LobbyComply Blog

As part if its Weekly Historical Highlights, the website of the U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Clerk remembers the very first presidential inauguration at Federal Hall in New York City. On April 30, 1789, the inauguration ceremony for George Washington was held in Federal Hall, where Federal Congress first met before moving to Philadelphia. The Office of the Clerk site gives an account of the event and says Washington was very humbled by the occasion.

The original building was located on Wall Street. It was built in 1700 and originally served as the New York City Hall. From 1785-1789, it served as the capitol where Congress met. According to the U.S. Senate website: “When Congress convened for the first time on March 4, 1789, the old building had been converted into a splendid capitol, optimistically renamed Federal Hall.”

The National Park Service (NPS.gov) gives us a great picture of the landmark events that Federal Hall has witnessed: “After the American Revolution, the Continental Congress met at City Hall and, in 1787, adopted the Northwest Ordinance, establishing procedures for creating new states.When the Constitution was ratified in 1788, New York remained the national capital. Pierre L’Enfant [who designed the city plan for the District of Columbia] was commissioned to remodel the City Hall for the new federal government. The First Congress met in the now Federal Hall and wrote the Bill of Rights.”

The NPS goes on to say that when the nation’s capital was moved to Philadelphia, the building went back to being New York’s city hall. In 1812 the building was torn down and a new one was opened in 1842, functioning first as the Customs House, then as a Treasury, and finally as a national memorial to Federal Hall.

If you are in New York City, there is tour information for Federal Hall here and here. You might wish to follow the New Amsterdam trail that starts at Castle Clinton and ends with Federal Hall.

Have a great weekend!

The U.S. House of Representatives has debuted a beta version of its new website.

The Hill reports the U.S. State Department has shut down its website America.gov and will put its communications work into social media.

ExecutiveGov.com reports that Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) is seeking more information from White House Chief Information Officer about which open government websites are at risk of being cut.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report stating that, with a small percentage of exceptions, most lobbyists comply with the federal lobbying disclosure laws.

Here is the full text of the report from the GAO.

For a good summary of the report, read Roll Call’s article “GAO: K Street Largely Complying With Disclosure Rules” by Alex Knott.

The Roll Call article noted that the annual report to Congress is required as part of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. The scope of the results included analysis of disclosure reports for the fourth quarter 2009 and the first three quarters of 2010.

The American Bar Association’s Task Force on Federal Lobbying Laws has issued a report recommending several changes to existing federal lobbying laws. The Task Force proposes broadening registration requirements for lobbyist by eliminating the current twenty percent rule, the threshold amount of time devoted to lobbying required before triggering registration.

The Task Force also recommends disclosing outside lobbying support by other firms and individuals, including details of compensation, specific identities of those involved, and short narrative summaries of the work performed. Lobbying support would be defined to include monitoring legislative and administrative developments related to lobbying goals, strategic advice, polling, and other activities. Additionally, in some situations, the lobbying support entity would be required to file disclosures.

The report includes other recommendations including strengthening the regulation of lobbyist participation in political fundraising.

The report by the Task Force on Federal Lobbying Laws has not been approved by the Council of the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, the House of Delegates, or the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association.

Photo of the American Bar Association building in Washington, D.C. by AgnosticPreachersKid at enwikipedia.

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 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.

Following a recent meeting, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board issued a request for comment on a rule regulating the business activities of municipal advisors with municipal entities when they have made political contributions to officials responsible for awarding that business.

You can read the press release from the MSRB here.

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.

A lawsuit has been filed in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia seeking to allow foreign citizens to make political contributions. 2 U.S.C. § 441e and its implementing regulations prohibit political contributions and independent expenditures by foreign nationals living lawfully in the U.S.A. but without legal permanent residence. In Bluman v. FEC, the two plaintiffs, a doctor in residency and a recent law school graduate, both citizens of other countries, are seeking to make political contributions in support of various candidates and political issues ranging from both ends of the political spectrum.

The plaintiffs are specifically requesting the court declare 2 U.S.C. § 441e and its implementing regulations unconstitutional as applied to foreign nationals lawfully residing and working in the United States. They have asked for a three-judge court decision, which may allow for a direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

Photo of the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse by AgnosticPreachersKid on Wikipedia.

