September 9, 2010 •
Ohio – Doctors Challenge Contribution Restrictions
Nine Cleveland-area doctors have filed a lawsuit in a Cleveland federal court challenging an Ohio law which says they cannot make political contributions to the Ohio Attorney General or local county prosecutors if they treat patients on Medicaid.
The plaintiffs, who wanted to make campaign contributions to the reelection campaign of Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, allege the provisions of Ohio Revised Code section 3599.45 violates their First Amendment rights.
The plaintiffs are seeking an order from the U.S. District Court declaring the law unconstitutional as well as an order enjoining the Ohio Secretary of State from enforcing it.
September 8, 2010 •
Michigan – Pooling of Independent Expenditures Allowed
Unions and corporations in Michigan are allowed to pool funds for independent expenditures under an agreement reached between Secretary of State Land and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber filed for, and was granted, a preliminary injunction against Land’s initial interpretation of Michigan’s campaign finance laws in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision. Land ruled the Chamber may make independent expenditures but could not set up a PAC to make them. Under the stipulated ruling, corporations, organization, and unions are still prohibited from making direct corporate contributions or using a PAC to do so.
Register to view our Citizens United Update and read how other states are reacting to the Citizens United decision, here.
September 8, 2010 •
On This Day: Pardon me, Mr. President…
Today, September 8, 2010 marks the 36th anniversary of a moment that many Americans do not recall and those that do, perhaps, wish they didn’t.
On this day, thirty-six years ago, President Gerald R. Ford issued Proclamation 4311 announcing the unconditional pardon of ex-President Richard Nixon.
Ford had been President just short of a month following the resignation of Nixon on August 9, 1974 when he took the momentous step of pardoning his predecessor. Issuing the pardon would go on to define Ford’s presidency—and most likely cost him the 1976 election against Democrat Jimmy Carter. At the time, many people suspected a backroom deal had led to the pardon, but Ford disagreed. The country needed to move on from the trauma of Watergate and he alone had the power to pardon Richard Nixon even though no charges had been officially filed at that point in time. President Ford, though, believed the time was right. The country’s “long national nightmare” had to end.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon helped the country move past Watergate even though he may have paid a price for it politically in 1976. In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Foundation awarded President Ford the Profile in Courage Award. The Profile in Courage Award honors “modern-day elected officials who stand up for the public interest, even when it is not in their own interest to do so. The award celebrates individuals who choose principles over partisanship – who do what is right, rather than what is expedient.”
August 31, 2010 •
Ask the Experts – Calculating Your Pro-Rata Share of Salary
Here is your chance to “Ask the Experts” at State and Federal Communications, Inc.
You can directly submit questions for this feature, and we will select those most appropriate and answer them here. Send your questions to: marketing@stateandfed.com.
Here is a question we have been asked many, many times by clients over the years.
Q. How do I most accurately calculate my pro-rata share of compensation when I am registered as a lobbyist in five different states? Do I take my gross annual salary and divide it by five?
A. If you take your gross annual salary and divide it by five, you will undoubtedly over-report your compensation. Although you can never go wrong over-reporting, you should also strive for accurate reporting, especially in this instance.
Think of your lobbying in terms of hours. Review your calendar a month, or even a week, at a time to determine the number of hours you lobbied in a particular state. Now, assign a dollar value to those hours, and the result is accurate reporting.
To do this, follow this formula:
1. Take your gross annual salary and divide it by 2,080 (52 weeks in a calendar year multiplied by 40 hours per week). This is your hourly rate.
2. Multiply the number of hours you lobbied by your hourly rate. This amount is the reportable pro-rata share of your compensation for lobbying in that state.
Here’s an example:
1. Gross annual salary is $120,000.
2. $120,000 divided by 2,080, is an hourly rate of $57.69.
3. Fifteen hours lobbied in a particular state during a reporting period, multiplied by the hourly rate of $57.69, is $865.35. In this example, this is your reportable pro-rata share of your compensation for lobbying.
Of course, you have work weeks that exceed 40 hours. And you also go on vacation. Using 2,080 as the number of work hours in a calendar year is a generally accepted accounting principle that will sustain scrutiny of even the most stringent of state auditors.
We are always available to answer questions from clients that are specific to your needs, and we encourage you to continue to call or e-mail us with questions about your particular company or organization. As always, we will confidentially and directly provide answers or information you need. Our replies to your questions are not legal advice. Instead, these replies represent our analysis of laws, rules, and regulations.
August 23, 2010 •
Grassroots Reporting Requirements – Taking Root
It is well known that direct lobbying efforts are regulated in some manner in all fifty states. A growing trend among the states is to not only require registration and reporting for direct lobbying, but also more indirect efforts.
