[Political Activity Law]

SUPER PAC SURGE.  USAT.  “Super PAC donations have barreled past the $1 billion mark, driven by a small group of super-wealthy contributors intent on deciding who will occupy the White House and control Congress next year.”

SUPER PAC REPORTS.  Politico.  “GOP congressional super PACs leap forward in cash $20 million from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave Senate Leadership Fund a major boost in August, as the group started preparing its advertising campaigns to protect the party’s Senate majority.”

SUPER PAC OVER SHARE.  Y.  “A controversial pro-Donald Trump super PAC mistakenly released the personal email addresses and cell phone numbers of hundreds of Trump-loving donors — and some of them are livid.”

PRISON AND PAROLE.  CH6.  “The third top official of Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign has been sentenced to three months in prison for conspiring to cover up campaign payments to a former Iowa state senator.”

AIDE AVOIDS PRISON.  Fox.  “The chairman of Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid was sentenced Tuesday to probation and home confinement rather than prison, and two other top aides were awaiting their sentences for a scheme to cover up campaign payments to a former Iowa state senator who agreed to endorse their boss.”

B-ROLL ISSUES.  WFB.  “A Democratic House candidate running on a campaign finance reform platform is employing advertising tactics that other campaigns have used to circumvent restrictions on outside political spending.”

FUNDING STALL.  WE.  “Senate Republican leaders have for a second time postponed a vote on a government funding package because an agreement has not been reached with Democrats, who are complaining about a campaign finance provision, among other problems.”

CA:  WATCHDOG GONE RABID.  LAT.  “Supporters of the bill criticized the state Fair Political Practices Commission for heavy-handed tactics that they said included pushing groups the commission has the power to investigate and fine to drop their support for the transparency bill.”

CO:  REPORT TAKEAWAYS.  9News.  “Candidates and campaigns had to file their latest round of finance reports to the Secretary of State’s office Monday.”

SD:  LOOKING AT REFORM.  AN.  “A proposal by a bipartisan panel has the potential to shed more light on campaign contributions in South Dakota while cutting out the middleman.”

VT:  RGA ALLEGATIONS.  CH3.  “Vermont Democrats say Phil Scott is breaking campaign finance rules by illegally coordinating with the Republican Governors Association.”

WA:  FACING REFORM.  PDN.  “Initiative 1464’s voucher system would give voters three $50 ‘democracy credits’ that they can use in state races every two years. To pay for the statewide system, the measure would repeal the non-resident sales tax exemption for residents of sales-tax-free states such as Oregon and Montana who shop in Washington.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

BROWN SCANDAL AND ETHICS.  NLPC. “Lame duck Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-FL) is asking supporters for donations to fund her defense in her upcoming corruption trial.”

BROWN SEEKS FUNDS.  J.com.  “Brown’s 2016 campaign Twitter account linked Friday to the website, which was created this week and registered in the name of Brown’s daughter, Shantrel, a Washington lobbyist.”

CORPORATE SPENDING AND CR DEAL.  WP.  “Reid also attacked McConnell for pushing to keep in place language to prevent the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring corporations to publicly disclose their political spending. Liberal advocacy groups and some Democrats have been pushing for greater disclosure in this area in recent years.”

HANNITY AND THE MEDIA EXEMPTION.  WP.  “The dual roles of Hannity and Lewandowski might make media ethicists squeamish, but it is unlikely that the FEC would investigate — never mind penalize — them and their networks, according to Daniel A. Petalas, the agency’s acting general counsel from August 2015 until this month, when he joined the Washington office of Garvey Schubert Barer.”

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ETHICS.  Eisen and Painter.  “As government ethics lawyers who have, respectively, counseled the most recent Republican president and the most recent Democratic one, we have watched Donald Trump’s campaign with increasing concern. We have come to believe a Trump presidency would be ethically compromised for the following reasons…”  And the election of Clinton would accompany a new springtime of translucence and light in the area of government ethics…

PUBLIC FINANCING UPDATE.  BG.  “Stein is the only candidate on the November ballot who is relying on public money to help pay campaign bills. In addition to her own fundraising, she has received four federal payments totaling $456,000 under the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, a moribund program whose critics call it the ‘loser’s fund.'”

