POLITICAL LAW PROFITS. Story here. “The five law firms specializing in presidential campaigns have been paid $50 million since 1999 by candidates, political parties and political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that tracks campaign spending.”
INSIDE POLITICAL LAW SITE. Covington’s new Inside Political Law site is online here, looks great, and is instantly a must-read resource for timely political law expertise.
PARENTS AND PACS. Politico. “Talk about helicopter parents: Candidates’ rich mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters increasingly are pouring cash into super PACs that support their loved ones’ campaigns — a phenomenon that critics say tests the bounds of both contribution limits and rules barring coordination between candidates and super PACs.”
MURKY ETHICS ISSUES. Roll Call. “Two of the House Ethics Committee’s current investigations focus on whether current Members used their office for personal financial gain.”
“DIALING BACK” CU? Story here. “A top Senate Democrat today endorsed a constitutional amendment to scale back the influence of the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United decision on campaign finance, adding to an increasingly vocal movement to restrict campaign spending and contributions.”
DONOR ON AF1. Story here. “When asked why Pritzker was on the president’s plane, press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on board that she was in the neighborhood, according to a pool report.”
SEAL USE CHANGE. Story here. “The White House has reversed its previous stance of not using the official presidential seal at campaign events.”
WEST WING USE. CNN. “While some took issue with the commercial’s location, Obama is building on a practice followed by many of his predecessors. A recent exception was his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, who did not use White House interiors in campaign ads.”
.GOV HOSTING CAMPAIGN SPEECHES. Here. “No rule of separation will ever be perfect. There is no way to stop people from thinking about their campaign activities on government time, or from mixing political messages with public policy decisions. It does seem clear however, that the President’s reelection campaign materials should not be hosted on the official White House web site.”
FUNDRAISER REWARDS. The Times. “A spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, Katie Hogan, declined to comment on the impact of donors-turned-diplomats, except to say that the campaign is raising money at a healthy clip in all the cities, and from all the demographic groups, where the ambassadors once prospected.”
DC ALLEGATIONS. The Post. “Using lists to identify and exhort potential supporters to get to the polls is an old political practice, but law-abiding campaigns use publicly available information.”
HAVE A GOOD DAY.