RUSSIANS AND FREE SPEECH. NW. “Fears about national security can foster public actions that otherwise would be rejected. This might be one of those moments when something must be done and the ‘something’ that is selected does real harm to freedom of speech.”
AL: ETHICS REVISIONS. AL. “Despite media sources caterwauling to the contrary, there are good, honest reasons for some current legislative attempts to tweak Alabama’s ethics laws.”
AR: CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWSUIT. AT. “The city of Little Rock’s lawsuit aiming at using a city ordinance to limit fund-raising by two men challenging Mayor Mark Stodola gets legal responses from the challengers today.”
CA: FPPC PAY. LAT. “The state’s ethics watchdog panel was divided Thursday in approving a proposal to retroactively provide extra pay to its members for work done on official state business.”
IL: SECRECY CRITICISM. INN. “Homer sharply criticized the secrecy created around the Legislative Ethics Commission. The eight-member bipartisan panel of lawmakers gives the legislative inspector general permission to investigate allegations she believes are ‘founded.'”
MO: INDICTMENT IN SCHEME. DOJ. “Timothy A. Garrison, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that a former executive of a Springfield charity, who was also an Arkansas lobbyist has been indicted by a federal grand jury for his role in a nearly $1 million bribery conspiracy involving a Springfield, Mo., health care organization.”
PA: BILL SIGNED. CBS. “The bill signed into law, introduced by Lancaster County House Republican Bryan Cutler, increases the penalties for missing quarterly filing deadlines, and also will soon require all lobbying disclosure reports to be filed electronically, to speed processing of those reports.”
TX: SCHOOL DISTRICT VIOLATION. BB. “As concerns over potential electioneering and other election code violations hover over the upcoming state March primary, the Texas Ethics Commission recently found ‘credible evidence’ that the superintendent of a border school district violated the state election code by authorizing the spending of public funds to produce a newsletter that contained political advertising.”
HAVE A GOOD DAY.