These types of indirect efforts, also known as “grassroots lobbying,” encompass a wide variety of activities. Sanctions, penalties, and fines arise when organizations fail to realize that their efforts to persuade the general population on various issues may possibly be considered lobbying.
The good news is that many states are explicit as to whether they consider grassroots efforts lobbying. States like Arizona and Ohio define lobbying as direct communication with legislators, thereby excluding grassroots. States that do regulate grassroots activity, for example, Mississippi and New Hampshire, use language such as soliciting others and indirect communication with legislators to indicate that grassroots efforts require registration.
Reporting grassroots activity is often more complicated than reporting direct lobbying expenditures. In most states, reporting direct lobbying expenses is straightforward. It is not difficult to determine what is an expenditure spent on an official. Reporting grassroots costs becomes confusing because grassroots lobbying often consists of mass media campaigns, along with websites and e-mails. It is difficult to tell exactly which costs are included in the registration and reporting thresholds. For example, in the case of a website, do you include the salary of the person creating the website, the cost of web access, or the cost of any outsourced work? (more…)
August 17, 2010 •
Ask the Experts – Do I need to report spending on legislators’ spouses?
Here is your chance to “Ask the Experts” at State and Federal Communications, Inc.
You can directly submit questions for this feature, and we will select those most appropriate and answer them here. Send your questions to: marketing@stateandfed.com.
Q. I attended the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures. While there, I took a group of legislators from various states to dinner and picked up the tab. Most of the legislators were accompanied by spouses. In those jurisdictions requiring disclosure of this dinner expenditure, must I also disclose the amount spent on the spouse?
A. Almost all states requiring disclosure of food and beverage expenditures incurred on behalf of reportable officials also require disclosure of the amount spent on the official’s spouse or immediate family member. However, there are exceptions.
- In Idaho, the lobbying law does not require disclosure of expenditures for spouses and family members of legislators. However, it is common practice for lobbyists to report such expenditures anyway.
- In Michigan, food and beverage expenditures on behalf of spouses or family members are not reportable. However, travel expenditures greater than $725 on behalf of spouses or family members are reportable.
- In Montana, a principal is not required to report expenditures made on behalf of a spouse or immediate family member of a legislator, public officer, or employee.
- In Rhode Island, expenditures made on behalf of family members are not reportable as lobbyist expenditures, but are reported by elected officials.
- In Vermont, expenditures on behalf of a spouse or immediate family member are not reportable.
(We are always available to answer questions from clients that are specific to your needs, and we encourage you to continue to call or e-mail us with questions about your particular company or organization. As always, we will confidentially and directly provide answers or information you need.) Our replies to your questions are not legal advice. Instead, these replies represent our analysis of laws, rules, and regulations.
August 13, 2010 •
Connecticut House Overrides Rell’s Veto
The latest news on the bill to fix the Citizens’ Election Program in Connecticut.
The Connecticut House of Representatives voted to override Governor M. Jodi Rell’s veto of the bill designed to reinstate the public election financing program, which had been previously limited by a federal court decision. The state senate had already voted to override the veto.
The immediate effect of the vote is to provide gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy with six million dollars from the Citizens’ Election Program, twice as much as he was originally scheduled to receive.
August 10, 2010 •
Nola Werren’s Impressions from NCSL 2010
Nola Werren, Esq., a Client Specialist at State and Federal Communications, Inc., manages the company’s C³ Consulting Services.
For the twelfth consecutive year, State and Federal Communications, Inc. exhibited at the National Conference of State Legislature’s Annual Legislative Summit. This year the conference was held in Louisville, Kentucky. We always find that our attendance at the conference is enriching and productive, even when some days start with a 7:30 a.m. team breakfast meeting and end with the SGAC Late Night event [which, by the way, is never a disappointment]!
However, this year stands apart from the rest in that I was invited to moderate one of the continuing legal education sessions. Entitled Citizens United v. FEC: Political Blockbuster?, the panel addressed the ruling in January by the United States Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to bar corporations and labor unions from making either independent expenditures or electioneering communications. At NCSL’s 2010 Spring Forum held in Washington, D.C., in April, the group immediately saw the importance of including a session at the annual Legislative Summit to address the impact the Court decision will undoubtedly have on the states.
