CONTRACTOR PENALTY. BGOV. “A Louisiana-based tugboat company that’s received tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. Navy has paid a rare fine for making an illegal $100,000 contribution to a Republican super PAC.”

BALLOT BID. WP. “One elector trying to get rapper Kanye West on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin is married to a former chairwoman of a Republican county committee and was photographed with President Trump at his inaugural.”

BAD TIMING. POL. “The House Ethics Committee found Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) violated campaign finance rules by receiving a campaign salary when she was no longer a congressional candidate — but that she did not have ‘ill intent’ in her actions.”

MONEY HIGH. VOA. “Nonprofit organizations and other outside groups that don’t disclose their donors are spending record amounts of money on the 2020 U.S. presidential and congressional races, signaling their growing influence in national politics.”

NO MEETINGS. LAT. “Under normal circumstances, the commission would have at least four members, the minimum required to meet, issue advisory opinions and approve enforcement action. But circumstances at the agency aren’t normal: For most of the last year the FEC has only had three members, rendering it nearly powerless.”

MO: PAC FINED. KMOV. “A political action committee formed to support Gov. Mike Parson has been fined $2,000 for violating state campaign finance laws.”

OH: ROLE OF LAW. CR. “The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Ohio accuses Householder and four other men of engineering a racketeering and bribery scheme to bail out Ohio’s two nuclear power plants.”

WA: NO DODGE. TS. “In the latest suit, Attorney General Bob Ferguson argued that Facebook has unabashedly continued to violate Washington law, which uniquely requires all political ad-sellers to make significant disclosures about who’s paying for political ads that target state and local elections, as well as details about the reach of those ads.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.