Thurs. 5-29 political law links

READY FOR A NEW ACCOUNT.  NJ.  “Ready for Hillary is anything but a traditional political group. But it’s now looking to influence elections the old-fashioned way—by writing checks to candidates.”

CA:  GOING ELECTRIC.  LAT.  “Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to require candidates to file their campaign finance reports electronically, allowing the public to see them quicker.”

ME:  FINE IMPOSED ON NOM.  Pressherald.com.  “The state ethics board voted unanimously Wednesday to impose a $50,250 fine on the nation’s leading organization opposing gay marriage, a decision that could affect how nonprofit organizations attempt to influence Maine elections.”

MI:  VIOLATION ALLEGED.  Observer & Eccentric.  “One candidate running to represent most of Livonia in the state House of Representatives has been accused of violating Michigan’s campaign finance laws.”

NJ:  PAY TO PLAY GAP.  NorthJersey.com.  “The pay-to-play law makes it clear that executives and their employees working on the state’s pension fund investments cannot make political contributions to New Jersey candidates and political committees. But those venture capital firms and hedge funds often take the state pension dollars and invest them in other companies whose executives do not have to disclose their political donations.”

NY:  TIMELY CONTRIBUTION.  NYDN.  “Eight days before the 2013 election, the union run by Bill de Blasio’s cousin quietly made a donation to a so-called ‘independent’ political group whose spending benefited de Blasio’s mayoral bid, the Daily News has learned.”

NY:  DEBLASIO’S LOBBYIST DISCLOSURE.  CapitalNewYork.com.  “Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to disclose ‘substantive’ meetings his administration conducts with lobbyists, continuing a practice he implemented when he was the city’s public advocate.”

RI:  CONTRIBUTION HEAD-SCRATCHER.  RIFuture.org.  “In an age awash with political money, with Citizens United and related rulings giving more and more groups the opportunity to spend unlimited amounts of money and to hide the donors, How can it be that the Green Party of Rhode Island can not accept money that was donated by Rhode Islanders and is being returned to the Green Party in RI for party building activities? If this rule is not unconstitutional, it at least makes no sense in the current context.”

TX:  TEC ON TEA.  The Courier.  “While The Woodlands-based Texas Patriots PAC has cried foul on the Texas Conservative Tea Party Coalition and its failure to file a campaign finance report, the Texas Ethics Commissions said the coalition has not violated any laws.”

WI:  FOLLY OF REFORM.  Forbes (Shapiro).  “The latest battle in Wisconsin’s political wars shows what happens when laws that regulate political speech intersect with prosecutorial power to engage in open-ended investigations.”

WI:  SETTLEMENT TALKS.  Madison.com.  “Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign is in settlement talks with the prosecutor in the John Doe investigation, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.”

WI:  BITCOIN CONSIDERED.  WTAQ.  “The state Government Accountability Board is being asked to take another look at allowing candidates for state offices to accept contributions using bitcoin.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.  I’ll send the next set of links on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

Wed. 5-28 political law links

HUNT ON ROBERTS ON CORRUPTION.  NYT.  “The definition of corruption was hotly debated on the court by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Stephen G. Breyer. The chief justice, who opposes most campaign finance restrictions, offered a narrow interpretation: Political corruption is bribery only, a direct exchange of an official act for money.”

FEC ENFORCEMENT VACUUM.  In the Arena (Svoboda).  “Proponents of campaign finance regulation frequently criticize the FEC for failing to forcefully police the campaign finance landscape. The agency currently faces a significant backlog of unresolved enforcement cases, and Commissioners are voting on fewer enforcement matters than in previous years.”

SHOW AND DOUGH.  Politico.  “Anthony Scaramucci was in his element.”

FL:  MONEY RACE.  StAugustine.com.  “Being driven by a likely record-setting governor’s race, campaign contributions are rolling in this election cycle at a higher clip than in 2010, the last time Florida had a gubernatorial race.”

MA:  REIMBURSEMENT COMPLAINT.  Boston Globe.  “The Massachusetts Republican Party today said it filed a complaint with state campaign finance regulators asking them to investigate whether Attorney General Martha Coakley broke the law in waiting years to reimburse taxpayers for gas and mileage to political events in a state vehicle.”

NY:  USE OF FUNDS.  NYP.  “If politicians are accused of a crime in New York, their friends can pick up the tab — and it’s all legal.”

NY:  CFR PUSH.  NYDN.  “Gov. Cuomo will work to toss the Senate Republicans from power by reuniting the chamber’s fractured Democrats if the GOP does not agree to create a statewide public financing system for campaigns, according to sources with direct knowledge of the situation.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

Tues. political law links, 5-27

ETHICS AND GRIMM.  Roll Call.  “The House Ethics Committee announced it established a special subcommittee to investigate Rep. Michael G. Grimm, already under federal indictment for allegations of misconduct, but the subcommittee members unanimously voted to wait as the Feds pursue the case against the New York Republican.”

LERNER FUNDRAISING.  Roll Call.  “A fundraising effort has started to help pay the legal bills of former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner.”

NATIONAL PARTY SUES.  Roll Call.  “A national political party has filed suit against the Federal Election Commission seeking to knock out the current contribution limits on what an individual may contribute to the party for independent expenditures.”

DEFENSE OF DISCLOSURE. NJ.com (Levy). “As Justice Antonin Scalia recognized in Doe, ‘There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance.'”

DC:  GRAY AND FAIRNESS.  WP (Colbert King).  “The government’s claim that Gray had detailed knowledge about the illegal 2010 fundraising operation was publicly leveled three weeks before the April 1 Democratic primary in which Gray sought reelection.”

NJ:  SUPER PAC QUESTIONS.  NJ.com.  “The founder of a West New York political action committee has been arrested and will be appearing in front of a federal judge in Newark today, a spokeswoman for the Newark division of the FBI confirmed this morning.”

NJ:  NEWARK REFORM.  NJ.com.  “The amount of outside money that came into the Newark race has some now questioning whether the state’s campaign disclosure laws need to be overhauled to require disclosure of donors and the registration of the independent groups, which have become an increasing factor in New Jersey elections from the Statehouse down to city hall.”

NY:  LIMIT UPDATE.  Newsday.  “Individual donors now have carte blanche from New York State to contribute more than $150,000 a year to fund as many candidates and political groups as they choose, just in time for this year’s high stakes statewide elections.”

VA: COST OF DISCLOSURE. WP. “The goal was to gain online access in a single place to many thousands more documents than are currently available. But officials are struggling with the difficult and potentially very expensive reality of carrying out the law. As a result, they are considering a simpler, less searchable system that would make it more difficult to scrutinize the records.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.