[Political Activity Law]

PAY TO PLAY SNAG.  CNBC.  “A senior BlackRock Inc executive made a donation to an unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate last year, an action that may prohibit the world’s largest asset manager from collecting some fees from a state government, a company regulatory filing showed.”

WHAT ADS SAID.  WP.  “The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter, and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.”

FEC AD ACTION.  AXIOS.  “Officials at the Federal Election Commission are reaching out to political ad buyers, among others, to solicit more comments about potential new disclosure rules, Axios has learned. At this point, most of the FEC’s efforts are around gathering ideas about ways to modernize outdated disclosure laws.”

GA:  AUDITS COMING.  AJC.  “The decision comes after at least three major candidates faced campaign-related complaints the last time Georgia had an open governor’s race, in 2010.”

LA:  GAMBLING MONEY.  NOLA.  “A Louisiana lawmaker must pay a $37,000 fine to the state treasury over three years under an agreement approved Friday (Sept. 15) by the Ethics Board. Under the deal, Rep. Jerome ‘Dee’ Richard of Thibodaux acknowledged misspending money from his campaign account to ‘fund a gambling habit.’”

NM:  REFORM NEED CITED.  NMP.   “The problem is, there was in fact an opportunity to overhaul the public finance system but the City Council failed miserably to place it on this year’s municipal ballot for voter approval any substantive changes to the city’s public finance system.”

PA:  HEARING CASES.  PPG.  “The proceeding was the first open hearing for the ethics board, which was revitalized in 2016. Some growing pains were in evidence: The hearing was delayed 25 minutes for lack of a court reporter, while board members sweltered in a 6th-floor hearing room that lacked air-conditioning.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

GOOGLE RESISTANCE.  NYT.  “The politics for the companies in the United States began to change after the 2016 presidential election, when attention turned to the role social media sites play in shaping public opinion.”

WHAT ABOUT RIDERS?  BNA.   “The spending package’s riders include a provision to lift or ease the IRS’s longstanding ban on politicking by churches, called the Johnson Amendment.”

WILL ON SPEECH.  SLT.  “Still, after a season of dangerous talk about responding to idiotic talk by abridging First Amendment protections, Americans should consider how, if at all, to respond to ‘cheap speech.'”

VIEW ON MONEY IN POLITICS.  NYT.  “In both the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, the candidates who spent the most money lost.”

CA:  OUT OF PROPORTION.  LAT.  “In most cases, reimbursing donors is done to get around limits on donations. In Rodriguez’s case, however, there were no limits on personal contributions, so he could just as easily have donated the money in his own name, which makes a reimbursement scheme especially baffling.”

MI:  BILL SIGNED.  ML.   “Less than 24 hours after the Senate moved to send two campaign finance bills that expand on the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission court ruling, Gov. Rick Snyder signed the legislation, making it into law. ”

MI:  HARDER TO TRACE.  MIR.  This report posits that a new “campaign finance law makes it harder to trace political donations.”

NM:  FRAUD FINE.  KRQE.  “An Albuquerque City Council candidate has been fined by the Ethics Board for campaign finance fraud.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.