A Federal constitutional amendment allowing Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance is being introduced by U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Michael Bennett.

The amendment, a response to last year’s Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v FEC, grants Congress and the states the power to “regulate the raising and spending of money and in kind equivalents” in their laws for their respective elections.

The bill allows the government to set limits on both the amount of direct political contributions to candidates and the amount of independent expenditures that may be made in support of or in opposition to those candidates.

According to his press release, Senator Udall states, “With the Supreme Court striking down the sensible regulations Congress has passed, the only way to address the root cause of this problem is to give Congress clear authority to regulate the campaign finance system.”

The full text of the proposed amendment reads as follows:

SECTION 1. Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in kind equivalents with respect to Federal elections, including through setting limits on:

(1) The amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office; and

(2) The amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

SECTION 2. A State shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in kind equivalents with respect to State elections, including through setting limits on:

(1) The amount of contributions to candidates for nomination for election to, or for election to, State office; and

(2) The amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.

SECTION 3. Congress shall have power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

A different constitutional amendment addressing the Citizen’s United decision was introduced in September by Congressman John Conyers. Information about that amendment may be found in a prior LobbyComply post here.

Today’s scheduled House Subcommittee hearing with the FEC’s Commissioners has been postponed.

The Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Elections has not yet chosen a new date for the hearing.

You can now watch streaming video feed from the U.S. House floor on your mobile device. HouseLive.gov is beta testing the process, which uses Silverlight, Flash, and HTML5. It should be compatible with your Android device, or on an iPhone and iPad.

Alex Howard of Govfresh wrote a great blog about it in “HouseLive.gov embraces open format to bring live video to mobile devices” on October 11.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s blog made the announcement about it here: “House Floor Now Streams to Your Mobile Device via HouseLive.gov” by Don Seymour.

Registered federal lobbyists may not serve on any boards, commissions, or similar groups created by the President, the Congress, or an Executive Branch department or agency, the Office of Management and Budget (O.M.B.) has affirmed.

The O.M.B. issued its Notice of Final Guidance detailing, in a question and answer format, the limitations of federal lobbyists’ service on federal boards and commissions. The policy does not apply to full-time federal employees, state lobbyists, or employees of organizations that engage in lobbying activities. If an appointment is made pursuant to statutory authority or presidential directive by Congress or state governors, the O.M.B. encourages the appointments to be made to individuals who are not federally registered lobbyists whenever possible.

The O.M.B. policy was created at the directive of a June 18, 2010 Presidential memorandum “Lobbyists on Agency Boards and Commissions.” Federal lobbyists on boards and commission as of June 18, 2010 may serve out the remainder of their terms.

The O.M.B.’s final guidance will be effective 30 days from issuance in the Federal Register.

Today, we get two views of the U.S. Congress and its use of Twitter.

Politico published “Survey: Congress uses Twitter more than millennials” by Tim Mak, which says members of Congress have taken to using Twitter more than American people between the ages of 18 and 29. They say 81% of Congress uses Twitter, while 75% of millennials have adopted its use.

An Associated Press survey, which provided those figures, made the comment that in their estimation, members of Congress could better use the social media platform as an opportunity for genuine interaction with that demographic and less as a social media megaphone for their messages.

Streaming by Ustream

President Obama will be holding a town hall on LinkedIn called “Putting America Back to Work 2011” today at 2:00 pm ET. You can watch the live feed on the LinkedIn site or on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

Send your questions in now at this LinkedIn page.

The Office of Government Ethics (O.G.E.) has issued proposed lobbyist gift ban rules, which would apply to all executive branch employees.

Most of the proposed rules deal with limiting, for lobbyists, the exceptions of the ban on gifts. For example, executive branch employees would not be permitted to accept invitations extended by lobbyists for free attendance at widely attended gatherings that would normally fall under the gift ban exception. Non-profit professional associations, scientific organizations, and learned societies, which are also sometimes registered lobbyists, would still be afforded the exception. The O.G.E. based much of its reasoning on the notion “the cultivation of familiarity and access that a lobbyist [gains]” may be used in the future by lobbyists to obtain more sympathetic hearings for clients.

