The American Bar Association (ABA) has adopted a resolution urging the United States Congress to amend the Federal Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA).

Recommendations made in “Resolution 104B Revised” by the ABA House of Delegates include narrowing the current time threshold required for registration and barring campaign fundraising for members of Congress lobbied within the previous two years.

Additional resolutions includes the following information be disclosed in a lobbyist’s quarterly reports: disclosure of lobbying support activities performed by retained entities; reporting of the identification of individuals “principally involved in planning, directing, or coordinating lobbying support activities”; identification of individuals with any level of involvement in the lobbying activities who have recently served as high-ranking federal officials; and all congressional offices, congressional committees, and federal agencies and offices contacted by lobbyists employed.

A Federal Court has ruled aliens who are in the United States on temporary work visas may not make political contributions to federal candidates or political parties.

In Bluman v FEC, the court upheld 2 U.S.C §441(e)(a), which prohibits contributions from individuals living in the U.S. but not admitted for permanent residency. The federal statute was challenged by two foreign citizens living in the United States who want to make direct contributions to candidates and political parties.

In upholding the law, the court wrote in its decision, “It is fundamental to the definition of our national political community that foreign citizens do not have a constitutional right to participate in, and thus may be excluded from, activities of democratic self-government.”

In response to this week’s legislation raising the federal debt limit ceiling and creating a new Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, U.S. Senator David Vitter announced he is introducing a bill requiring 48-hour disclosure of campaign contributions over $1,000 to any appointed member of the committee or their leadership PACs.

“We need to see full transparency and accountability because these committee members will be making huge decisions with a lot on the line,” Senator Vitter said.

The 48-hour rule would continue until the committee expires on January 21, 2012.

The full press release can be found here.

California may become the first state to allow political contributions on the state and local levels to be made by text message on your smartphone. The  California Fair Political Practices Commission is behind a plan that would allow such contributions by the 2012 elections. Approval is expected by October.

The hope is that this will allow for small donations and widen the number of people who are engaged in the political process. Last December, the Federal Election Commission rejected a similar plan for federal campaigns.

Here is a Capital Public Radio recording of Commission Chair Ann Ravel talking about the idea and what regulations would need to accompany it.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle offers “Calif. poised to OK political donations via text,” by Carla Marinucci.

Santa Clara Superior Court Judge James P. Kleinberg has issued a proposed decision striking down a San Jose law that bars campaign contributions to candidates during the 17 days leading up to an election.

The proposed decision will be finalized in August.

We now provide information on lobbying, political contributions, and procurement lobbying for:

Elizabeth, New Jersey

Eugene, Oregon

Lakewood, Colorado

The office of the Secretary of State has released an amended version of the Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance, 8 CCR 1505-6.

Rule 5.13 now requires reports of contributions and expenditures to be filed on a monthly basis leading up to the state’s primary election in June and continuing until reports are required to be filed on a biweekly basis beginning in September.

The rule was necessitated by the enactment of Senate Bill 11-189, which changed the date of the state’s primary from August to June. Thus, the requirement to begin filing biweekly reports in July prior to the now vacated primary election date in August was rendered infeasible.

We now provide information on lobbying, political contributions, and procurement lobbying for Gilbert, Arizona; Savannah, Georgia; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Springfield, Missouri; and Syracuse, New York on our website.

The image of North America by Bosonic dressing on Wikipedia.

Amendments to the Los Angeles County campaign finance laws are expected to be introduced at the July 26, 2011 meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

The current campaign finance ordinance prohibits PACs and political parties from making contributions to county candidates and prohibits inter- and intra-candidate transfers of funds.

The proposed campaign finance amendments would increase individual campaign contribution limits as well as permit contributions from PACs and political parties.

Under the proposed amendments, inter-candidate transfers would be treated as individual contributions.

Intra-candidate transfers between a prior and current campaign account would be permissible and subject to regulatory measures.

The campaign finance practices of Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee have come under fire as his campaign has asked supporters of his past congressional campaigns to roll their donations forward to his current campaign, regardless of contribution limits.

Inslee could then ask those donors for additional money that would be subject to the state’s campaign finance limits for the 2012 election cycle.

Republican candidate Rob McKenna’s campaign, characterized the money as “illegal.”

The Washington Public Disclosure Commission staff has stated that Inslee’s interpretations of campaign finance regulations are correct.

McKenna’s campaign pointed to federal election documents that show Inslee never declared the cash as surplus money, meaning it cannot be transferred, and also questioned whether a federal candidate could ever move money to a state campaign because the cash was raised under different election rules.

Federal:

Edwards Campaign Owes $2 Million

Pakistan’s Military Plotted to Tilt U.S. Policy, FBI Says

Washington’s Long Debt-Ceiling Debate Hits K Street in the Wallet

From the States and Municipalities:

Alabama

Country Stars Push Senator to Vote

California

Jerry Brown Assumes Uncommon Influence over FPPC

Georgia

Ethics Panelists Gave to Campaigns

Hawaii

Hawaii Ethics Director: Lawmakers ‘Pushed’ the Line on Gifts

Maine

Judge Strikes Down Maine’s Matching Funds Law

Massachusetts

Massachusetts House Democrats Block Debate on Republicans’ Ethics Rules Changes

North Carolina

North Carolina Election Will Go On, Even if No One Is Running

Pennsylvania

Chairman: Ethics board ‘being strangled’ by budget cuts

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Official Fired for Accepting Meals, Gifts from City Contractors

Tennessee

Tennessee GOP Finds Loophole in Campaign Law

Washington

Judge Blocks Washington Limit on Recall Contributions

West Virginia

Some W.Va. Election Ad Rules Again Struck Down

State and Federal Communications produces a weekly summary of national news, offering more than 80 articles per week focused on ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance.

News You Can Use is a news service provided at no charge only to clients of our online Executive Source Guides, or ALERTS™ consulting clients.

Jim Sedor is editor of News You Can Use.

Judge Thomas Johnston of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia has struck down key provisions of campaign finance law pertaining to electioneering communications.

In a suit filed by West Virginians for Life and the Center for Individual Freedom, the court held that while the state of West Virginia could regulate advertisements that “can have no other reasonable meaning than to urge the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidates,” the state could not require financial disclosures from third party groups creating advertisements that are merely “susceptible” to the interpretation that they are an appeal for or against a specific candidate.

Further, the court struck down the extension of electioneering communication regulations to print media while upholding the applicability of such regulations to broadcast media.

We now provide information on lobbying, political contributions, and procurement lobbying for Miami, Florida; Pembroke Pines, Florida; and Vancouver, Washington on our website.

The image of North America by Bosonic dressing on Wikipedia.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bryan has issued a preliminary injunction barring the state from enforcing campaign contribution limits with respect to an effort to recall the Pierce County assessor. Washington restricts contributions to recall campaigns to $800 or less, though political parties and their official committees may contribute more.

In his decision Judge Bryan stated “the public interest in upholding free speech and association rights outweighs the interest in continued enforcement of these campaign finance provisions.”

Enforcement of the recall campaign contribution limits is enjoined pending a trial over whether the limits are constitutional.