Assemblyman Mike Gatto is preparing legislation in response to the alleged pay-to-play scandal at the Los Angeles County Assessor’s office. The bill, AB 404, would require tax agents to register as lobbyists in counties already regulating lobbying.

Tax agents are hired by property owners to persuade appraisers and the assessor that property values are lower than listed. While the bill leaves it up to the counties to craft specific regulations, the draft regulations would require tax agents to register as lobbyists with the county, would forbid them from making campaign contributions to any county elected official, and would also bar them from giving gifts worth more than $50 to county employees.

The district attorney’s office is investigating allegations that one tax agent, Ramin Salari, used contributions to obtain favorable treatment from Assessor John Noguez. A former appraiser, Scott Schenter, claimed to have cut roll values with the expectation that affected property owners would be more likely to donate to Noguez’s campaign.

“Big lobbying spending dips” by Dave Levinthal in Politico.

“U.S. Chamber of Commerce Continues to Spend Heavily on Lobbying, Filings Show” by Kate Ackley in Roll Call.

“K Streeters Adjusting to Loss of Earmarks” by Kate Ackley in Roll Call.

“Fears of lame-duck session in Congress could boost K Street’s bottom line” by Kevin Bogardus and Rachel Leven in The Hill.

California: “How to wire a state capital” by Charles Mahtesian in Politico.

California: “AT&T wields enormous power in Sacramento” by Shane Goldmacher and Anthony York in The Los Angeles Times.

Minnesota: “Not all laws come from high-powered lobbying campaigns” by John Reinan in the MinnPost.

Federal: “How to Beat Citizens United” by E.J. Dionne, Jr. in The Washington Post.

Arkansas: “Arkansas attorney general certifies ballot wording for item on lobbying, campaign finance” by The Associated Press in The Republic.

California: “State political watchdog chair wants bloggers to reveal payments” by Brian Joseph in the Orange County Register.

California: “California ethics czar urges disclosure of payments to Web pundits” by Patrick McGreevey in the Los Angeles Times.

California: “California looks to crack down on political bloggers paid by campaigns” by Jim Sanders in The Sacramento Bee.

Virginia: “New Electronic Campaign Filing Lauded in Virginia” by The Associated Press in Governing.

Federal: “Two SEC Commissioners Could Dramatically Change Campaign Finance” by George Zornick in The Nation. ↬via Eric Brown’s Political Activity Law blog.

California: “State political watchdog ramps up enforcement” by Brian Joseph in the Orange County Register.

Connecticut: “Connecticut legislators set focus on campaign finance reform; look to increase transparency” by Jordan Fenster in The Register Citizen.

District of Columbia: “Campaign money orders to cease?” by Jim McElhatton and Luke Rosiak in the Washington Times.

District of Columbia: “D.C. ethics law overhaul hampered by hiring difficulties, enforcement duties” by Mike DeBonis in The Washington Post.

The Los Angeles City Ethics Commission voted Thursday to raise campaign contribution limits for candidates in the upcoming municipal election. Candidates for city council may accept $700 per donor per election cycle, up from a $500 limit. Candidates for citywide offices including mayor, city attorney, and city controller may accept $1,300, up from $1,000.

The new limits go into effect immediately, giving candidates in the March 2013 election the opportunity to contact donors who have already reached the old contribution maximums.

Critics of the new limits believe the commission is tipping the scales in favor of well-connected incumbents who have historically met the contribution threshold more often than their challengers.

The Los Angeles City Ethics Commission has voted to shorten the length of time during which candidates for office may conduct fundraising.

If the commission’s ruling is approved by city council, candidates for city council will have 12 months instead of the current 18 months for fundraising, and citywide candidates will have 18 months instead of the current two year period for fundraising.

The commission additionally decided to delay the vote on whether or not the campaign contribution limit should be increased from $500 to $1,100 per donor.

Photo of the Los Angeles City Hall by Brion VIBBER on Wikipedia.

