about the New Jersey Democratic Party’s use of robocalls against Christie.

Politics on the web and the law

ClickZ’s Kate Kaye covers developments in California on this interesting topic.

States continue to craft online political ad disclosure rules in the absence of clear guidance from the federal government. California is the latest to require “paid for by” disclaimers in some Web ads for state government candidates. And, as is the case in laws passed in Florida and Maryland this year, two of the most popular online ad types – Google text units and Facebook display ads – won’t require disclaimers.

I’m not sure why we should look to the federal government for guidance on the topic, however.

Texting political contributions

The Federal Election Commission considered an advisory opinion request involving accepting political contributions through text messages and more information is here and here.  The draft says that the proposed plan would not be permissible “because contributions would not be forwarded to political committees within the timeframe required by the Act and political contributions would not be segregated from corporate general treasury funds.  The Commission also concluded that CTIA must develop a means to ensure that contributions are not from impermissible sources and that contributor identification information is forwarded to political committees when required by the Act’s reporting requirements.”  FEC Press Release.

Two stories below

The FEC also considered an Obama for America advisory opinion and there’s more information on that below, along with developments in the Rangel story.  The report of the Adjudicatory Subcommittee is here.