A 2006 New Hampshire ethics reform law requiring any non-public official who meets with a lawmaker to discuss legislation to register as a lobbyist has recently come under fire.  The law currently exempts lawyers who are full-time employees of a public body from the registration requirement.  Opponents of the law argue small towns and school districts that cannot afford a full-time attorney are put at a disadvantage to larger governmental organizations in efforts to influence legislation.

Citing the law, New Hampshire Rep. Rick Watrous recently asked the attorney general’s office to investigate the actions of attorney John Teague. Teague serves as the Concord School District’s lawyer, but is not a full-time school district employee.  Teague participated in a meeting with Senate President Sylvia Larsen, Sen. Betsi DeVries, and the Superintendent of the Concord School District to discuss a House bill dealing with the school district’s charter.  The attorney general’s office found that Teague ran afoul of the law by meeting with lawmakers privately and issued a public warning and ordered Teague to register retroactively as a lobbyist and pay the $50 annual filing fee.  The finding has raised concerns about the propriety and application of the current registration requirement, including calls for legislative reform of the statute.

Photo of New Hampshire State Capitol Building by Nikopoley on Wikipedia.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear the city’s appeal of a lawsuit brought by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce over the city’s campaign finance rules involving independent expenditures.

Long Beach appealed to the high court after the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling stating the Chamber’s PAC may receive unlimited contributions to fund their independent campaign expenditures in city elections.

Photo of Long Beach by WPPilot on Wikipedia.

A federal judge has granted the request of two men seeking to be able to contribute in excess of the state’s limit of $1,000 to a noncandidate political action committee. U.S. District Judge Michael Seabright issued an order permitting the plaintiffs in the action to contribute $2,500 to the Aloha Family Alliance, a noncandidate political action committee which supports traditional marriage and opposes abortion and physician-assisted suicide, for the general election.

Hawaii law limits contributions to a noncandidate committee to $1,000 per election, with the primary and general election counting as two separate elections. Neither plaintiff in this action had made a contribution during the primary election. Further, the written order does not allow others exceed the $1,000 limit for the general election.

State Attorney General Mark Bennett has requested a stay of the order while the case is appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This order only speaks to this particular facet of the lawsuit, not to the additional plaintiff complaints regarding disclaimers and attribution related to advertisements, political reporting requirements, and pay-to-play restrictions, which Judge Seabright will rule on at a later date.

If approved, Issue 14 will require the council to pass legislation within 90 days amending the city’s campaign finance regulations. The caps on individual contributions would increase from $100 to $200 per candidate per election for ward candidates and from $300 to $450 for candidates for mayor and council members-at-large.

Also, the council will be required to hold mandatory public hearings every two years to revisit the city’s contribution limits to consider adjustments for inflation and costs of living.

During a recent session of the council Rules Committee, the measure received unanimous support, with similar support expected before the full council at their Tuesday, October 12, 2010 meeting.

The new ordinance not only creates an independent ethics commission, but also provides for the operation of an ethics hotline and the mandatory ethics training of all consolidated government officials within 90 days of being elected. The ordinance, if passed, would reinstitute ethics features similar to the city’s originally chartered Code of Ethics, which was removed in the early 1970’s reportedly due to potential conflicts with a new statewide ethics law adopted by the Florida legislature which covered all public officials.

Photo of Jacksonville skyline by Jonathan Zander on Wikipedia.

The plaintiffs allege the lieutenant governor’s office, which is charged by law to enforce the state’s campaign finance regulations, has taken no enforcement action against the 41 of 58 major county political parties which failed to submit their campaign finance disclosure statements by the recent August 31st deadline. The plaintiffs then turned to the Utah Attorney General asking for enforcement of the disclosure requirements.

The Attorney General’s office did not respond to the plaintiff’s enforcement request but later explained through a spokesman state law authorizes the lieutenant governor to act in matters touching upon campaign finance. For its part, the lieutenant governor’s office advises political parties to submit their financial disclosure statements even though state law does not specifically require them to do so.

According to Mark Thomas, elections director for the lieutenant governor, state law remains ambiguous on the question of the reporting responsibilities of county political parties; a question which will persist until state lawmakers clarify the law. “We would all like to get it better clarified,” Thomas said.

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The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices will be closed on Friday, October 8, 2010 for a mandatory furlough day and Monday, October 11, 2010 in observance of Columbus Day.

The commission advises independent expenditure reports which are due by October 12, 2010 (the October Summary Report) may be submitted to the commission by fax. The fax number which may be used is: (207) 287-6775.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the decision in Family PAC v. McKenna, et al. which declared a Washington law limiting campaign contributions in the final weeks of ballot measure campaigns unconstitutional.  U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton ruled last month that the Washington limit is an unconstitutional infringement on political speech.  Late Tuesday, a panel of Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges blocked that ruling from taking effect while the state appeals.

