BROWN SCANDAL AND ETHICS. NLPC. “Lame duck Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-FL) is asking supporters for donations to fund her defense in her upcoming corruption trial.”
BROWN SEEKS FUNDS. J.com. “Brown’s 2016 campaign Twitter account linked Friday to the website, which was created this week and registered in the name of Brown’s daughter, Shantrel, a Washington lobbyist.”
CORPORATE SPENDING AND CR DEAL. WP. “Reid also attacked McConnell for pushing to keep in place language to prevent the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring corporations to publicly disclose their political spending. Liberal advocacy groups and some Democrats have been pushing for greater disclosure in this area in recent years.”
HANNITY AND THE MEDIA EXEMPTION. WP. “The dual roles of Hannity and Lewandowski might make media ethicists squeamish, but it is unlikely that the FEC would investigate — never mind penalize — them and their networks, according to Daniel A. Petalas, the agency’s acting general counsel from August 2015 until this month, when he joined the Washington office of Garvey Schubert Barer.”
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ETHICS. Eisen and Painter. “As government ethics lawyers who have, respectively, counseled the most recent Republican president and the most recent Democratic one, we have watched Donald Trump’s campaign with increasing concern. We have come to believe a Trump presidency would be ethically compromised for the following reasons…” And the election of Clinton would accompany a new springtime of translucence and light in the area of government ethics…
PUBLIC FINANCING UPDATE. BG. “Stein is the only candidate on the November ballot who is relying on public money to help pay campaign bills. In addition to her own fundraising, she has received four federal payments totaling $456,000 under the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, a moribund program whose critics call it the ‘loser’s fund.'”
BOEHNER LANDS. NYM. “Former House Speaker John Boehner, who resigned from Congress last October after 25 years representing Ohio’s 8th district, just got a new job. The 66-year-old is the newest member of lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs, where he will serve as a ‘strategic adviser,’ not a lobbyist.”
HYBRID ADS. RC. “This hybrid strategy, which has been employed by both parties, saves the party committees and the campaigns money since neither is paying for the full cost of the ad.”
CAF OBSOLETE. USAT. “The Alabama man who won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance limits said he no longer needs the super PAC he created to give to Republican candidates.”
SUPER PAC BATTLEGROUND. WSJ. “Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is expected to spend at least $5 million on the effort, while TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. founder Joe Ricketts and his family will contribute at least $1 million.”
DC: STRAW DONOR ALERT. WP. “Straw donors are the folks who use someone else’s money to make campaign contributions in their own name. Or they agree to contribute to their own money to a candidate, because they will be reimbursed. Or they get handed a money order for say, $1,000, made payable to a candidate’s political committee, and they fill in their names as the senders.”
MO: CITY LIMITS. STLPR. “A three-year effort to limit the amount of money flowing into city elections took a small step forward at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen on Tuesday.”
HAVE A GOOD DAY.