State and Federal Communications was proud to be a Gold Sponsor at the Greater Akron Chamber’s 105th Annual Meeting. The event gave the Greater Akron Chamber the opportunity to highlight the many ways it is working to promote growth, innovation, and cooperation in our region.

Steve Marks, Co-CEO of Main Street Gourmet and founder of the Akron Marathon, was the recipient of the H. Peter Burg Award.

Elizabeth Bartz, President and CEO of State and Federal Communications, is a member of the Greater Akron Chamber’s Board of Directors.

This week instead of one site, we are highlighting a host of sites. Every presidential election brings with it the desire to predict an outcome. Here are the forecasts of a few pundits (and otherwise):

For the “tried and true”

If you like a voice of experience, take a look at James Zogby’s “Predicting the Presidential Election: 2012” in the Huffington Post. His article presents the finding of American University professor Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted the outcome of every election from 1984 through 2008. His vote is on Obama.

U.S. News and World Report’s Paul Bedard and Lauren Fox also talk about Lichtman in “Never-Wrong Pundit Picks Obama to Win in 2012.”

Forbes gives us “Yahoo’s Signal Predicts Presidential Election: Obama Over Romney” by Tomio Geron. Yahoo uses a system called The Signal, which claims to be correct 88% of the time, with a 3% margin of error.

Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight blog on The New York Times gives Republican primary projections and so does Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball in “Romney Set to Dominate Race Through April.”

For the social media aficionados

USA Today published “Can social media predict election outcomes?” by Scott Martin and Jon Swartz, who take a look at Facebook and Twitter conversations as election indicators.

The Meltwater Group gives us this word cloud showing us how much buzz the candidates are generating in social media from “We the People – Social Media Voices on Election 2012.”

PRMarketing.com posted “Predicting the 2012 President” by James Rognon, where he predicts Lady Gaga would win if we look solely at social media connections.

For the betting type of person

There is the “2012 United States Presidential Election Betting Odds” on politicalbettingodds.com.

Electoralmap.net’s 2012 Electoral Map Forecast says it uses “data from the Intrade prediction market, where individuals place wagers on the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election in each state.”

Who knows, perhaps someday a super-computer will come along with a super algorithm that can – with extreme accuracy – predict the outcome of an upcoming election and we could dispense with all of the campaign ad spending and debates, etc. Until that time, enjoy these sites as they cast their predictions.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Eric Nuzum, Vice President for Programming at National Public Radio, spoke today at The Akron Roundtable. In his presentation – “Dare to Listen” – Nuzum gave the audience a bit of his background from his days attending Kent State University and working at WKSU before heading to Washington D.C. to work for NPR. He also spoke about the importance and resilience of radio at a time of great changes in media.

As public and political discourse has often become polarizing, extreme, and perhaps even uncivil, Eric Nuzum stressed the need for each of us listen to each other and especially to listen to those who may have a different perspective than our own.

Thank you Eric and thank you Akron Roundtable for offering us such an energizing and uplifting talk!

The presentation will be broadcast tonight at 7:00 PM on 89.7 WKSU.

If you don’t file your campaign finance paperwork in Illinois, you will receive a fine from the State Board of Elections. Take a look at “Political committees owe Illinois $800,000 in fines” by Andrew Thomason in the McDonough Voice.

As the article notes, there is no criminal penalty involved, but candidates could find out they are not eligible to run for elected office if they don’t take care of the fines.

According to the article:

The Illinois State Board of Elections, or ISBE, has 553 outstanding fines totaling $808,235.15 against political committees for either filing campaign finance reports late or violating Illinois’ campaign finance laws. Fines date back to 2003 and range from $25 to $10,000.

Take a tour of our site and click on the “Free Live Online Demo” on the middle of the left column of the home page. You will open a page with three blue links, located in the middle of the page:

•Executive Source Guide on Lobbying Laws
•Executive Source Guide on Political Contributions
•Executive Source Guide on Procurement Lobbying

Click on any one – or all three – to view the state of Alaska compliance information we provide to clients. This comprehensive and vital compliance information is updated continuously.

