Thursday’s political law links, 3/21/13

MSFT AND FCPA. The Post. “Microsoft has addressed allegations that its partners are being investigated by the U.S. government for engaging in illegal activity, saying that it will ‘cooperate fully in any government inquiries.'”

MENENDEZ DRIP. US News. “As the scandal surrounding Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., grows into a steady drip, drip, drip of increasingly damaging stories for Senate Democrats (following an FBI raid of a top Democratic donor’s offices), we learn today that this sordid story extends far beyond the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

MARKEY AND CAMPAIGN MONEY. Story here. “Democratic U.S. Rep. Edward Markey has focused on campaign finance issues in his U.S. Senate campaign, calling on the Republican candidates to sign a pledge refusing to allow third party organizations to advertise in the race.”

SBUX BAN REJECTED. Story here. “Starbucks Corp. investors on Wednesday rejected a shareholder proposal to prohibit the world’s biggest coffee chain from making political contributions or forming a political action committee.”

FREE SPEECH LOSES. FEC Release.

AZ: CASE DISMISSED. Story here. “An administrative-law judge has recommended dismissal of a campaign-finance case against Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and a trusted aide on technical grounds that the secretary of state erred in turning it over to Maricopa County’s top prosecutor.”

AZ: INCREASE IN LIMITS URGED. Story here. “Increasing the amount of money Arizonans can contribute to political candidates would deter those who want to give more from working through political action committees and improve transparency, a state lawmaker contends.”

FL: REFORMS TAKING SHAPE. Story here. “Less than three weeks into the 60-day session, both the Florida House and Senate are advancing ethics changes designed to hold politicians to higher standards of conduct while they’re in office and after they’ve left.”

GA: DELAY TO TODAY. Story here. “The state Senate has delayed until Thursday its answer about ethics reform.”

NY: CUT THE COMMISSION. Story here. “One of the last minute wrenches in the state budget negotiations is said to be a Senate Republican push to cut money for the state ethics commission.”

SC: HALEY CASE HEARD. Story here. “The S.C. Supreme Court heard arguments for nearly an hour Wednesday whether John Rainey’s lawsuit that Haley failed to disclose conflicts on interest and lobbied on behalf of her employer while was a state representative from Lexington County could be heard in state court.”

CANADA: BAN ON AFTER-HOUR LOBBYING? Story here. The plan was rejected.

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

Political law links, 3/20/13

ETHICS UPDATE. Politico. “The House Ethics Committee will launch full-scale investigations into two veteran lawmakers, Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) in its first major probes of the 113th Congress.”

FCC AND CELL ROBOCALLS. CNET. “The Federal Communications Commission has issued citations that accuse two companies of bombarding wireless customers with millions of illegal robocalls during last year’s presidential election.”

GIVING FROM THE GREAT BEYOND. “Does imposing annual contribution limits against the bequest of Raymond Groves Burrington violate the First Amendment rights of the Libertarian National Committee?” The D.C. Circuit will let us know, following this opinion.

PURPOSE OF PARTIES. The Post. “Political parties are nearly as old as the republic, performing the basic roles of putting forward candidates for election, explaining their philosophies and then organizing people to vote for them.”

CT: ERNIE NEWTON LAW UPDATE. Story here. “Legislation aimed at stopping convicted felons, like Bridgeport’s Ernest E. Newton II, from taking state funding for election campaigns was endorsed Monday by top election officials.”

GA: LOBBYIST SPENDING DEBATE. Story here. “Georgia senators appear poised to rewrite part of House Speaker David Ralston’s plan to limit lobbyist spending.”

VT: WHAT’S IN THE BILL? Story here. “The bill requires disclosure of the names of big contributors to political committees, including independent, expenditure only political committees commonly called Super PACs, who make possible big media buys. One threshold for disclosure is providing 25 percent of all contributions to a political committee.”

UK: HACKED OFF FUNDING. Daily Mail. “Pressure group Hacked Off is refusing to reveal who is bankrolling them despite campaigning for more transparency in the press.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

Good morning, here are today’s political law links, 3/19

CORPORATE POLITICAL ACTIVITY VIEWS. MSN Money. “Though campaign finance experts acknowledge that political contributions are companies’ best defense against policies opposing their interests, they also know that passing a politician a stack of cash can have unintended consequences for a company with a corporate identity so tightly tethered to social responsibility.”

GOP REPORT ID’S CAMPAIGN FINANCE. Politico. “Among the RNC’s proposed fixes: enacting comprehensive immigration reform, addressing middle-class economic anxieties head on and condensing a presidential primary process that saw Mitt Romney get battered for months ahead of the general election.” Page 68 says every state part should have a campaign finance lawyer and compliance specialist.

CT: PUBLIC FINANCING AND CONVICTS. Story here. “The State Elections Enforcement Commission is backing legislation requiring candidates who participate in Connecticut’s public campaign financing system to certify they’ve not been criminally convicted of any election law violation within the past eight years.”

GA: ETHICS UPDATE. Story here. “Two of the biggest topics at the Georgia Legislature this year — ethics and guns — will dominate discussion Tuesday, as state lawmakers gear up for their last two weeks of work.”

NC: DONOR ISSUE. Story here. “An Oklahoma man facing racketeering charges in Florida over alleged illegal gambling operations gave more than $230,000 to North Carolina political campaigns in the past two years, including to more than 60 legislators, a group said Monday.”

KY: 42 VIOLATIONS ALLEGED. Story here. “The state’s Executive Branch Ethics Commission has charged Richie Farmer with 42 ethics violations accusing him of misusing state funds and state employees during his time in office.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY. A few housekeeping items for those interested. (1) Yesterday’s links were a little tardy. I accidentally set the post to launch at 6:30 p.m. instead of a.m. I prepare many of the links the night before they appear on the site, mainly because I don’t do any work on the site at my more than full-time day job. The site is run 100% on my personal time and personal computer/iPad. I “set it and forget it” before I leave home for the day. WordPress allows me to set a time for the post to appear and from there Feedburner automatically sends the link to subscribers around 9 a.m. Nobody is sitting at a desk at 9 a.m. and hitting send. 2) At times the items I link to become unavailable for usually technical reasons. If you ever notice a broken link, please let me know. (3) Paywalls are coming to The Post. I really don’t want to be linking to things that you can’t read. That’s why I hardly ever link to services requiring a subscription. If enough sources erect paywalls, this site may not be as useful as I’d like. Until then, let’s hope media sources try other ways to generate revenues. (4) Thanks again for visiting!