State senator Jim Arnold announced he will introduce legislation to regulate lobbying disclosure rules for all levels of local government in Indiana. In his proposed bill, spending by vendors bidding for contracts of $100,000 or more with a governmental body would trigger mandatory disclosure.

Local governmental officials, including county commissioners and city council members, would be required to report whenever a lobbyist spent money on them over a threshold limit.

The law is not intended to supersede local ordinances but would still establish and necessitate minimum requirements of disclosure.

Photo of State senator Jim Arnold courtesy of the Indiana Senate Web site.

A grand jury convened to investigate government corruption has issued its first interim report.

The report makes various recommendations, including the elimination of “3-pack” advertising, where a political party may advertise jointly for three or more candidates without it being considered a contribution to any candidate.

The report also recommends a lifetime ban on vendors entering into any contract with Florida if convicted of a crime involving theft or procurement with the state.

Among the other suggestions the grand jury makes is a requirement candidates receive election and campaign finance law training. “Election and campaign laws constitute an intricate blanket of laws which can lead an honest and sincere public official or candidate to run afoul even with the best efforts to comply,” the report states.

The statewide grand jury had been called by Governor Christ and heard testimony for ten months.

A superior court judge has ruled the Secretary of State cannot refuse to provide procedural information regarding a complaint made against a lobbyist. In NCICL v. North Carolina, Judge Paul G. Gessner found no basis in law for the refusal to grant information regarding a formal complaint previously made about a legislative lobbyist.

The Secretary of State had argued the state public records laws prohibited them from releasing any information, and had refused to reveal any details, including the status of the complaint or even whether any action had been taken.

The Federal Election Commission has issued Advisory Opinion AO2010-30 Citizens United, allowing Citizens United to rent its email subscriber mailing list to federal candidates, political party committees, and political committees.

The commission concluded the rental is not a coordinated expenditure or a coordinated communication. Citizens United plans to rent its list at fair market prices using a commercial list brokerage firm.

The commission did not have enough votes to approve a response as to whether using the list to solicit contributions or invite recipients to a fundraiser violates the prohibition against corporate facilitation of contributions to candidates or political committees.

A special legislative session has been announced for March 30, 2011 to redraw state and federal districts. The redistricting will include congressional, state education board, and judicial districts.

Significant district changes are anticipated due to overall population decline and shifts in population concentration as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The session has been called by legislators, not the governor, for the first time in state history.

Photo of Louisiana State Capitol building by Bluepoint951 on Wikipedia.

A panel of the Administrative Conference of the United States has made a recommendation of ethics standards for government contractors and their employees. Under the proposed rules, a contractor would be prohibited from accepting gifts from anyone who is seeking an official action from the contract work or who has some interest substantially affected by the contract.

A contractor would also have to certify, prior to commencing work on any contract, no participating employee has a conflict. If conflicts do exist, the contractor would be required to request waivers for such conflicts, or disclose any conflicts and propose a mitigation plan.

The Conference is an independent agency of the federal government serving as an advisory organization.

Update: Kathy Kyle, Communications Director with the Administrative Conference of the United States, sent us a wonderful clarification, which we quote here:

The “recommendation” that you reference in your blog is an initial draft recommendation that was considered by the Committee at its most recent meeting, on December 3, 2010.  Over the course of the next several months, the Committee plans to hold one or more additional meetings wherein it will further discuss the issues related to the project and will revise the recommendation.  Once the Committee has produced its final recommendation, the recommendation will then be presented to the ACUS Council and then to the full Conference meeting in plenary session, set for a vote.  If approved, the final recommendation will then be published in the Federal Register.

The Republican National Committee has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court challenging limits on the amounts a political party can spend in coordination with candidates. Filed on the RNC’s behalf by James Bopp, Jr., the RNC argues the expenditures constitute the party’s free speech.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said, “The right of political parties to express their members’ views about their candidates for office while also working directly with those candidates to help elect them is crucial to a healthy democracy.”