The panel was comprised of Ken Gross, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Washington, D.C.; Jason Torchinsky, a partner at Holtzman Vogel PLLC, in Virginia; and Maryland Delegate Jon S. Cardin, who represents Maryland’s 11th District in Northwest Baltimore County. Disclosure requirements in light of the post-Citizens United political landscape were perhaps the most lively debated issue by the panel, and it could not have been more timely given the fact that within the hour after our panel adjourned, Senate Democrats failed to gather the 60 votes needed to overcome an expected filibuster of The DISCLOSE Act, Congress’ legislative response to the ruling in Citizens United.
Here is Nola Werren moderating the Citizens United Panel discussion at NCSL:
No recap of this year’s NCSL Legislative Summit would be complete without mentioning Ohio Night. The venue for the event was the LeRoy Neiman Gallery at the Muhammad Ali Center. Having grown up watching a lot of Sunday afternoon sports with my dad, I was quite familiar with LeRoy Neiman and his signature artistic style. He would usually start with a blank canvass at the beginning of, let’s say, a golf tournament, and by the end of the tournament, his abstract was complete and captured the essence of the event in all its vivid glory. Well, the gallery at the Muhammad Ali Center did not disappoint. Especially impressive were his renderings of the two Ali versus Liston fights for boxing’s world heavyweight championships.
Every year since 1999, our experience at the annual NCSL Legislative Summit seems to outdo the previous year. Next year’s summit in San Antonio will undoubtedly live up to that expectation….and who knows what “political blockbuster” might occur between now and then.
July 13, 2010 •
West Virginia Attorney General Raises Possibility of November Special Election to Fill Sen. Byrd’s Seat
Legislature May Change the Election Code in Special Session This Month
Attorney General Darrell McGraw issued a statement suggesting a special primary election be held in November to begin the process of filling U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd’s seat despite the fact current law does not allow for it. Byrd, who served in the Senate for more than 50 years, passed away on June 28, 2010. The initial ruling from Secretary of State Natalie Tennant says the election may not be held until November, 2012 because the filing deadline to be a candidate has passed. McGraw says Tennant’s ruling does not give enough weight to the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution, which provides for popular election of Senators and only temporary appointments. Under McGraw’s plan, the legislature would actually change the state election code to allow for an election this year under these circumstances. Governor Joe Manchin has indicated he will speak with legislative leadership about changing the election code at the special session scheduled to convene on July 19, 2010.
July 8, 2010 •
Ask the Experts – Corporate Contributions in California
State and Federal Communications’ Experts Answer Your Questions.
Here is your chance to “Ask the Experts” at State and Federal Communications, Inc. You can directly submit questions for this feature, and we will select those most appropriate and answer them here. Send your questions to: marketing@stateandfed.com. (Of course, we have always been available to answer questions from clients that are specific to your needs, and we encourage you to continue to call or e-mail us with questions about your particular company or organization. As always, we will confidentially and directly provide answers or information you need.) Our replies to your questions are not legal advice. Instead, these replies represent our analysis of laws, rules, and regulations.
Q. My employer makes corporate contributions in California. We have not yet exceeded $10,000 in calendar year 2010. The primary election and special elections are taking place, along with the general election in the fall. If we decide to make contributions, when do we have a late contribution report due?
A. The California “Late Contribution Report” [Form 497], sometimes referred to as the “24-hour report” is due during the 16-day period preceding any election if all of the following criteria are met:
- The contribution is $1,000 or more. This includes non-monetary and in-kind contributions.
- The corporation making the contribution must have already qualified as a major donor, or the contribution made during the 16-day period before the election puts them over the $10,000 threshold and they become a major donor.
- The recipient candidate or ballot committee must appear on the ballot at the election for which the 16-day period applies.
- Contributions to political parties made during the 16-day period are also included.
The filing requirements for Form 497 are:
- The report is due within 24 hours of making the contribution.
- No signature is required.
- The report must be filed electronically with the California Secretary of State, Political Reform Division, and then followed up by paper filing via facsimile to the following:
- California Secretary of State, Political Reform Division
- Los Angeles County Registrar/Recorder
- San Francisco City and County Registrar
If the contribution is non-monetary or in-kind, the contributor must notify the recipient of the value of the contribution within 24 hours of making the contribution. The notice of value does not need to be filed with the state or any of the other filing offices listed above.
There is no standardized form. The notice should be sent to the recipient by personal delivery, fax, or guaranteed overnight delivery.
As a reminder, the late contribution must still be reported on the next major donor report that is due. In 2010, major donor reports are due July 31, 2010, for the period covering January 1 to June 30; and January 31, 2011, for the period covering July 1 to December 31.
State and Federal Communications, Inc. provides research and consulting services for government relations professionals on lobbying laws, procurement lobbying laws, political contribution laws in the United States and Canada. Learn more by visiting stateandfed.com.