Lobbyist disclosure statements are now accessible by the public on the San Francisco Ethics Commission website. You can search lobbyists, lobbyist clients, lobbying firms, reported public officials, and lobbying subjects of concern.

According to the site:

This site contains information about lobbying activities for all lobbyist who are registered with the Commission. The Commission requires these lobbyists to submit monthly statements of their lobbying activities including: Activity Expenses, Political Contributions, Contacts of Public Officials, and Payments Promised by Clients.

The Ethics Commission is also offering an API (Application Programming Interface) for programmers to take the raw data from lobbyist reports and create mashups and aggregate reports of their own.

For news coverage, read “San Francisco Publishes New Tool To Interpret Local Lobbying Information” by Sarah Lai Stirland on techPresident.

“Candidate and Super Pac Spending” by Khang Nguyen in the Los Angeles Times.

“Bill would require disclosure of campaign spending” by Alia Beard Rau in the Arizona Republic.

“California could be model for ‘super PAC’ disclosure” by Josh Richman in the San Jose Mercury News.

California State Senator Leland Yee has formally announced plans to introduce legislation to raise the lobbyist registration fees upon commencement of the 2012 legislative session.

The money raised by the increased fees would be used to finance maintenance and upgrades to CAL-ACCESS, the state transparency database for lobbying and campaign finance filings. CAL-ACCESS has been down since the end of November.

California’s campaign finance online database, the Cal-Access system, has been out of service for two weeks leaving people unable to search the state’s political contribution and lobbying reports.

The Los Angeles Times reported about the situation in “Campaign database still down, prompting calls for investigation” by Patrick McGreevy.

According to the article, “State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) announced Wednesday that he is introducing legislation to double the registration fees paid by the state’s 1,000 lobbyists to finance proper maintenance of Cal-Access.”

CityCampSF gathered app developers for a hackathon last weekend. The result was a series of apps that took raw government datasets and turned them into usable, searchable information. One app will allow people to receive city legislative alerts and agenda item alerts based on keywords. Another app will make ethics commission data and lobbyist filings searchable.

Don’t miss what Govtech reported in “SF Hackathon Produces Legislative Alert App Prototype” by Sarah Rich.

Here is CityCampSF’s summary of the results from the Hackathon in “CityCampSF Outcomes” on AdrielNation’s blog:

“What happened at CityCampSF Hackathon 2011 on Saturday and Sunday? Lots of great discussion about technology and open government, folks meeting for the first time over pizza, Red Bull and Peanut M&Ms, and some civic hacking on online lobbyists filings, timber harvest plans and text notifications for public meeting agenda keyword alerts.”

The California Fair Political Practices Commission has approved changes to the gift regulations which will take effect on January 1, 2012.

Changes to the regulations include the ability for public officials to accept gifts from lobbyists without disclosure if a dating relationship exists.

Additionally, officials will be able to accept tickets to sporting events if the officials are attending the event to perform a ceremonial duty.

In such circumstances, the gifts are to be reported by the agency and not the official.

The Los Angeles City Council will vote today on a proposed resolution which calls on the U.S. Congress to pass a constitutional amendment declaring only living persons, not corporations, have constitutional rights and money is not the same as free speech.

The resolution, proposed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, further declares the Citizens United decision supersedes state and local efforts to regulate corporate political activity.

If the resolution passes, Los Angeles will join other municipalities such as Missoula, Montana and Boulder, Colorado which have passed similar resolutions.

Seal of the City of Los Angeles by Mysid on Wikipedia.

The Sacramento Bee reported last week that California’s Fair Political Practices Commission has opted for a $30,000 fine against lobbyist Frank Molina, instead of the higher $5o,000 fine it had considered.

You can read the whole story here: “FPPC sticks with $30,000 fine for lobbyist Frank Molina,” by Laurel Rosenhall and Torey Van Oot.

Seal of the State of California by Zscout370 on Wikipedia.