We have this same online information for all 50 states, the federal government, and 226 municipal and regional governments.

If you would like to view everything we have for online clients, contact us at info@stateandfed.com or 330-761-9960 and ask about our two-week trial. There is no cost for the trial, and you are under no obligation to purchase.

We can think of no better way for you to see the value in our online resources than for you and your team to actually use them for two weeks in your compliance efforts.

Florida: “Lawmakers ready to tackle redistricting during special session” by Bill Kaczor (Associated Press) in Florida Today.

Florida: “Legislators return for special session to redraw rejected Senate map” by Mary Ellen Klas The Miami Herald.

Florida: “Senate Re-Redistricting Plan Is Flawed, Says State Dem Chair” by Brandon Larrabee in Sunshine Slate.

Kansas: “Kansas lawmakers face votes on redistricting plans” by The Associated Press in the Wichita Eagle.

Minnesota: “Redistricting maps give DFL advantage in legislative races, but …” by Eric Black on MinnPost.com.

New York: “An Update on New York Redistricting” by Thomas Kaplan in The New York Times.

New York: “Silver bristles at Cuomo slap at NY Legislature” by The Associated Press in The Wall Street Journal.

New York: “New York: Redistricting End Is Nigh” by Joshua Miller in Roll Call.

Howard Marlowe, president of the American League of Lobbyists, recently sent a letter to President Obama asking him to change his tone toward lobbyists and the lobbying profession. The organization is making a connection between the administration’s anti-lobbyist rhetoric and the rising number of unregistered lobbyists.

Whether they are calling themselves consultants or advisers, Marlowe points out that these people are lobbying and their activity thus goes on without any oversight:

“Those who are not registered are protected from discovery by the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism. Our primary concern with incentivizing deregistration is that the public loses knowledge of who these people are lobbying, who is paying for their advocacy work, how much they are being paid, and what issues are they being paid to work on.”

For full news coverage, please read “Lobbyists to Obama: Tone down the rhetoric!” by Byron Tau in Politico.

Photo of the White House by UpstateNYer on Wikipedia.

“Poll: Voters want super PACs to be illegal” by Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake in The Washington Post.

“Poll shows public wants to ban super PACs” by Callum Borchers in the Boston Globe.

“Super-PAC Ads Dominate Republican Race in Alabama, Mississippi” by Greg Giroux in Bloomberg.

“Spending by super PACs in Colorado is the dominion of Democrats” by Karen Crummy in the Denver Post.

“GOP campaign spending lowest since 1990s” by Dan Eggen in the Bangor Daily News.

“Rhode Island’s Top 25 Biggest Spending PACs” by Dan McGowan in GoLocal Prov.

Campaign Finance

“The Super PAC Paradox” by Eliza Newlin Carney in Roll Call.

“The year’s busiest day of campaign fundraising shows how Springfield really works” by Ray Long and Alissa Groeninger in the Chicago Tribune.

“Group to appeal Iowa campaign finance ruling” by The Associated Press in the Globe Gazette.

Lobbying

“Retiring lawmakers openly eye K Street” by Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman in Politico.

“Lobbying pays off big for business” by Toluse Olorunnipa in the Miami Herald.

“Facebook ‘friends’ a new lobby firm” by Rachel Leven in The Hill.

This week is Sunshine Week, the annual initiative by the American Society of News Editors that promotes and celebrates open government.  Here are some of the first news stories about awards given for online government transparency:

“California state government’s website gets high marks for transparency” by Jon Ortiz in the Sacramento Bee.

“IL governments awarded for online transparency” by Andrew Thomason in the Illinois Statehouse News.

“DC.gov Web site gets high marks for transparency” by Mike DeBonis in the Washington Post.

“6 Utah websites get government transparency awards” by The Associated Press in the Daily Herald.

“3 Richmond-area agencies honored for online transparency” by Jeremy Slayton in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“National group honors 14 Virginia entities for online government transparency” by The Associated Press in the Washington Post.