Another change would preclude lobbyists from the gift ban exception of social invitations, such as invitations to cocktail parties and movie screenings, if the invitations were extended because of the employee’s official position, even if the lobbyist is not a prohibited source. The O.G.E. argues in its proposal that “the lobbyist could use social events as a way to build general good will with a class of employees in case access is needed for a future issue or client.”

The proposed rules arise because an earlier Presidential Executive Order regarding gifts to non-career political appointees, which had called for the O.G.E. “to apply the lobbyist gift ban set forth [in the order] to all executive branch employees.” Written comments about the rule must be received by the O.G.E. before November 14, 2011

For those of you who may have missed some of today’s relevant social media articles, here’s a few for you to check out!

• A platform called Change By Us allows anyone from a city agency, not-for-profit, business, community-based organization, block association, and just normal citizens to start a project to improve his or her city. ‘Change by Us’ Connects Citizens to Government
• You can post and vote for questions that will be asked at the GOP debate that will be held in Orlando, Florida on Sept. 22. GOP Candidates to Face User-Submitted Questions in Google/FOX News Debate
• While government apps have starting to appear everywhere, if they are not updated regularly, they become useless and misleading. Agency apps must be regularly updated or face obsolescence
• The White House will soon be launching a tool that will allow the public to float a petition to the executive branch that becomes “searchable” once it accumulates at least 150 electronic signatures, and the White House will issue an official response if it gets 5,000 signatures. With ‘We The People,’ White House Promises to Go E-to-the-People

Enjoy!

For those of you who may have missed some of today’s relevant social media articles, here’s a few for you to check out!

• The Environmental Protection Agency is challenging the public to help develop apps that utilize EPA data in unique ways in their Apps for the Environment challenge, with a deadline of September 16th. EPA App Challenge Article
• The Government Business Council is looking for input from the public concerning mobile phone apps and how they could be used in the federal government and corresponding agencies. Mobile apps are changing government: Tell us how
• Are you social media savvy? The Obama re-election campaign is hiring “social media copywriters”. Obama Campaign Seeking Social Media Staffers
• A former advisor for President Obama suggested that the real key to open government is for governments to compete for openness. Using Technology to Open Government Should Be a Competition

I hope you find these interesting. Enjoy!

When President Obama launched his Campaign to Cut Waste back in June, the White House also enacted a freeze on new federal websites meaning no one can get a new one without a written waiver from the federal CIO.

In an article posted on ExecutiveGov when the freeze first began, there were nearly 2,000 top-level, federal .gov domains, with smaller sub-sites and microsites adding up to an estimated 24,000 websites “of varying purpose, design, navigation, usability and accessibility.”

A more recent article, “No New Fed Websites for Rest of This Year“, confirms that a memo on behalf of the new federal CIO, Steve VanRoekel, said that the freeze on new federal websites will continue through the remainder of this calendar year.

Read the full memo here.

The White House has expanded its reach into the social media realm by joining Foursquare.

For those of you not familiar with Foursquare, it is a location-based social networking website.

In an article on Mashable, it stated that the White House said that it will be posting tips about the president’s visits around the country as he embarks on an economic bus tour across the Midwest. The White House will also be creating checkin locations for different presidential events.

President Obama was greeted to the social networking site by a post from Foursquare saying,

“Welcome to @foursquare, President Obama! Follow him on foursquare to see where he’s checking in and leaving tips: 4sq.com/WHon4SQ”

Read the full article by Ben Parr, “President Obama Joins Foursquare“.

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.

Twitter “Office Hours” is the newest addition to the White House’s recent utilization of social media in order to connect to the public.

Similar to President Obama’s Twitter town hall, participants can ask a question by including the hashtag #WHChat with their tweets. Replies to questions will come from the @whitehouse Twitter account.

The first of 6 planned sessions was Tuesday, July 26 at 5 PM EDT. After each session, the White House will post a “transcript” of the chat on its blog.

As could be expected, most questions asked were relating to the budget and raising the debt ceiling.

Read the full article titled “White House staff holds Twitter ‘Office Hours’” on NextGov.com.