RULES MAKE SPEECH EXPENSIVE. Backer. “You cannot meaningfully engage in any political activity or speech without paying for legal and compliance services to navigate the regulatory forest artificially placed between you and the public.”
SCHOCK AND TRAVEL FUNDS. HR. “Perhaps more stunning was an allegation found on page 34 of the charging document: Schock’s apparent willingness to pocket thousands of constituents’ dollars by arranging annual Washington tours combined with meet-and-greets.”
NO INVESTIGATION. CRP. “The Federal Election Commission announced today that it has deadlocked along party lines on whether to further investigate whether a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization called Carolina Rising should have disclosed the donors that funded its political ads in 2014 or register as a political committee.”
AR: MONEY PROPOSAL. AO. “Democrats on Thursday began filing a package of 11 proposed laws they said would increase transparency and ethics during state election campaigns.”
MS: BILLBOARD DECRIED. HA. “The artist-led For Freedoms super PAC has erected a billboard on Highway 80 outside Pearl, Mississippi that features President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s slogan ‘Make American Great Again’ atop a well-known Civil Rights-era photograph by Spider Martin of a confrontation on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.”
MT: STATE TO DISMISS. LMH. “The Montana commissioner of political practices plans to dismiss an ethics complaint filed by a Republican lawmaker against Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock over the governor’s use of the state plane, an attorney for the commissioner said Friday.”
TN: DURHAM FINANCES. TN. “The FBI is investigating Jeremy Durham and has interviewed at least two people about his campaign finances, The Tennessean has learned.”
TX: ZIMMERMAN APPEALS. AS. “Zimmerman is appealing a portion of a case involving limits on individual contributions to candidates and total fundraising outside of Austin to a U.S. appeals court based in New Orleans, his attorney Jerad Najvar announced Thursday.”
HAVE A GOOD DAY.