The case being appealed, Cao v. FEC, found contribution limits constitutional as applied to the RNC.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has proposed a ban on political contributions from banks which arrange derivative trading with federal, public, and municipal agencies. The banks would be prohibited from making campaign donations to public officials who have the power to award work to the banks.

The commission voted unanimously to seek public comment on December 16 with the view to complete the regulations by 2011.

State Senator Loretta Weinberg has proposed legislation to end loopholes in the New Jersey pay-to-play laws and to end “wheeling”, the channeling of money through different political committees to avoid contribution limits. “This new bill will give us the iron-clad restrictions against the practice of using campaign cash to influence decision-makers that has unfortunately become business as usual in the Garden State,” said Weinberg.

Additionally, county and municipal political parties would be banned from donating to each other and limited to donating $25,000 to state parties. County parties would only be allowed to donate to local parties within their jurisdiction. Senator Weinberg would like her pay-to-play reform added as a part of Governor Christie’s municipal and county “tool kit”, but has not received any response from the Governor.

Photo of Sen. Loretta Weinberg by Bbsrock on Wikipedia.

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin is pursuing the creation of a local ethics commission to replace the city’s reliance on the state. Currently, city ethics issues are resolved by South Carolina’s ethics commission. Mayor Benjamin believes reliance on a local commission with local ordinances would better serve Columbia and its city council.

The seven member commission would be made up of four residents from each of the council’s four political districts, a certified public accountant, a local business owner and an attorney. The attorney, who would serve as chairman, must not have done business with the city.

Photo of downtown Columbia by Akhenaton06 on Wikipedia.

Maryland General Assembly Delegate Justin Ross will introduce legislation requiring local officials to recuse themselves from voting on building projects if a developer contributed to a shared campaign account affiliated with the official.

Presently, local leaders may vote on land use projects while indirectly receiving political contribution from these developers through accounts shared with General Assembly candidates.

In addition to the officials recusing themselves, developers would have to provide detailed information about all contributions to individual and shared accounts when they are requesting a land use decision from a council.

A District Court has issued a judgment upholding $5,000 limits on party contributions to candidates.

In Cao v. FEC, the District Court Eastern District of Louisiana, following a prior judgment from the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on other grounds, found 2 U.S.C. §441a(a)(2)(A) constitutional even though it imposes the same contribution limits on parties as on PACs and the limits are not adjusted for inflation.

The suit had been brought by Louisiana Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Louisiana.

The Federal Election Commission issued Advisory Opinion 2010-23 denying a request allowing for political contributions to be made through cell phone texting. CTIA, a nonprofit trade association representing the wireless communications industry, proposed a program where political contributions could be made by texting five or six digit code numbers in the same manner which contributions are made for charitable donations. As proposed by CTIA, the contribution would be made at the time the phone user pays their monthly bill which would include the charge from the text pledge.

Over a 30-day period, a connection aggregator would collect contributions from all wireless service providers and then transfer the funds to the particular political committee. The Commission found the time frame for contributions to be forwarded to political committees would take longer than permissible under the law, contributions would not be segregated from other corporate funds, and CTIA’s safeguards to ensure the contributions were not from impermissible sources were inadequate.

The 19th Judicial District Court of Baton Rouge has ruled the Ethics Board cannot enforce penalties for campaign finance violations. The court found a separate Ethics Adjudicatory Board must conduct public hearings when the Ethics Board alleges the late filing of, or absence of filing, campaign reports.

The Ethics Board had argued campaign violations requiring investigations were already referred to the Ethics Adjudicatory Board, but cases involving the mere failure to file reports on time, or not at all, did not require any investigation, and therefore did not require a separate hearing. The division of giving the Ethics Board investigatory and prosecutorial authority, while giving the Ethics Adjudicatory Board judicial power, comes from a 2008 change in the law meant to streamline the regulatory process.