COMEDY CENTRAL TIME AT THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION. The FEC is scheduled to meet next week and one of the items on the agenda is an advisory opinion request from Stephen Colbert.
STANFORD MONEY CASE. Bloomberg reports. “Five Democratic and Republican national political committees must return more than $1.7 million in contributions received from indicted financier R. Allen Stanford to his court-appointed receiver, a federal judge ruled.”
NEW SUPER PAC. The Post. “A group of prominent Mitt Romney backers has quietly started a ‘super PAC’ to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in support of his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, according to organizers and others involved in the effort.”
PERRY IN? News here.
WHAT DID HUNTSMAN PUT IN? The Times. “How much of his own money did Jon M. Huntsman Jr. invest in jump-starting his campaign?”
CBC PAC PENALTY. Roll Call. “Having been cited for irregular record keeping by the Federal Election Commission, the political action committee run by the Congressional Black Caucus has paid a $5,000 fine and recently filed close to two dozen amended campaign finance reports in a bid to clear up its books.”
RENZI OPINION. The Post. “The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit allows a long-stalled trial of former representative Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) to proceed and represents a rebuke of the leaders in the House of Representatives who had supported Renzi’s constitutional challenge to his 2009 indictment for extortion, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, campaign finance offenses and conspiracy.”
HATCH ACT HEARING. Many thanks to the helpful reader who provided a link to the video of Tuesday’s hearing on the Hatch Act. A view on possible Hatch Act reforms is here.
LOBBYIST DISCLOSURE ENHANCEMENT ACT IN THE NEWS. Roll Call. The bill “would require lobbyists to report which Member offices they meet with and would do away with the 20 percent threshold, which currently allows advocates who spend less than 20 percent of their time on lobbying to avoid registering as lobbyists. Quigley’s bill would also require lobbyists to register new clients within five days, as opposed to 45 days.”
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND.