5.14 political law links

CONVICTIONS UPHELD.   WTOP.  “A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the convictions of three top staffers on Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign who were found guilty of arranging for money to be funneled through a vendor to an influential Iowa state senator who dropped his support for another Republican candidate in favor of Paul.”  The opinion is here.

USE OF FUNDS APPROVED.   CNN.  “The Federal Election Commission on Thursday approved a New York congressional candidate’s request to use federal campaign funds to cover the childcare expenses for her two children incurred while she is campaigning.”

SUPER PACS IN.   CNN.  “This past Thursday, the Democratic Coalition, a liberal super PAC, announced it would be launching an initiative to support O’Rourke’s Senate campaign.”

AZ:  TARGETING MEASURE.   AZC.  “The group responsible for forcing a public vote on the future of vouchers will now help a bit to block ‘dark money’ in future political campaigns.”

IL:  REFORM NEED.   STLT.  “The small-donor matching program won approval in the Illinois Senate last year but its chances are bleak in the state House, despite the attention given to two inordinately wealthy candidates who are financing their campaigns with millions of dollars of their own money.”

NY:  GUILTY CONVICTION.   WSJ.  “Sheldon Silver, former longtime speaker of New York’s Assembly and once one of the state’s most powerful lawmakers, was convicted Friday of all counts after his retrial on public-corruption charges.”

NY:  GUILTY CONVICTION II.   NYT.  “Mr. Silver’s retrial was widely watched as a test of the government’s ability to prosecute official corruption under the narrower definition. But from the outset, prosecutors this time seemed to hold an upper hand: The original verdict was only thrown out because the judge’s jury instructions were too broad, as defined by the Supreme Court decision.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

5.10 political law links

FEC MEETING.  The agenda for today’s Federal Election Commission meeting is online.

MCCAIN WARNING.   USAT. “According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a secretive, corrupting campaign finance system is at the root of political dysfunction dividing Americans across the country — and he says Congress better fix it.”

REPORTING IN-KINDS.   BG.  “A closer examination of his filings with the Federal Election Commission show that $4.48 million — or 96.6 percent — of the committee’s donations come from him. And it wasn’t even cash; the donations came in the form of in-kind contributions from the candidate.”

LOBBYING RULES IN THE NEWS.   NYDN.  “The embattled attorney and personal fixer to President Trump might have broken federal law by reportedly billing himself an informal White House lobbyist, promising sweeping access to the President to corporations with business before the government.”

CO:  COMPLAINT HIT.   CSI.  “The Republican Party of Chaffee County has some campaign finance problems, according to a complaint filed by the Chaffee County Democratic Party regarding the GOP’s campaign finance report filed last year.”

ID:  INVESTIGATION MISTAKE.   KXLY. “A top state election official apologized on Tuesday for wrongly stating a Republican gubernatorial candidate was under investigation.”

NH:  PUBLIC FINANCING PROPOSED.   WMUR.  “Democratic candidate for governor Steve Marchand wants to remove corporate and political action committee contributions from top state races and proposes using millions of state dollars for matching funds as an incentive for candidates to focus on low-dollar in-state donations.”

CAN:  ALBERTA LOBBYING RULES.   LEX.  “The fundamental principle of the Lobbyists Act—and of lobbying legislation in Canada generally—is to ensure transparency in lobbying activity through registration and the public disclosure of the identity of lobbyists, the organizations on whose behalf they are lobbying, and the subject matter of lobbying communications.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

5.7 political law links

DONATIONS AND LIMITS.   NYP.  “Rosie O’Donnell made illegally over-sized campaign donations to at least five Democratic federal candidates, according to a Post analysis of campaign filings.”

FEC HIT.   FN.  “The Hillary Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee allegedly used state chapters as strawmen to launder as much as $84 million in an effort to circumvent campaign donation limits, and the Federal Election Commission ignored complaints exposing the practice, a lawsuit filed Monday claims.”

CHURCH POLITICS.   WSJ.  “Political activism is reshaping what it means to go to mainline Protestant churches in the Trump era, with tensions bubbling between parishioners who believe church should be a force for political change, and those who believe it should be a haven for spiritual renewal.”

CANADIAN INTERNET DISCLAIMERS.   WP.  “Under the proposed reforms, foreign entities would be banned from spending money to influence elections when previously they could spend up to 500 Canadian dollars. Third parties would be barred from working with other organizations to flout the rules on foreign spending. Ads from political parties or third parties would have to carry ‘identifying taglines.’ And organizations that sell advertising space, such as social media companies, would be prohibited from ‘knowingly’ accepting election ads from foreign entities.”

BOXER SUPER PAC UPDATE.   DS.  “In between rolling out attack ads on Republicans and fine tuning her Twitter posts, Boxer’s PAC has spent liberally on luxury hotels and car services – what she refers to as necessary fundraising expenses.”

CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW IN SPOTLIGHT.   NPR.  “NPR’s Scott Simon asks campaign finance consultant Matthew Sanderson about the legal issues facing President Trump in regards to payments made to Stormy Daniels.”

CLAIMS ON LAW.   CBS.  “Rudy Giuliani appeared Saturday on Fox News’ ‘Justice with Judge Jeanine,’ insisting that President Trump did not violate any campaign finance laws.”

EXPLAINER ON ISSUES.   NYT.  “Recent history suggests that it can be tricky to prove that the motive behind such a payment was political rather than personal.”

MA:  UPDATE ON FIRM CASE.   BG.  “Thornton Law Firm didn’t violate state campaign finance laws when it reimbursed its partners for up to $175,000 in donations to state and local politicians, a special prosecutor said Wednesday.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.