10/11/12 political law links

NATS AND K ST.  The Hill.  “The excitement generated by the team’s playoff run has given the city’s warring political factions something to agree on during the bitter presidential campaign season.”

D’S AND SUPER PACS. National Journal. “How did all the early doom-and-gloom predictions turn out to be so off-base? Campaign finance reform advocates made the mistake of assuming that more money in the system protects the politicians in power, when in reality, it fosters competition because the money disproportionately goes to the party challenging the status quo.”

BIENNIAL LIMIT CASE UPDATE. Venable’s Political Law Briefing has the latest: “A case headed to the Supreme Court could upend longstanding rules limiting federal political contributions.”

FUNDRAISERS ABROAD.  Story here.  “The camps of both President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, are holding fundraisers abroad as the days before the election dwindle.”

CAMPAIGN FINANCE BINGO. WSJ. “A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Texas charities can’t use proceeds from bingo on certain types of political advocacy, rejecting a challenge that pivoted on the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.”

HIDDEN VIDEO. Daily Caller. “Videographer James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas caught an official for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign helping who she thought was an Obama supporter set herself up to vote more than once in November.”

DC: BROOKS SENTENCED. NBC4. “A former campaign aide to D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray was sentenced to 24 months probation and 200 hours community service Wednesday afternoon for lying to the FBI about payments he and others made to another mayoral candidate during the 2010 campaign.”

DC: CURFEW FOR BROWN. The Post. “Former D.C. Council chairman Kwame R. Brown was given a curfew and sternly admonished Tuesday morning by a federal judge for failing to report to authorities by telephone, a condition of his release in a bank fraud case.”

MD: ALSTON SENTENCED AND SUSPENDED. Story here. “One day after Prince George’s Del. Tiffany Alston was sentenced in a misconduct case, lawyers for the General Assembly said Maryland’s constitution requires her to be suspended from office without pay or benefits.”

MT: UPDATE. The Post. “The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Montana’s campaign donation limits, telling the federal judge who struck down the limits that the panel needs to see his full reasoning so it can review the case.”

SC:  ID UPDATE.  The Post.  “A South Carolina voter-identification law does not discriminate against African Americans but must be delayed until next year because it would cause too much confusion at polling places so close to Election Day, a federal court ruled Wednesday.”

TX: TXT. Views on a new proposal here. “The distinction between an app and a webpage on a smartphone is one without much difference – they’re both just fancy ways of accessing a web server and backend database.”

HAVE A GREAT DAY.

Wednesday’s political law links (10/10/12)

BIG BIRD LEGAL ISSUES. WSJ. “The folks at Sesame Street are asking the Obama campaign to pull down a TV ad released Tuesday that mocks Mitt Romney for vowing to yank the subsidy to PBS.”

ETHICS AND ELECTIONS. Story here. “Even as the House ethics committee announced it would continue its informal investigation, Andrews denies any wrongdoing and asserts that he would not have known the groom whose wedding he attended in Scotland were it not for the groom’s volunteer work on behalf of his campaign.”

2012 AND CFR. MotherJones. ”If Obama defeats Mitt Romney in November, will his victory weaken the opposition to Citizens United by undercutting the notion that a handful of megadonors pouring millions of dollars into super-PACs and shadowy nonprofits have the power to dictate the outcome of an election?”

REEDSMITH ON VH. Global Regulatory Enforcement Law Blog: “Van Hollen v. FEC Follow-up: Decision to Defend Campaign Finance Regulation Shows Split within FEC.”

FOREIGN NATIONAL ISSUE ALLEGED. Story here. “Only citizens of the United States can legally contribute to a federal political campaign. Foreign nationals cannot directly or indirectly contribute to a campaign.”

MT: LATEST UPDATE. Story here. “The judge who struck down Montana’s campaign contribution limits has upheld his own decision after state attorneys asked him to reconsider.”

NJ: MORE CORPORATE DISCLOSURE PROPOSED. Story here. “Companies receiving business grants, tax credits or other subsidies from New Jersey government would be required to disclose all political donations of more than $10,000 under newly introduced legislation.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

Good morning, here are Tuesday’s political law links (10/9/12)

OPINION IN HLF. Here. After an important discussion on standing, the opinion holds that three of five communications are electioneering communications.

VH STATUS. InsidePoliticalLaw.com.

L-PAC STRATEGY. Roll Call. “In this cycle’s costliest and most competitive House and Senate races, Members of Congress are deploying a little-noticed but influential weapon: their personal political action committees, typically known as leadership PACs.”

SUPER PAC HOUSE STRATEGY. The Times. “The emergence of smaller super PACs helped fuel a surge in September advertising by outside groups in House races: Far more money was being spent far earlier than for the 2010 elections, when Republicans won control of the House.”

LISA GILBERT ON DISCLOSURE. USAT. “The SEC should protect investors by creating a rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose their political spending.”

POST FOCUS ON ETHICS. The Post. “[Three] lawmakers were among 73 members of Congress who have sponsored or co-sponsored legislation in recent years that could benefit businesses or industries in which either they or their family members are involved or invested, according to a Washington Post analysis.”

CAMPAIGN FRAUD PROTECTION. C&E. “Conventional wisdom would have you believe that misappropriation of campaign funds in the political world is a rare occurrence. But the truth is that no one really knows how widespread the misappropriation of funds really is.”

STOCK ACT ][. Politico. “The Washington Post continues its Capital Assets series with an A1 piece exposing a loophole in the current congressional ethics rules.”

TIMES LAMENTS. Editorial here. “This is only the first presidential election in the Citizens United era of unlimited spending, and the first since 1976 in which both presidential candidates spurned the public finance system.”

SOCIAL MEDIA LURE. The Times. “If the presidential campaigns of 2008 were dipping a toe into social media like Facebook and Twitter, their 2012 versions are well into the deep end.”

REPORT ON ONLINE DONATIONS. Daily Caller. “President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has been soliciting foreigners for donations, an explosive report from the conservative Government Accountability Institute (GAI) shows.”

FL: ETHICS WISH LIST. Story here. “The commission has developed a package of 11 proposed ethics reforms, but the politics of the Legislature requires it focus on a limited number.”

FL: “WILD WEST.” Story here. “But within Florida, Democrats hold little influence in state-level politics. As a result, they are vastly out-gunned by outside groups siding with the GOP, although Democrats are still helped by spending from labor organizations and trial lawyers.”

IL: LIMITS CASE. Story here. “A federal judge on Friday rejected an immediate effort to overturn state law limiting direct campaign contributions to political candidates, citing the potential for corruption if Illinois returned to an era of unlimited donations to electioneering politicians.”

HAVE A GREAT DAY.