Team State and Federal Communications is excited to be heading to NCSL’s Legislative Summit, August 19-22, 2014, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Come see us at Booth 921!

The NCSL website promises there will be “nothing Mini” about this conference:

“Bring home 1,000 ideas from the land of 10,000 lakes this summer in Minnesota. For 40 years, the Legislative Summit is where legislators and staff come together across the aisle to tackle critical problems and find solutions that work…With more than 100 sessions, the time to dig deep into issues you care about, and opportunities to make new friendships and connections, you’ll come home brimming with ideas. So plan to be in Minneapolis Aug. 19-22. We’ll see you there, and together Build Strong States.”

The number of municipalities and regional governments our research associates track continues to grow. We now cover more than 230 municipalities and local governments. This is part of a continuous effort to better serve the needs of our clients.

In that effort, we have recently added abridged jurisdictions to our website. These entries, condensed due to the limited number of relevant local laws, provide the core information our clients need for their government relations work.

The new jurisdictions are:

Bakersfield, California

Putnam County, Florida

Stark County, Ohio

State and Federal Communications is now offering the free email update Lobby Comply News Roundup. We send it out each week, Monday through Thursday, similar to our publication News You Can Use which is sent out every Friday.

You can have Lobby Comply News Roundup containing all of your government compliance news sent directly to you. To sign up, click the SUBSCRIBE tab.

Here is our August – September calendar. If you are attending any of the coming events, please stop by and say hello!

August 9-13, 2014 CSG National & CSG West Annual Conference, Anchorage, Alaska

August 19-22, 2014   NCSL Legislative Summit, Minneapolis, Minnesota

September 8, 2014  WGR Toastmasters, Washington, D.C.

September 11-12, 2014   PLI: Corporate Political Activities Seminar, Washington, D.C.

September 22, 2014  WGR Toastmasters, Washington, D.C.

September 29 – October 1, 2014   PAC State and Local Government Affairs Conference, Alexandria, Virginia

Elizabeth Bartz, president and CEO of State and Federal Communications, is speaking today at the International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials & Treasurers (IACREOT) Annual Conference in Bonita Springs, Florida. The event runs from July 19-24, 2014.

Bartz is presenting “Ethics in Elections: Challenges and Applications from a Compliance Perspective” at 3:00 p.m.

You can follow the Twitter conversations from the conference at #IACREOT.

On the third Thursday of each month, State and Federal Communications attends the Akron Roundtable luncheons. However, July 17th was a special day for us. The luncheon featured keynote speaker Diane Laney Fitzpatrick, author of the book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.
 Our President and CEO Elizabeth Bartz, a dear friend and fellow Kent State alum of Fitzpatrick, introduced the Ohio native at the Roundtable to talk about how “The Journey of a Thousand Miles… is for Amateurs” and just how she has redefined the meaning of “stay-at-home-mom.” The entire audience was often thrown into spells of laughter as Fitzpatrick comically recalled the eight lessons she learned through her 7,000 mile journey across the states.

Immediately following the program, State and Federal Communications hosted a reception for the speaker, held on the second floor of our building. A large portion of the crowd from the Roundtable luncheon attended the gathering and enjoyed the refreshments as well as a second opportunity to talk with Fitzpatrick. Towards the end of the reception, Elizabeth presented the speaker a Greater Akron book with a spread featuring State and Federal Communications. It was the perfect gift for Fitzpatrick to keep Akron in the back of her mind just in case she ever wants to return!

Since July 2010, Lobby Comply has been bringing lobbying, campaign finance, and ethics news and analysis to government relations professionals. We keep a close eye on everything happening at the federal level, in the states, and in hundreds of municipalities.

We are proud to mark our 3000th blog post!

It is summer and you know what that means in state government affairs. Meetings. Meetings. Meetings.

Okay, I know many of you will not be at the first one but I will see you at many of the other places across the continental United States.

1.  Greek Orthodox Clergy-Laity Congress—July 6-10 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;

2.  National Governors Association—July 10-July 13 in Nashville, Tennessee;

3.  Council of State Governments MLC—July 13-July 16 in Omaha, Nebraska;

4.  IACREOT Conference—July 23-24 in Bonita Springs, Florida;

5.  NCSL Legislative Leaders—July 24-25 in Washington, DC;

6.  Council of State Governments National and Western Annual Conference—
August 9-13 in Anchorage, Alaska; and

7.  National Conference of State Legislatures—August 18-22 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Now that is a lot of traveling for anyone to handle. I skipped a couple of the other regional CSG meetings because…well, I do need to stop at the office and home every once in a while.

Follow the travel either on Facebook or Twitter @elizabethbartz. You may enjoy the photos and the opportunities or it just might tire you out. Either way, it will not be boring.

Looking forward to sharing with you my reflection of owning State and Federal Communications for 21 years in next month’s issue. Stay tuned.

Here is our July – August calendar. If you are attending any of the coming events, please stop by and say hello!

June 25, 2014  WGR Toastmasters, Washington, D.C.

July 10-13, 2014   National Governors Association Meeting, Nashville, Tennessee

July 13-16, 2014   CSG Midwestern Legislative Conference, Omaha, Nebraska

July 14, 2014   WGR Toastmasters, Washington, D.C.

July 23, 2014   IACREOT Conference, Bonita Springs, Florida

July 23-25, 2014   NCSL Legislative Leadership, Washington, D.C.

July 28, 2014   WGR Toastmasters, Washington, D.C.

August 3-6, 2014   CSG/Eastern Regional Conference Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland

August 9-13, 2014 CSG National & CSG West Annual Conference, Anchorage, Alaska

August 19-22, 2014   NCSL Legislative Summit, Minneapolis, Minnesota

In the monthly State and Federal Communications staff meetings, each department provides an update of what’s new so the entire staff can get a picture of what each department is up to. One of the things the Research Department likes to share with the staff is statistics that provide some insight as to the volume of information we track and update.

The information on our website is contained in a database, which contains 223 individual questions that need to be addressed in each of the more than 300 jurisdictions available on our website. In round numbers, this means there are roughly 70,000 individual “chunks” of data in our database, which may be as short as one word or as long as the approximately 3,900 words it takes to explain California’s complex campaign finance reporting system. One interesting statistic we like to share in each meeting is the number of these individual questions “touched” since the last staff meeting, as a rough measure of how many pieces of information were updated on the website. Between our April 21and May 29 staff meetings, the Research Department updated 15,245 questions in our database, either as part of the normal review process or as part of updates made to the website due to changed information, such as the passage of a new bill or a new phone number for a contact. Mind you, not every question processed through the system gets changed, as it is sometimes necessary to look at a question just to verify the information, but this statistic gives a good idea of the volume of information being looked at during the period in question.

Another interesting statistic involves the number of what we call “supplemental documents,” that is, the documents you can find in under the “Statutes, Regulations, Forms…” link on our website. These are the statutes, opinions, guides, and forms we keep on our website as both a quick reference and a ready source of forms to assist with registration and reporting. As of our May 29 meeting, we had 5,814 such documents available on our website. In the 12 months preceding the meeting, 2,022 of those documents had been updated.

If you are a government relations professional who is interested in the latest news on compliance, we encourage you to join our Government Relations Compliance LinkedIn Group!

You can discover what colleagues are talking about, and how they are solving the challenges in complying with government rules and regulations for lobbying, grassroots lobbying, political contributions, and procurement. Take a look and join the conversation!