Friday’s political law links (10/5/12)

CONTRIBUTORS MENTIONED IN DEBATE. Transcript.

ROMNEY: Mr. President, Mr. President, you’re entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts. All right, I’m not going to cut education funding. I don’t have any plan to cut education funding and — and grants that go to people going to college. I’m planning on (inaudible) to grow. So I’m not planning on making changes there.

But you make a very good point, which is that the place you put your money just makes a pretty clear indication of where your heart is. You put $90 billion into — into green jobs. And I — look, I’m all in favor of green energy. $90 billion, that would have — that would have hired 2 million teachers. $90 billion.

And these businesses, many of them have gone out of business, I think about half of them, of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business. A number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.

USE OF AARP NAME ISSUE. Story here. “Obama cited the nonpartisan senior lobby twice in Wednesday’s debate when arguing against Mitt Romney’s Medicare proposals.”

PENSION ISSUE. Story here. “Congressman Todd Akin failed to report almost $130,000 in Missouri legislative pension income over the past 10 years on his congressional financial disclosure report, his office acknowledged this morning.”

VAN HOLLEN UPDATE. Status Report. “Pursuant to the Court’s Order of September 20, 2012 (Docket No. 66), the Federal Election Commission hereby advises that it does not intend to pursue a rulemaking and that it will continue to defend 11 C.F.R. § 104.20(c)(9) before the Court.”

TOP SUPER PACS. Story here. “In this election cycle so far, 900 reported super PACs have spent more than $318 million to influence presidential and congressional races, funding a blitz of advertising in the primary states, swing states, and nationwide.”

DONOR STORY. Washington Examiner. “According to knowlegable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story.”

SUPER PAC QUESTIONS. The Post. “Have conservative groups bungled their chance to help defeat Barack Obama?”

IA: PLEAS IN CASE. Story here. “Special prosecutors say they dismissed charges against two men accused of making an illegal contribution to former Gov. Chet Culver’s campaign because it was in the ‘best interest of justice.'”

OR: SUPREME COURT RULES. Story here. “Oregon political campaigns will continue to have access to unlimited campaign contributions. That’s the upshot of a ruling Thursday from the Oregon Supreme Court.”

VA: DELGAUDIO UPDATE. Story here. “The Loudoun Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to have an outside investigator examine whether Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) violated county policy in his use of office assistants, but the results are unlikely to warrant calls for Delgaudio’s removal.”

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND. I’ll prepare the next set of links on Tuesday. Have a great weekend!

Today’s political law links (10/4/12)

SUPER PAC EDITS AD. Story here. “A Washington, D.C.-based SuperPAC is making last-minute changes to a TV spot criticizing Democratic congressional candidate Tammy Duckworth after she refuted claims in the ad.”

TAXES AND POLITICS. Following up on a recent WSJ piece, here’s another look at tax issues and political donations: “A big article in the Wall Street Journal got me thinking: Is Your Political Donation Deductible? It’s not a simple question, but my shorthand answer is: Don’t. It safest to assume they aren’t deductible except in narrow circumstances.”

OPINION IN FREE SPEECH V. FEC. Press announcement here.

CHICAGO: ETHICS BOARD UPDATE. Story here. “Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Wednesday the replacement of the city’s entire ethics board with seven new members, saying the new board will have the professionalism to do the job in a city notorious for corruption.”

FL: CRIMINAL PROBE REGARDING VOTER REGISTRATION. Story here. “Authorities in Florida opened a criminal probe on Wednesday into the activities of Strategic Allied Consulting, the firm hired by the Republican Party to register new voters in the crucial swing state ahead of next month’s presidential election.”

ID: REIMBURSEMENT ISSUE. Story here. “After first saying, ‘I don’t have a problem with it,’ Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna reimbursed a lobbying firm that represents Apple and other clients with an interest in upholding his 2011 education reforms in November.”

MT: UPDATE ON LIMITS CASE. Story here. “A federal judge on Wednesday struck down Montana’s campaign contribution limits as unconstitutional, a decision that comes less than a month before Election Day and marks the latest in a string of court rulings against the state’s campaign laws.”

