political law links

SUPER PAC SPENDS.  Times of San Diego.  “A conservative political action committee announced plans Tuesday to spend $500,000 on advertising in the 52nd Congressional district race to support Republican Carl DeMaio.”

EX-AIDE ALLEGATIONS.  USAT.  “A former employee of the top-ranking Republican woman in the House said Monday that ethics investigators have expanded their probe into the actions of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.”

CT:  EX-GOV. ON TRIAL.  Yale Daily News.  “John G. Rowland was a valuable asset to the 2012 congressional campaign of Lisa Wilson-Foley SPH ’88 — fundraising, contacting delegates, preparing her for debates and managing all genres of crises.”

MD:  COORDINATION ACCUSATION.  Capital Gazette.  “Republican Larry Hogan filed a formal elections complaint against Anthony G. Brown last week, accusing his Democratic opponent of illegally coordinating with a political action committee in the race for governor.”

OH:  ETHICS ALLEGATIONS.  Cleveland.com.  “Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Tuesday he’s talked with law enforcement or ethics officials about a newspaper’s report that top Ohio Senate Republican staffers blurred government and political work, then revised their work records.”

TX:  BOOK OPINION SOUGHT.  KVUE.  “On Monday, Abbott’s campaign addressed a three page letter to the Texas Ethics Commission requesting an opinion whether promotional activities by Davis’ publisher run afoul of state election laws.”

VA: GOV. ACCEPTS GIFTS. WP. “Under Executive Order No. 2, which he signed just minutes after taking office, McAuliffe prohibited himself, his family or members of his executive staff from accepting anything worth more than $100.”

WI:  PROSECUTORS WANT RESTART.  Business Insider.  “Wisconsin prosecutors on Tuesday are asking a federal appeals court to allow them to restart an investigation into possible illegal coordination between Governor Scott Walker’s campaign and special interest groups during elections in 2011 and 2012.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

political law links

NAGIN REPORTS. WDSU. “Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin arrived at a federal prison Monday morning in Texarkana.”

AMENDMENT UPDATE. Politico. “Many of the Republicans only voted for the bill to foul up Democrats’ pre-election messaging schedule, freezing precious Senate floor time for a measure that ultimately has no chance of securing the two-thirds support necessary in both the House and Senate to amend the Constitution.”

USAT SUPPORTS DISCLOSE ACT. USAT. “The best way to ensure an open window on donors and spending is the Disclose Act, a proposal that would eliminate a great deal of secrecy. But, like most everything else, the measure has languished in Congress.”

ROIL CALL. RC. “The emotional debate over free speech versus free political spending, which erupts onto the Senate floor this week, exposes a deep rift on Capitol Hill and at the nation’s leading civil rights group, the American Civil Liberties Union.”

LOBBYIST CHARGE PROMPTS LETTER. Time. “The campaign for New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown threatened to sue Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig Sunday over a mailer calling Brown a ‘former Washington lobbyist.'”

MAKE DONATIONS SECRET. Dallasnews.com. “Suppose, then, that we turned out the lights. What if we let Adelson and Shaun McCutcheon spend their money on politics but not take credit for their ‘generosity’? What if we made all campaign contributions and independent expenditures anonymous — and made sure they stayed anonymous?”

EDUCATION ALLEGATIONS. Reuters. “A U.S. congressman asked the White House on Friday to investigate possible campaign finance law violations over allegations that an anti-marijuana group’s upcoming Oregon ‘education tour’ was partly financed by federal money in the run-up to a statewide vote on pot legalization.”

SD: TAXES ON THE TRAIL. SD Dept. of Revenue. A political organization must pay taxes unless an exemption applies…

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Political law links

FARA FOCUS. NYT. “More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.”

DEBATING AMENDMENT. Politico. “There’s rare bipartisan agreement that advancing the bill past the initial procedural vote is a possibility.”

CA: REFORMERS BLAME UNIONS. HuffPo. “The bill would have required all political advertisements to prominently display the names of their three biggest funders, rather than allowing the contributors to conceal their identities and interests by hiding behind a front group with a vague name like ‘Californians Against Higher Taxes.'”

MT: WHAT NONPROFITS WANT. Missoulian. “A Helena-based nonprofit organization has asked a federal judge to rule that a broad swath of Montana’s campaign finance laws is unconstitutional, and it wants to prevent the state from enforcing those laws before this year’s elections.”

VA: HOW WE GOT HERE. WP. “What has been less well known is the behind-the-scenes story of how the federal investigation ensnared the couple — and how they and their loyal support network responded in the challenging months when it became clear that investigators were closing in on the respected rising Republican star.”

VA: CORPORATIONS AND CORRUPTION. The Conglomerate (Usha Rodrigues). “The guilty verdict for Virginia ex-governor Bob McDonnell on charges of public corruption is a major headline of today. I’ve been thinking a lot about corruption for the past few months, so here are a few thoughts…”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.