Billboard gets attention and the day’s political law links

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.

Ethics censure and revised lobby rules among today’s political law links

CAMPAIGN FINANCE TARGET.  Vox.  “Seeing the federal government slip into Republican hands is terrifying campaign finance experts, who are bracing for a wave of deregulation that could give millionaires and billionaires powerful new ways to influence American politics.”

NEW LOBBY RULES.  NYT.  “Aides to President-elect Donald J. Trump announced Wednesday night that his transition team would not include lobbyists and that members of the administration would be barred from lobbying for five years after they left government service.”

REVOLVING DOOR.  WE.  “William Schultz, general counsel at HHS is rejoining Zuckerman Spaeder, the downtown D.C. law firm where Schultz was a lobbyist up until the start of the Obama administration.”

LIEU CASE REPORT.  LNO.  “According to the complaint, the plaintiffs suffered damages because the FEC intentionally delayed their agency’s action regarding the plaintiffs’ complaint about campaign financing.”

CT:  STATE COMMISSION RULES.  TD.  “The State Elections Enforcement Commission has found that state Sen. Cathy Osten’s opponent in the 2014 election violated campaign finance laws by spending public funds on a mailer that characterized Osten and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy as ‘two peas in a pod.'”

DC:  ETHICS CENSURE.  Fox.  “A former District of Columbia schools chancellor has been censured by the city’s ethics board for soliciting a six-figure contribution from a company that was doing business with the school system.”

FL:  LOBBY RULES DIFFERENCE.  SSN.  “New Florida Senate rules released Tuesday do not include the broad-based restrictions on lobbying and budget measures that will be imposed by the House, instead settling for tweaks and smaller changes.”

MD:  LOBBYIST RENEWAL OPEN.  BW.  “The State Ethics Commission administers a lobbying regulatory program including registration, disclosure, reporting and standards of conduct for executive, legislative, and grassroots lobbying. The lobbying registration year opens November 1 and ends October 31 the following year. A registration is only valid for a one-year period requiring a new registration for each year in which a person engages in activities requiring registration. Registration must occur within five days of engaging in such activities.”

AUSTRALIA:  CAMPAIGN FINANCE STATE OF PLAY.  Guard.  “Australia’s political donations regime is so inadequate that 85% of the privately raised income going to major political parties is hidden from public scrutiny, a new report has found.”

FEDERALIST SOCIETY CONVENTION TOMORROW.  I’ll be attending the Federalist Society Annual Convention tomorrow, so I’ll send around the next set of political law links next week.  In the meantime, I may tweet a few photos from the events I’ll be attending, including a panel on First Amendment issues and a speech from Sen. Ted Cruz.  The full agenda is here.  If I don’t see you tomorrow, have a great weekend.

HAVE A GOOD DAY. 

Wed., 11-16-16 political law links

REPORTS OF PROBE.  CPI.  “Federal prosecutors in Boston have opened a grand jury investigation into potentially illegal campaign contributions from lawyers at the Thornton Law Firm, a leading donor to Democrats around the country, according to two people familiar with the probe.”

TRUMP AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE.  IBT.  “More research is clearly required, but at this point I think the default hypothesis should be that the entire political campaigning industry is a colossal fraud.”

ETHICS AND TRANSITION.  WP.   “While executive branch employees are subject to a variety of ethics rules, those rules have no power over administrations-in-waiting, which exist in legal limbo. All presidents-elect in modern history have developed codes of conduct, though.”

TOMORROW AT THE FEC.  The agenda for tomorrow’s Federal Election Commission meeting is online.

OK:  FACING ALLEGATIONS.  EDW.  “A 32-page affidavit issued Nov. 3 alleges that Hofmeister for more than a year conspired with several others to funnel money from a donor corporation and two education groups into an independent expenditure fund that would finance a negative campaign ad against Barresi.”

UT:  VETO QUESTIONS.  DN.  “Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County are the only Utah municipalities that have campaign finance laws that differ from state code, which requires candidates to file disclosures during their own election years, seven days before primary and general elections, and 30 days after a general election.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.