[Political Activity Law]

FEC OPEN. FEC. “While the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended (the Act), requires an affirmative vote by four Commissioners to make decisions in many areas, including regulations, advisory opinions, audit matters and enforcement, the Commission remains open for business.”

RULES ISSUE. KC. “Kansas Republican congressional candidate Amanda Atkins may have skirted federal election law by representing herself as a candidate before filing the appropriate paperwork, campaign finance watchdogs say.”

COURT ADVOCACY. PF. “It can be difficult to trace the path of anonymous political spending with precision, and we wanted to know the factual basis for Whitehouse’s claim. The evidence we found about the money’s origins, and where it went, backed it up.”

POP-UP GROUP. CRP. “A secretive new ‘dark money’ group is hitting the airwaves — and the road — to help Democrats win Arizona’s hotly contested Senate seat in 2020.”

FEC UPDATE. CPI. “No more than three FEC commissioners may come from one party. Tradition — often, but not always, honored — provides that a president nominate FEC commissioners two at a time, one Democrat, one Republican.”

CA: ENFORCEMENT TEMPLATE. VOC. “The Fair Political Practices Commission just unveiled a template contract for cities, counties and districts to have the Commission provide enforcement of their local ethics and campaign finance laws.”

TN: NEW SITE URGED. TN. “State officials on Wednesday initiated talks to revamp Tennessee’s campaign finance reporting website and hire additional auditors to help scrutinize lawmakers’ activities.”

TX: GIFT COMPLAINT. TM. “A Dallas activist has filed an ethics complaint against Dallas City Council member Casey Thomas over Thomas’ failure to disclose tickets to several events he was given by VisitDallas, as first reported in July by The Texas Monitor.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

BAN PROPOSED. RC. “Rep. Rodney Davis said Tuesday he was introducing a bill to ban public financing of congressional campaigns, hitting at a signature piece of House Democrats’ political money overhaul.”

IL: UNLEVEL FIELD. CCR. “Illinois’ campaign finance law may create an unlevel political spending playing field, giving one kind of political organization a built-in advantage. But a federal appeals panel appeared to harbor doubts over whether that makes the law unconstitutional.”

NJ: ACLU SUIT. NJ. “The American Civil Liberties Union went to federal court Tuesday seeking to overturn a measure that would require political action organizations that accept so-called ‘dark money’ in New Jersey to disclose their donors.”

NY: COMMISSION SUED. ATU. “The recently formed commission tasked with creating a public financing system for the state’s elections has been sued for records by the Government Justice Center.”

OR: NEW RULES. PT. “The 2020 city elections will be conducted under new campaign finance disclosure and contribution requirements approved by Portland voters, along with a new public campaign financing program approved by the City Council.”

VA: PAC TO SPEND. WP. “A Democratic super PAC focused on turning statehouses blue will pour $500,000 into Virginia’s ‘off-off-year election’ for the state House of Delegates in November, while another group plans to invest $1 million in pro-environment candidates from either party.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

CA: CASH POURING. SB. “One of California’s largest unions is spending big money to prevent one of its former leaders from winning a seat on the CalPERS Board of Administration, and it’s starting with a political mailer that is confusing some retirees.”

CO: COURT RULES. GAZ. “Pace and CIW filed the campaign finance complaint, alleging that the Alliance failed to register as a political committee and to report campaign donations.”

MD: CANDIDATE CHARGED. WJZ. “Richard Parker was charged with filing a campaign finance report with false and misleading information and signing an electronic submission of one of his campaign forms without the express consent of his treasurer.”

GUAM: FUND USE. GI. “A former campaign official has filed a complaint saying a Guam delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives misused campaign funds.”

ME: MONEY HEATS. RCP. “The spokesman for Maine Momentum, the dark-money group that has already earned three Pinocchios from the Washington Post for its ad hitting Collins, had worked as recently as June for Collins’ leading Democratic opponent, Sara Gideon, speaker of Maine’s House of Representatives.”

NY: OVERHAUL AGAIN. WAMC. “Campaign finance reform, long-promised but never enacted, is starting to take shape in New York.  As part of this year’s budget agreement, Governor Cuomo and the legislative majorities agreed to establish a Commission to create a voluntary system of public financing of elections.”

NY: ALLEGED VIOLATION. OCN. “According to publicly available campaign finance records cited in Rice’s complaints and verified by The Palladium-Times, Pathfinder [Bank] has in five of the last seven years exceeded its state-mandated cap on political donations. Corporations in New York are limited to $5,000 in contributions annually to candidates for offices or political committees. In 2018 alone, Pathfinder spread $20,530 around to more than a dozen candidates and political action committees, financial disclosure documents show.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.