[Political Activity Law]

MCDONNELL CASE DOMINOES.   NYT.  “While cautioning that Mr. Silver, a Democrat, may yet be convicted at a retrial, several legal experts said his case had set a precedent that could affect those of other politicians found guilty of corruption — and could also have a chilling effect on new public integrity investigations.”

SOME LAWS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.   Hill.  “The founders would have found the congressional law mandating disclosure of contributors to political advertising to be a gross—and very dangerous—violation of the First Amendment.”

FOREIGN NATIONAL BAN AND THE CONSTITUTION.   NYM.  “These and other scenarios are meant to illustrate how the federal ban on foreign nationals making election-related contributions — including ‘anything of value’ to a campaign, which would encompass the Clinton dirt — would sweep far too broadly. And when a ban lends itself to such a ‘substantially broad’ reading, Volokh explains, that means the ban itself is unconstitutional on its face.”

CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND CRIMINAL LAW.   BM.  “The US Supreme Court clearly recognizes that campaign finance laws are criminal laws. Indeed, the present Supreme Court often points to the criminal consequences as one of the problems with campaign finance laws.”

ANTI-CRUZ PAC.   Politico.  “Democrats appear to have formed a new super PAC to attack Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), based on the meme that Cruz is the Zodiac killer.”

OGE DIRECTOR PARTING WORDS.   NYT.  “Actions by President Trump and his administration have created a historic ethics crisis, the departing head of the Office of Government Ethics said. He called for major changes in federal law to expand the power and reach of the oversight office and combat the threat.”

GRANDSTANDING ON THE WAY OUT.   WSJ.  “We interrupt this week’s Don Jr. loop to tell a tale of a real ethics scandal. It’s one perpetrated not by the Trump administration, but by the man atop Washington’s ethics-industrial complex: Walter Shaub.”

MD:  NO COMPLAINT.   BS. “Gov. Larry Hogan’s office does not plan to file an ethics complaint against the president of the state Senate, who they accused of pressing the administration to interfere in a decision to approve open-heart surgery at a hospital in Annapolis.”

PA:  RESURFACED LOBBYISTS.   GE.   “The former Greene County Democrat served 36 years in the state House before his 2012 felony conviction for using state resources for political gain. He now enjoys prowling the halls of Harrisburg on behalf of union clients.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

TODAY AT THE FEC.   The agenda for today’s Federal Election Commission is here.

CAMPAIGN SUIT.  NYT.  “Two Democratic Party donors and a former party staff member have filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit against President Trump’s campaign and a longtime informal adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., accusing them of conspiring in the release of hacked Democratic emails and files that exposed their personal information to the public.”

AGENCY STALL?    HTC.  “The U.S. agency that could bring civil charges against Donald Trump, Jr. if it found he violated campaign finance laws by meeting with a Russian who purportedly had damaging information on Hillary Clinton is often gridlocked by partisan politics and can take years to mete out punishment, legal experts said on Wednesday.”

FOREIGN INFLUENCE AT FEC.  WFB.  “Ellen Weintraub, a controversial Democratic commissioner at the Federal Election Commission, has taken more than 30 foreign trips since joining the commission despite warning against foreign influence in state and federal elections.”

FEC DOCUMENTS CLOAKED.   DC.  “Federal Election Commission (FEC) officials have withheld public documents for years, some of which would expose details about Democrats’ taxpayer- and foreign-funded travel, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.”

MOVE URGED ON AMENDMENT.    PAT.  “The Secular Coalition for America and 10 of its member groups sent a letter to the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations today urging them to remove a provision in the proposed budget bill that would gut the Johnson Amendment and let tax-exempt churches endorse candidates from the pulpit without consequences.”

LOBBYING PLATFORM.   RC.  “The organization uses a crowdfunding platform, which allows anyone to create advocacy campaigns around social issues they care about and start raising money. People have a year to reach their funding milestone.”

DE:  COMMISSION DISSOLVED.  DJ.  “Wilmington residents who want to report potential conflicts of interest, collusion or other unsavory behavior by city employees once had the Wilmington Ethics Commission as a resource.”

HI:  COMPLAINT DISMISSED.  WHT.  “The county Board of Ethics on Tuesday officially dismissed a complaint against Prosecuting Attorney Mitch Roth, but several members are asking that the board get more authority to refer its own complaints to state boards such as the Ethics Commission and Campaign Spending Commission.”

NM:  CONSIDERING BILL.  USN.  “New Mexico election regulators are taking the pulse of public opinion on rules that would to force nonprofit advocacy organizations that attempt to influence voting to report more information about financial backers.”

NY:  ACCUSATIONS AGAINST MAYOR.   GG.  “Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren is drawing scrutiny for apparently using a political action committee she founded in 2015 help finance her 2017 re-election campaign and for repeatedly accepting over-the-limit contributions from business interests, as shown by her campaign finance records.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.