CASE DROPPED. NPR. “Federal prosecutors will abandon their effort to retry former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June reversal of his conviction on corruption charges.”
INDEPENDENT GROUP CODE. B. “In announcing its plans for an ‘aggressive $4.2 million persuasion canvass’ across three states—Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina—the LCV Victory Fund has taken the unusual step of including in a press release the specific ranges of microtargeting scores that define the voters it will attempt to sway in Clinton’s favor and against Trump. It amounts to a direct and precise signal to Clinton’s campaign, state parties and other super-PACs not to bother duplicating those efforts, or perhaps to layer on specific digital or direct-mail communication targeting those individual voters.”
ROBOCALL CONSIDERATIONS. CH. “In the midst of the campaign season it is important for campaign committees, political party committees, third-party advocacy groups, and vendors to be aware of the laws regulating prerecorded voice messages and autodialed calls (‘robocalls’).”
SUPER PAC TECH. M. “One of Hillary Clinton’s biggest spenders is going beyond television and tapping into Facebook’s most advanced ad units in its effort to explain to young voters what a Donald Trump administration could mean for them.”
GUNNING FOR THE MEDIA AT THE FEC. WT. “A key Federal Election Commission Republican warned Wednesday that liberals are moving aggressively to ‘amend the First Amendment’ so that conservatives are silenced and businesses are chased ‘out of the democracy.'”
EVOLVING CAMPAIGN FINANCE. ABC. “The beginnings of PACs date back to unions and how they initially directed portions of their members’ dues towards political campaigns, but after that spending plan got squashed, they later created PACs as the way around the new law.”
SCRUTINY FOR DONATION. NPR. “The foundation incorrectly reported that the money went to an unrelated charity in Kansas with a similar name.”
USE OF FUNDS. WJHL. “News Channel 11 combed through federal data to see how Tennessee U.S Representatives in Congress spend individual election campaign contributions. A candidate for federal office is required to report campaign expenses to the Federal Election Commission. The contributions can pay for almost anything related to campaigning.”
FOREIGN FUNDS CONFUSION. CNN. “Sen. Tim Kaine mischaracterized the Clinton Foundation’s donation policy during a recent interview, saying it no longer accepts foreign and corporate money when, in fact, it has only pledged to renounce these sources of funding if Hillary Clinton is elected president.”
PA: CUMBERSOME SITE. WITF. “The search portal for the reports says, in small print, that it was copyrighted in 2004.”
TX: ESCALATING BATTLE WITH TEC. TT. “The influential conservative group Empower Texans is escalating its long-running battle against the Texas Ethics Commission, accusing a former member of the state watchdog agency of improperly seeking to influence state legislation.”
EU: LOBBYIST MEETING NOTED. EUO. “Germany’s EU commissioner Guenther Oettinger had a meeting last January with Volkswagen Group about the cheating scandal, despite the issue not being part of his portfolio.”
HAVE A GOOD DAY.