[Political Activity Law]

CU AT THE DEBATE.  NLR.  “Amid a presidential debate that focused as much on personal attacks as substance, the topic of campaign finance reform finally made a brief, if tangential, appearance in the high-stakes public forum.”

COORDINATION PANIC.  LZ.  “The campaign of Hillary Clinton freaked out in early May 2015 when they learned The New York Times had discovered fundraising meetings between the Clinton campaign and the super PAC Priorities USA.”

SUPER PAC DONOR STRATEGY.  CST.  “A super PAC created specifically to bolster Sen. Mark Kirk’s GOP re-election bid is a stark example of how mega-donors legally skirt federal caps on individual contributions.”

SUPER PAC PAYMENT.  USAT.  “A political action committee launched by longtime Donald Trump supporter Roger Stone paid $2,500 this year to a sexual-assault victim who has criticized Hillary Clinton.”

MEDIA EXEMPTION COVERAGE.  Reason.  “The exemption is necessary because without it newspapers, TV networks, and similar media would routinely be in violation of the law whenever they carried anything that might be construed as support for, or opposition to, a political candidate.”

AK:  CHIEF RESIGNS.  ADN.  “The head of the agency that regulates state legislative candidates and campaign finance laws has resigned, leaving the Alaska Public Offices Commission with a temporary replacement a month before Election Day.”

CA:  MAYOR FACES MORE.  WD.  “Carson Mayor Albert Robles, who already is facing the potential of an $85,000 fine for not submitting campaign finance records in time for his run for a local water board, has again been referred to the state’s top campaign finance watch dog for a similar violation.”

IL:  LIMITS GAME.  CST.  “Both parties have set up webs of candidate committees, political parties and super PACs that allow them to elude the weak laws and shower unlimited piles of cash on their candidates.”

WA:  BACKING LOWER LIMITS.  SPI.  “Washington is being used as a national guinea pig, as was Seattle last year, by advocates of public campaign financing, based mainly on the East Coast. They have put up a war chest of nearly $2.6 million.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

CONGRATS!   WP.  It’s great to see the attention that my alma mater is getting due to its name change, which has been accompanied with a steady rise in its  law school ranking:   “George Mason’s new association with Scalia has drawn unprecedented attention to the 600-student law school. U.S. News and World Report ranks the law school 45th in the nation, tied with counterparts at Southern Methodist University and the University of Utah, and just ahead of schools at the universities of Florida and Maryland.”    More:  USAT.    “George Mason University in the Washington, D.C., suburbs renamed its conservative-leaning law school in Scalia’s honor shortly after the 79-year-old justice’s death in February, which has left the Supreme Court with only eight justices amid a standoff between President Obama and Senate Republicans.”

OBSERVER LIMIT.  WP.  “The Justice Department is significantly reducing the number of federal observers stationed inside polling places in next month’s election at the same time that voters will face strict new election laws in more than a dozen states.”

DONOR CHARGED.  ABC.  “A well-heeled political donor and committee member at this summer’s Democratic National Convention was arrested Thursday and charged with using his health technology company to run a $30 million investment fraud scheme.”

BOTH SIDES.  MJ.  “A campaign finance watchdog has bad news: Everyone is breaking the rules in this election. The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center announced Thursday that it had filed two sets of complaints with the Federal Election Commission, charging that the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are improperly coordinating with super-PACs that support them.”

DONATIONS TO AGS.  WSJ.  “In total, Mr. Trump has given about $140,000 to a dozen people who either were state attorneys general or running for the post from 2001 to 2014, according to donation records. Some of the recipients returned the contributions. Totals before 2001 weren’t available.”

CA:  MEASURE FUNDING.  SB.  “Six weeks before the election, proponents and opponents of ballot measures had committed nearly $400 million, closing on the record of the 2008 election cycle.”

IL:  JUST IN TIME FOR THE PLAYOFFS.  CT.  “The head of the city ethics agency has warned Chicago aldermen and other elected officials that if they accept the Cubs’ offer to buy coveted playoff tickets at face value, they must attend personally and have their presence announced publicly.”

MO:  CONTRIBUTIONS POUR.  K10 (video).  “Since the Aug. 2 primary, there has been $27 million worth of contributions of more than $5,000 to candidates or causes.”