In their application, the plaintiffs, represented by James Bopp, Jr., the Indiana attorney who helped launch the landmark Citizens United v. FEC litigation, requested an order blocking portions of Maine’s campaign finance law which provides matching for candidates as well as the part of Maine law capping contributions to gubernatorial candidates at $750. By the time the plaintiff’s motion reached the high court for the second time, it had been denied three times: by Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Circuit Justice for the First Circuit, by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and by the Maine District Court where the litigation originated.

The plaintiff’s last resort to enjoin the law prior to the November 2nd election was the emergency writ of injunction to the Supreme Court which was presented to Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy who then referred it to the Supreme Court for consideration. The writ’s denial was not unexpected as the Supreme Court has not granted such a motion for two decades.

Photo of the Supreme Court by UpstateNYer on Wikipedia.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the State Ethics Law Protection Act. H.R. 3427 would preclude the Federal Highway Administration from interpreting a state’s Pay-to-Play laws as conflicting with federal contract bidding requirements for federal-aid highway projects.

The measure has now passed to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Senate Bill 3628, known as the DISCLOSE Act, was reintroduced in the US Senate a second time but failed to garner the 60 votes necessary to be debated on the floor. The motion of cloture vote of 59 to 39 fell along party lines.

A reaction to Citizens United v SEC, the bill includes measures such as requiring organizations to disclose to shareholders, members, or donors information detailing how disbursements were made for campaign-related activity.

For anyone who is interested in government relations, the Web site for the Office of the Clerk is a powerful tool. From this site you can watch live video of the House floor proceedings, get information about any member of Congress, and keep up with the lobbying disclosure requirements though the site’s FAQs, news points, and guidance on the Lobbying Disclosure Act. You can also find the foreign travel reports, gift and travel filings of Members, officers, and staff; as well as financial disclosure reports of Members of Congress, “officers, certain employees of the U.S. House of Representatives and related offices, and candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.”

But this is only the beginning of the many resources offered on the site. Did you know the Office of the Clerk has a YouTube account with oral histories of the House of Representatives. You will find Benjamin C. West talking about the Nixon Impeachment Hearings, and a Cokie Roberts interview about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And there are 19 other great videos!

If you have children, the Office of the Clerk Web site has a great feature called “Kids in the House.” Whether your child is preschool, grade school, middle, or high school age – there are inviting presentations for the kids to discover what Congress is all about. They can see how a bill becomes a law, read about the  art and history of the Capitol, and even take an interactive tour of the House Chamber. Teachers will love the site’s weekly “Teaching Tips” feature.

Want to impress your friends with timely trivia about our government? The Office of the Clerk offers a “Weekly Historical Highlights” page. Did you know that on September 14, 1837 there was a debate in Congress about whether to the ban hats on the House Floor? On September 18, 1893, the federal government celebrated the centennial of the laying of the Capitol cornerstone. There were parades, decorations, and all government offices were closed that day. I wonder what was going on in Washington on my birthday?

The Web site of the Office of the Clerk offers loads of information, beautiful photos and graphics, and easy site navigation. Anyone can become a polymath in American government by frequenting this treasure.

See you next week!

Screen captures courtesy of the Office of the Clerk Web site.

Since the last presidential election we have all seen an explosion in the use of social media by politicians, government agencies, and elected officials. The conversations are exploding, but where can you find it all?

GovTwit claims to host “the world’s largest list of government agencies and elected officials on Twitter, tracking state/local, federal, contractors, media, academics, non-profits and government outside of the U.S.” GovTwit has political Tweetstreams, search functions, and a listing of those newest to the directory – the Prime Minister of Israel was newest as of the writing of this post.

Are you curious about who has the most Twitter followers among elected officials and news media figures? GovTwit has the List for that ranking. (President Obama tops the list, BTW, with 4,877,222 followers.) You can also search Youtube videos and twitpics, although I could not see how some of them related to politics. GovTwit also runs a  blog that is worth reading.

Another resource was brought to my attention through Eric Brown’s great blog – PoliticalActivityLaw.com. The site is called the Government and Social Media Wiki. This is huge! What you get on this wiki is a database of Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, LinkedIn, Youtube, and other social media accounts for – are you ready for this? – members of the U.S. House and Senate, U.S. House and Senate Committees, federal agencies, state Governors, and state government agencies and officials, with more on the way.

(more…)