[Political Activity Law]

SHUTTING DOWN. POL. “A super PAC created to back Sen. Cory Booker’s bid for president will shut down, its operator said Wednesday, after Booker denounced super PACs and donors showed little interest.”

FEAR OF POLITICAL ADS. WSJ. “The road to bad regulation starts when the press panics about a problem, real or imagined. Then elites stampede toward a solution without considering how well it would address the problem or the unintended consequences.”

AD WAR. DC. “A liberal ‘dark money’ group that received millions of dollars from George Soros’s advocacy network, records show, is behind a seven-figure ad blitz urging vulnerable Republicans in swing districts to support the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.”

AK: LIMITS ON HOLD. MRA. “The U.S. Supreme Court today threw a big question mark on Alaska’s $500 limit on annual campaign contributions.” The Supreme Court’s ruling is here.

AR: RAISE SOUGHT. AO. “For next year’s elections, the amount that an individual can donate to a campaign would increase from $2,700 to $2,800 per election under an amendment to rules approved recently by the Arkansas Ethics Commission.”

MA: BAKER OVERHAIL. BUR. “Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has signed into law a bill aimed at overhauling the state’s campaign finance rules.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

REIMBURSEMENTS AND CORPORATE FUNDS. HC. “A dominant Texas engineering company led by a former University of Texas regent has agreed to a $1.6 million fine because top-level staffers facilitated hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal campaign contributions.” DOJ Release.

TLAIB ALLEGATIONS. FN. “According to a report issued last week by the House Ethics Committee, there is “substantial reason to believe” that Tlaib used campaign funds for personal expenditures, thereby violating both campaign finance laws and House ethics rules.”

BLOOMBERG AND DONATIONS. HILL. “An adviser to Michael Bloomberg said the former New York City mayor won’t accept political donations or a presidential salary.”

REFORM PLANS. GEX. “Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has released a plan that includes reforms to the two federal elections-related agencies.”

AZ: SITES BROKEN. AZC. “See The Money – a website that presents data visually – has never worked properly, and the state’s campaign-finance database has had its own set of problems since the 2018 election, and the Secretary of State’s Office is now approaching a crucial deadline. Come January, candidates from throughout the state will be filing their first financial reports for the 2020 campaign cycle and the public will want to follow the money.”

NY: CANDIDATE OWES. CNY. “Thomas Lopez-Pierre will have to repay $54,107 of the $99,180 in matching funds the CFB gave him for his failed 2017 bid to oust City Councilman Mark Levine of Manhattan—plus $6,182 in fines for assorted forms of malfeasance. The panel charged him with failing to account for more than $10,000 in transactions, failing to report more than $12,000 in contributions, exceeding the $100 limit on individual cash expenditures, using campaign funds for personal purposes and making campaign expenditures after the election was over.”

RI: GROUPS SUE. R10. “The suit says disclosure laws regarding campaign contributions are unconstitutional.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY. Have a great Thanksgiving break! New political law links will be sent around next week.

FUND BOOST. POL. “The ‘green wave’ of campaign cash that boosted Democrats and liberal causes in 2018 included an unprecedented gusher of secret money, new documents obtained by POLITICO show.”

ENFORCEMENT SOUGHT. DC. “The overwhelming majority of 2020 general election voters would like to see the Federal Election Commission (FEC) take a more active role in enforcing existing campaign finance laws on the books as corruption was rated the most serious problem facing the country, a poll released Monday found.”

SOME CONCERNS. POL. “Mayor Bill de Blasio used his political action committee to pay for presidential polling ahead of his short-lived White House run and did not reimburse in the required time frame, according to a new letter from the Federal Election Commission.”

ME: MONTHLY FINANCING. BDN. “Instead of collecting $5 qualifying donations or chasing $400 checks, Grant is asking supporters to give $5 a month from now until November 2020.”

NH: DONOR SECRECY. LDJ. “This year’s race for mayor attracted outside interest and campaign contributions, but the public will likely never find out how much money was spent and who made political donations to candidates Andrew Hosmer and Peter Spanos.”

NY: COMMISSION CRITICAL. NYDN. “Unwilling to mop up political cash sloshing around Albany by means of regular lawmaking, the poobahs there punted the work to a nine-member Public Campaign Financing Commission, which seems determined to make a hash of it. Which might have been the plan all along.”

OR: CAPPING LIMITS. OPB. “Oregon’s campaign finance system, often described as the ‘Wild West,’ would be roped in somewhat under a proposal floated Tuesday.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.