READY FOR A NEW ACCOUNT. NJ. “Ready for Hillary is anything but a traditional political group. But it’s now looking to influence elections the old-fashioned way—by writing checks to candidates.”
CA: GOING ELECTRIC. LAT. “Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to require candidates to file their campaign finance reports electronically, allowing the public to see them quicker.”
ME: FINE IMPOSED ON NOM. Pressherald.com. “The state ethics board voted unanimously Wednesday to impose a $50,250 fine on the nation’s leading organization opposing gay marriage, a decision that could affect how nonprofit organizations attempt to influence Maine elections.”
MI: VIOLATION ALLEGED. Observer & Eccentric. “One candidate running to represent most of Livonia in the state House of Representatives has been accused of violating Michigan’s campaign finance laws.”
NJ: PAY TO PLAY GAP. NorthJersey.com. “The pay-to-play law makes it clear that executives and their employees working on the state’s pension fund investments cannot make political contributions to New Jersey candidates and political committees. But those venture capital firms and hedge funds often take the state pension dollars and invest them in other companies whose executives do not have to disclose their political donations.”
NY: TIMELY CONTRIBUTION. NYDN. “Eight days before the 2013 election, the union run by Bill de Blasio’s cousin quietly made a donation to a so-called ‘independent’ political group whose spending benefited de Blasio’s mayoral bid, the Daily News has learned.”
NY: DEBLASIO’S LOBBYIST DISCLOSURE. CapitalNewYork.com. “Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to disclose ‘substantive’ meetings his administration conducts with lobbyists, continuing a practice he implemented when he was the city’s public advocate.”
RI: CONTRIBUTION HEAD-SCRATCHER. RIFuture.org. “In an age awash with political money, with Citizens United and related rulings giving more and more groups the opportunity to spend unlimited amounts of money and to hide the donors, How can it be that the Green Party of Rhode Island can not accept money that was donated by Rhode Islanders and is being returned to the Green Party in RI for party building activities? If this rule is not unconstitutional, it at least makes no sense in the current context.”
TX: TEC ON TEA. The Courier. “While The Woodlands-based Texas Patriots PAC has cried foul on the Texas Conservative Tea Party Coalition and its failure to file a campaign finance report, the Texas Ethics Commissions said the coalition has not violated any laws.”
WI: FOLLY OF REFORM. Forbes (Shapiro). “The latest battle in Wisconsin’s political wars shows what happens when laws that regulate political speech intersect with prosecutorial power to engage in open-ended investigations.”
WI: SETTLEMENT TALKS. Madison.com. “Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign is in settlement talks with the prosecutor in the John Doe investigation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.”
WI: BITCOIN CONSIDERED. WTAQ. “The state Government Accountability Board is being asked to take another look at allowing candidates for state offices to accept contributions using bitcoin.”
HAVE A GOOD DAY. I’ll send the next set of links on Monday. Have a great weekend.