NY:  WHO OWES.  GG.  “On September 15, the city’s Campaign Finance Board announced the latest round of fines coming out of the city election cycle that wrapped up nearly three years ago. The board penalized candidates from six unsuccessful campaigns — for City Council, Public Advocate and the Mayor’s Office.”

SD:  GROUPS SPAR.  AL.  “Two organizations that urged supporters to donate money to a ballot committee that is promoting a constitutional amendment in South Dakota denied Thursday that they broke state campaign finance laws.”

TX:  WHO’S HOUSTON SUPPORTING?  HC.  “According to the federal contribution database, more than a fifth of the $15 million Clinton has raised in Texas came from Houston — a significant figure given that the Houston region is largely seen as a Republican fort that’s beginning to swing blue.”

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND.

DONOR SPOTLIGHT.  WP.  “Super PACs seeking to influence the 2016 elections have collected more than $1 billion, a record haul driven by jumbo-sized contributions from rich donors on both sides of the aisle.”

THREAT OF GOVERNMENT POWER.  WE.  “Ann Ravel, a former FEC chairwoman, joined other Democrats at a meeting this month to block Republican Lee Goodman’s proposal to explicitly expand the ‘press exemption’ from regulations to books, satellite radio and Internet-based news media.”

PAY TO PLAY FRAMEWORK.  ClarkHill.  “On September 20, 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued two orders effectively completing the federal pay-to-play regulatory framework for investment advisers, municipal advisors, underwriters of municipal securities, other broker-dealers, municipal advisors and dealers in derivatives doing business with state and local governments (“governmental entities”) under rules of the SEC, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) and Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (“MSRB”).”

CA:  RENT PAID.  VOC.  “In what could be a violation of state law, Santa Ana City Council candidate Jose Solorio has been using campaign funds to pay part of the rent for the apartment he’s been living in.”

CO:  FLYER MYSTERY.  CI.  “While disclosure is required on campaign material that advocates on behalf of a candidate or ballot issue, campaign finance experts say the fliers skirt the law because they do not specifically urge someone to vote for or against the candidates targeted.”

MO:  AG ALLEGATIONS.  STL.  “In a complaint filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Alderman Scott Ogilvie wants regulators to investigate whether Hawley’s campaign violated state campaign laws by accepting money from the Washington DC-based Republican Attorneys General Association that was funneled to Hawley through a separate state-level political action committee.”

MO:  REGISTRATION NOT NEEDED.  MT.  “[Ron] Calzone argued that because he did not buy meals or gifts of any kind for legislators and was not compensated for his work in the Capitol, which meant he was a citizen advocate.”

NY:  GETTING TO THE ROOT.  TU.  “New Yorkers can’t wait any longer for our leaders to fix the real root of the problem: our state’s badly broken campaign finance system.”

NY:  CITY HALL SUBPOENA.  NYT.  “A state ethics panel investigating Mayor Bill de Blasio’s political nonprofit organization has served a sweeping subpoena on City Hall seeking communications among the mayor, his aides, the nonprofit, its donors and consulting firms that worked for it, people with knowledge of the matter said.”

TX:  COMPLAINT FILED.  LCS.  “A left-leaning New Mexico nonprofit group has filed a complaint with the state Attorney General’s office against state Rep. Andy Nuñez, R-Hatch, alleging he improperly used campaign funds.”

TX:  TEC GRILL.  HC.  “The Texas Ethics Commission, already facing scrutiny from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and several prominent tea party groups, came under fire Wednesday from Senate Republicans who grilled two of the agency’s top officials for more than an hour.”

VT:  SETTLEMENT IN CASE.  VB.  “The Vermont House Republican PAC (“VHR PAC”) will pay a civil penalty of $2,000 for failing to register as a legislative leadership PAC and for soliciting contributions from lobbyist employers, according to Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell.”

WA:  I-1464 VIEWS.  FB.  “Voters in Washington State will decide on the campaign finance rules in their state in November. The new rules are packaged in the Initiative 1464. Supporters of this action perceive this as the required step to slash big money donor influence in state politics. Opponents see the measure as a counter-productive one and an expensive misuse of scant state resources.”

WI:  MOVE TO THWART.  NBC.  “Critics of Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt are upset over a two-month delay in a criminal case, charging him with campaign finance violations.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.