Aircraft tax issues, disputed charges, lobbyist pasts in today’s political law links

PLANE ISSUES IN MISSOURI. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. “McCaskill said she is sending a check to the St. Louis County Collector of Revenue for $287,273 to cover three years worth of personal property taxes.  She also said she has instructed her husband — a wealthy developer — to ‘sell the damn plane.'”  Politico’s story is herePost story here.

DISPUTED CHARGE. A disputed political party credit card charge is the topic of this Politico report.

LOBBYIST PAST FOR POTENTIAL CANDIDATE. The Times reports.  “A lobbyist? Well, he knows how to promote an agenda. An insider? He knows how government works and how to get things done for the American people.”  The Post’s coverage of Barbour is here.

CAO CASE UPDATE. From SCOTUSBlog:  “[T]he Court turned down a petition by the Republican National Committee, joined by former Louisiana Republican Rep. Anh ‘Joseph’ Cao.   Their petition (Cao, et al., v. Federal Election Commission, 10-776) claimed that the Constitution’s First Amendment protects national political parties’ financing of campaign ads that speak for the party, even when those ads are coordinated with a specific party candidate.” Politico’s full coverage is here.

DISCLOSURE ON CAMPAIGN ADS. The FCC is being asked about increasing disclosure on campaign ads.  The Post. “[The Media Access Project’s Andrew] Schwartzman’s petition asks the FCC to revise its rules to require groups to disclose financial backers who contribute more than 10 percent of their budgets as part of public documents filed with broadcast stations. It would also require on-air disclosures for donors who provide more than 25 percent of a television commercial’s budget.”  NPR’s Peter Overby has coverage of this development here.

ETHICS FOR UTAH? There are developments related to an ethics initiative here.  “A Utah public interest group sued the state Monday, claiming an ethics initiative is being illegally kept off the November 2012 ballot even though the group says enough signatures have been gathered to qualify it for inclusion.”

MUSKEGON COUNTY DISCLOSURE. Full report here.  “Last week, County Clerk Nancy Waters and her staff rolled out a searchable online database, which includes the last five years of campaign finance records of candidates for school, municipal and county offices.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

P.S. Twitter turned five years old yesterday.

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