Thurs., 5-8-14 political law links

MSRB MOVES.  Bond Buyer.  “The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is revising its proposed rule governing the duties of municipal advisors in response to market comments, and will also propose amending its pay-to-play rule to cover MAs, the MSRB announced Tuesday.”

SUPER PAC BENEFIT.  HuffPo.  “It’s not completely clear how legal this set-up is in this post-Citizens United world.”

SUPER PAC ATTACK.  WS.  “A Democratic super PAC affiliated with Senate majority leader Harry Reid has an ad accusing a female Senate candidate of being ‘backwards’ on women’s issues.”

REGULATING THE MEDIA.  Fox.  “The chairman of the Federal Election Commission warned Wednesday that officials at the agency want to start regulating the media, despite a longstanding congressional ban on doing so.”

FL:  LOBBYIST PLEA.  Miami Herald.  “Richard Candia, the lobbyist in the middle of an alleged corruption racket involving the mayors of Miami Lakes and Sweetwater, pleaded guilty to a pair of fraud charges in federal court Wednesday.”

NY:  PUBLIC FUNDING FIRST.  Syracuse.com.  “Onondaga County Comptroller Bob Antonacci will be the first candidate for statewide office in New York to use public money for his campaign.”

NY:  RECORDS SOUGHT.  NYT.  “Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have issued a grand jury subpoena seeking emails, text messages and other records from all the members of the anticorruption commission that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo abruptly shut down in March, three people briefed on the matter said on Monday.”

OH:  MONEY LEAD.  Columbus Dispatch.  “House and Senate Republicans have raised more than $12.4 million in the first 16 months of this two-year campaign cycle.”

SC:  ETHICS REFORMS ADVANCE.  GreenvilleOnline.com.  “A proposal that would transform how ethics cases are initially handled in South Carolina advanced Tuesday with approval from the House Judiciary Committee.”

TX:  PERRY ON PROBE.  Politico.  “Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday he never sought a deal with an Austin district attorney he wanted ousted, in his first public comments about a grand jury investigating him over allegations of abuse of office.”

TX:  CAMPAIGN SIGN THEFT ALLEGED.  KHOU.  “A current school board member is facing allegations he stole another candidate’s campaign signs, and it was all caught on camera.”

UT:  ANONYMOUS GIVES.  SLT.  “Mark Thomas, the state’s chief elections officer, says accepting contributions over $50 without identifying the donor technically violates the law, but if the candidate doesn’t know who contributed, it poses a problem.”

WI:  INVESTIGATION HALTED.  MSNBC.  “On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Randa ordered prosecutors to immediately halt their investigation, return all property taken during their inquiries, and to destroy any materials that were gathered.” Here’s an update: “[O]n Wednesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stayed the injunction, calling for a lower court review of an earlier, separate appeal in the case.”

WI:  DONATION RETURNED.  Personal Finance Hub.  “The state of Wisconsin is in the bitcoin headlines again. This time the news is surrounding Mark Clear, a Madison alderman who is running for state representative.”

AUSTRALIA:  DISCLOSURE ISSUES.  AU.news.  “This week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported a Liberal Party fundraising body called the North Sydney Forum (NSF) was not fully disclosing its activities to the electoral funding authorities.”

HAVE A GREAT DAY.  I’ll send around the next set of links on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

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