WA: APPEARANCE IN UNIFORM ISSUE. Story here. “It was a ‘minor’ violation, but King County Sheriff Steve Strachan still ran afoul of the county’s ethics code by appearing in uniform at a GOP picnic, the county Ombudsman’s Office has ruled.”

AUSTRIA: LOBBYIST ISSUES. Story here. “BAE Systems faces having its dirty linen aired in public yet again as one of its former lobbyists comes before judges in Austria to answer charges of involvement in corrupt arms deals.”

HAVE A GREAT DAY.

Good morning – today’s political law links (10/3/12)

DEAR EDITOR: DEFENSE OF LOBBYISTS ON GOVERNMENT BOARDS. The Post. “I don’t drive a Porsche, and I have never contributed to a political campaign or paid for a lawmaker’s golf junket. After 30 years in Washington, I still confuse the various House and Senate buildings. Yet on the theory that my insight is somehow corrupting, the ruling bars me from a panel on which I served for 15 years: helping government officials understand complex and arcane aspects of my field, international trade.”

STOCK ACT:  FORMS ONLINE.  The Post.  “Financial disclosures of members of Congress became more readily available Monday as required by the Stock Act. Access to such forms filed by many senior career federal employees will remain restricted for at least two more months, however.”  Senate forms are here and House forms are here.  Happy snooping searching.

HULU POLITICAL ADS. HuffPo. “Some people catching up with their favorite television shows on Hulu, especially people living in swing states and zip codes heavy with the right demographic groups, may have seen ads urging President Barack Obama’s reelection. They likely don’t realize they’ve also seen the latest innovation in campaign spending.”

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE MOU. In doing some searching for presidential debate memoranda of understanding I discovered a blog dedicated to presidential debates here. From my casual search, the memorandum between the McCain and Obama camps in 2008 isn’t available online. This year’s MOU is the topic of this Politico report, which indicates there were still outstanding items as of a few days ago.

WORK WITH NONPROFITS.  WFB.  “The apparent admission of a top lawyer for the Obama campaign during a recent conference call that the campaign has ‘work[ed] with some’ nonprofit organizations raises questions about the campaign’s coordination with liberal nonprofit groups and could put the nonprofit status of those groups at risk.”

TOMORROW’S FEC MEETING. The agenda for tomorrow’s FEC meeting is online here.

YARD SIGN LAW. In 2008 I posted links to a huge number of stories about yard sign laws and vandalism. I’m not going to monitor the yard sign wars as closely this time around, but I found this editorial of interest: “One afternoon when I returned home from work, the signs were gone. I asked my wife if they had been stolen. No, she said. A town official had visited and instructed her to remove them. They violated a town ordinance that such signs cannot be up more than 30 days before an election. These were up well before that limit.”

MN: LOBBYIST DEFINITION NOT TRIGGERED. Story here. ”Minnesota Majority’s executive director, Dan McGrath, has engaged in lobbying at the Capitol, but was not required to register with the state, according to a ruling Tuesday by the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.”

MN: MARRIAGE GROUP COMPLAINT DISMISSED. Story here. “The state’s campaign finance watchdog has cleared Minnesota for Marriage, an organization backing a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, of a complaint that the group did not adequately disclosed its donors.”

PA: VOTER ID LAW UPDATE. Politico. “A judge in Pennsylvania has ordered that the state’s new restrictive voter ID law cannot fully take effect until after Election Day.”

RI: TRAVEL DISCLOSURE RULE. Story here. “The Rhode Island Ethics Commission is seeking public input on a proposed rule requiring elected officials to disclose out-of-state travel costs.”

VA:  DELGAUDIO VOTE.  The Post.  “The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors will vote Wednesday on whether to investigate recently reported allegations that Supervisor Eugene A. Delgaudio used county resources to benefit his political campaign, according to a statement Tuesday by the board’s chairman, Scott K. York.”

HAVE A GREAT DAY.