BOEHNER LANDS.  NYM.  “Former House Speaker John Boehner, who resigned from Congress last October after 25 years representing Ohio’s 8th district, just got a new job. The 66-year-old is the newest member of lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs, where he will serve as a ‘strategic adviser,’ not a lobbyist.”

HYBRID ADS.  RC.  “This hybrid strategy, which has been employed by both parties, saves the party committees and the campaigns money since neither is paying for the full cost of the ad.”

CAF OBSOLETE.  USAT.  “The Alabama man who won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance limits said he no longer needs the super PAC he created to give to Republican candidates.”

SUPER PAC BATTLEGROUND.  WSJ.  “Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is expected to spend at least $5 million on the effort, while TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. founder Joe Ricketts and his family will contribute at least $1 million.”

DC:  STRAW DONOR ALERT.  WP.  “Straw donors are the folks who use someone else’s money to make campaign contributions in their own name. Or they agree to contribute to their own money to a candidate, because they will be reimbursed. Or they get handed a money order for say, $1,000, made payable to a candidate’s political committee, and they fill in their names as the senders.”

MO:  CITY LIMITS.  STLPR.  “A three-year effort to limit the amount of money flowing into city elections took a small step forward at the St. Louis Board of Aldermen on Tuesday.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

ISRAEL GROUND GAME.  Politico.  “There’s one state where Donald Trump’s ground game appears to be a model of efficiency, rather than a ramshackle operation lacking organizers and field offices: Israel.”

POLITICAL COMMITTEE CASE OPINION.  Hill.  “A U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday that the country’s top election watchdog misinterpreted campaign finance law when it dismissed a progressive group’s complaints against two conservative organizations.”  The opinion is here.

DISMISSAL QUESTIONED.  B&C.  “A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a Federal Election Commission dismissal of a campaign ad-disclosure related complaint by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), signaling that the FEC will need to take a more expansive view of political ads requiring disclosure.”

CASE TO BE REVIEWED.  CNS.  ” A federal judge ruled Monday that the Federal Election Commission must revisit whether two center-right nonprofits’ anti-Obamacare ads meant to influence a Congressional election, which would require the groups to disclose their backers.”

SUPER PAC HITS.  WiscPol.  “The super PAC Reform America Fund is going up with a new $1.2 million ad buy in Wisconsin hitting Hillary Clinton on her classified emails, concussion and cough.”

SUIT AGAINST STATE FARM.  Crain’s.  “A federal judge in East St. Louis on Sept. 16 conferred class-action status on plaintiffs representing 4.7 million State Farm policyholders. The plaintiffs allege that State Farm schemed to contribute millions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with the intention of having the money funneled to the re-election campaign of lllinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier in 2004.”

NBC I:  NBC REPORT ON FEC.  NBC.  “‘People know that they can stretch the law and pretty much violate the law and there will be no enforcement,’ FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel said in an interview with the I-Team.”  This is possibly the most ignorant and one-sided reporting I’ve seen on the FEC, and that’s saying a lot.

NBC II:  BAY AREA NBC COVERS FEC.  NBC.  “Ravel believes the FEC has done nothing on nearly every single important decision involving election laws since she joined the commission in 2013.”

MO:  APPEAL DENIED.  STL.  “A Missouri initiative to re-instate campaign contribution limits has cleared its final legal hurdle to appear on the November ballot.”

MO:  MEASURE ON BALLOT.  KCS.  “The measure would cap donations to candidates at $2,600 per election and to political parties at $25,000. It also would impose other campaign finance restrictions aimed at preventing political committees from obscuring the source of their money.”

MT:  CASE TO SUPREMES.  BG.  “A Bozeman lawmaker who was found to have taken illegal corporate contributions from an anti-union organization in 2010 says he will appeal his case to the Montana Supreme Court.”

TX:  TEC SEEKS FUNDS.  HC.  ” The Texas Ethics Commission says it cannot depend on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office to defend the agency in future litigation, and, as a result, is asking budget writers for a huge pot of reserve cash if it has to hire outside lawyers to handle court fights.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.