“W.Va.’s state website honored for transparency” by The Associated Press in the Wausau Daily Herald.

FLORIDA: The 2012 session of the Florida legislature adjourned on Friday, March 9th. Governor Rick Scott now has 15 days to sign or veto legislation, or the legislation will become law without his signature. Additionally, Governor Scott has called the legislature back to Tallahassee for a special session, set to begin Wednesday, March 14th. The session is slated to deal with the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the legislature’s redistricting plan for the state Senate.

INDIANA: Lawmakers concluded the 2012 legislative session at nearly 2:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 10th.

VIRGINIA: The General Assembly concluded the 2012 legislative session on Saturday, March 10, 2012. The assembly introduced 2,875 bills during the 60-day legislative session. Nearly 1,600 passed, and the Governor has already signed over 200 into law.

WEST VIRGINIA: The legislature of West Virginia adjourned sine die shortly before midnight on Saturday, March 10, 2012. The legislature then reconvened shortly thereafter on Sunday, March 11, 2012, to begin work on the 2012 extended budget session.

ARKANSAS: The fiscal session of the Arkansas General Assembly adjourned at noon on Friday, March 9, 2012.

OREGON: The Oregon Legislative Assembly has adjourned sine die for the 2012 regular session on March 5.

UTAH: The 2012 general session of the Utah State Legislature adjourned sine die on March 8, ending on its 45th day, the last permitted by the Constitution for annual general sessions. Governor Gary Herbert has until March 28 to sign or veto bills presented to him by the legislature.

WASHINGTON: The 2012 regular session of the Washington State Legislature adjourned sine die on March 8, 2012. Governor Gregoire has called for a special session to begin on March 12, 2012 to address a supplemental budget plan.

WYOMING: The State of Wyoming Legislature adjourned sine die on March 8. Governor Matt Mead has until March 26 to sign or veto legislation that reaches his desk.

Many thanks to our terrific Research Department for this update!

The Obama administration has unveiled Ethics.gov, the site that provides sets of data for those interested in White House visitors, data from Lobbying Disclosure Act reports, campaign finance data, travel records of elected officials, and much more.

As part of the larger Data.gov, the new site has a great deal of muscle: “Ethics.Data.gov brings records and data from across the federal government to one central location, making it easier for citizens to hold public officials accountable.”

According to the Ethics.gov site, this is what you’ll find:

“On www.Ethics.gov, the public will be able to find millions of White House Visitor records.  You will be able to see agency reports of payments from non-Federal sources for travel to meetings and conferences.

You’ll find records for entities registered with the Federal Election Commission.  This includes federal political action committees and party committees, campaign committees for presidential, House and Senate candidates, as well as groups or organizations who are spending money in connection with elections for federal office.

You’ll also find records for each candidate who has either registered with the Federal Election Commission or appeared on a ballot list prepared by a state elections office. This includes contributor information for each contribution of $200 or more from an individual to a federal committee.

Finally, you’ll be able to find lobbying registrations and reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.”

For a good summary, read “White House Launches Ethics.gov” by Samuel Rubenfeld in The Wall Street Journal.

With all of the attention placed on the Republican primaries and caucuses – especially with Super Tuesday happening this week – our Highlighted Site of the Week is a trio of delegate tracker sites.

Politico has a great Delegate Tracker page that can help you make sense of where each of the candidates stands in gaining the biggest portion of the 2,286 delegates needed to win the nomination at the GOP National Convention.

I personally like the GOP Delegate Tracker on The Wall Street Journal’s Election 2012 site. It has a bar graph with the candidates, an interactive map of the states, and even an interactive timeline.

There is, of course, always The New York Times. They have their Republican Delegate Count page and their State-by-State Primary Results page. As part of the NYTimes Election 2012 online resources, you can easily navigate to reviews of the debates and summaries of campaign finance information for each candidate.

Video courtesy of The Associated Press.

Have a great weekend everyone!