The three-judge panel wrote “Washington and its voters have a significant interest in preventing the State’s long-standing campaign finance laws from being upended by the courts so soon before the upcoming election.”  The Court also considered that Family PAC had failed to identify any contributions greater than $5000 that it expected to receive in the event the law would be overturned and appeared not to be participating in the upcoming general election, mitigating any harm that may come from the stay of the ruling.  Family PAC was created shortly after last year’s legal deadline for large campaign contributions had passed. The committee said it had an offer for a large donation to finance political ads but could not accept the money because of the state law.

The indictment, the result of a months-long joint investigation by the FBI and the Alabama Attorney General’s office, accuses the business owners of hiring the lobbyists to conduct “a full-scale campaign to bribe and coerce state legislators and others into supporting pro-gambling legislation that they favored”, according to Alabama Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in this CNN article.

The state senators named in the criminal complaint are Larry Means, James Preuitt, Quinton Ross, and Harri Anne Smith. Several of the charges levied carry maximum penalties of significant prison time and fines of up to $250,000.

Photo of a casino by Raul654 on Wikipedia.

A Montana district judge will rule on a challenge to Montana’s nearly century-old, voter-passed restriction on direct corporate spending to support or oppose political parties or candidates.  The Montana law is being challenged based upon the U.S. Supreme Court’s January ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned a federal ban on corporate spending in political campaigns.

Attorneys for the State of Montana defended the law stating that a law enacted in 1912 should not be lumped with a law Congress enacted 90 years later under a one-size-fits-all federal rule.   They added that corporations do speak freely in Montana elections under current law with nearly 200 political action committees active in state politics in the past decade and warned unlimited corporate campaign spending would drastically alter Montana’s current campaigns that rely on person-to-person contact.

The Institute for Justice, a group which touts itself as the only libertarian public interest law firm in the nation, has filed a challenge to Florida’s campaign finance laws in federal court. The suit has been filed on behalf of four Sarasota, Florida residents seeking to pool their monetary resources to buy radio ads against a proposed state constitutional amendment on the November ballot. However, due to requirements to register as a PAC and disclosure requirements associated with such communications, the residents feel their First Amendment rights are being infringed upon.

This is not the first instance wherein the Institute for Justice has challenged a restriction on political speech in Florida, as they were previously successful in having declared unconstitutional Florida’s electioneering communication law in the case of Broward Coalition of Condominiums v. Browning.

Photo of U.S. Federal Courthouse in Tallahassee by Urbantallahassee on Wikipedia.

The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission has decided to move forward with an investigation against Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Holland and the Kansas Moderate Majority, an unaffiliated PAC supporting Holland’s candidacy. A complaint filed with the commission alleges improper collaboration between Holland and the committee on an ad campaign targeting Republican nominee Sam Brownback’s support of a controversial tax reform.

If the Holland campaign and the Kansas Moderate Majority did illegally work together on these advertisements, it could be considered an in-kind contribution.The limit on this type of in-kind contribution is $2,000, a figure the advertisements likely exceeded.

Photo of Tom Holland from the Kansas Legislature Web site.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has filed a federal lawsuit against the Rhode Island Board of Elections seeking to strike down Rhode Island’s campaign finance law. Citing extensively to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the plaintiffs allege Rhode Island law’s definition of a political action committee, its expenditure ban, and its expenditure reporting requirements are all unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs are asking U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi for declaratory judgments clarifying the extent to which state law’s $1,000 contribution limits on contributions by political action committees apply to them. NOM also seeks a declaratory judgment stating they are not subject to the extensive reporting requirements imposed by state law upon entities which make independent expenditures. An in-chambers conference regarding the lawsuit has been scheduled for Thursday, September 30th, 2010.

The Arkansas Ethics Commission has released an opinion against allowing candidates to transfer to their political party any campaign funds unless the candidate is running unopposed or the election is over. This opinion comes at the request of Doyle Webb, chairperson of the Republican Party of Arkansas, after current Democratic Governor Mike Beebe made such a transfer during his 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

Prior to the 2006 election, Beebe transferred $230,000 to the state Democratic Party from his accumulated campaign funds. However, in the opinion the ethics commission stopped short of calling such a transfer “illegal,’ merely stating “the Commission would advise against making such a transfer,” and noted that further facts concerning the situation would need to be determined prior to any determination as to whether such action would violate the campaign finance laws of Arkansas.

Webb noted that no request was made for Governor Beebe to be penalized for the transfer and the opinion was requested primarily for future reference.