The Council of the District of Columbia will soon consider legislation that would establish an independent ethics panel and reduce the amount of money council members can raise to help constituents. Council member Muriel Bowser has crafted draft legislation that seeks to streamline 10 separate reform proposals that have been introduced by council members in the aftermath of several ethics controversies.

The proposal sets up a three-member Board of Ethics and Government Accountability, prohibits lobbyists from offering discounted legal advice to council members, sets limits on how much the mayor and council chairman can accept from donors for transition and inaugural committees, and cuts by half the amount that council members can raise for constituent service funds. The proposal does not impose term limits or prohibit lobbyists from making political contributions as sought by other reform proposals.

National:

Poll: Americans divided on companies that hire lobbyists

Federal:

Administration Officials Double as Obama Campaign Speakers

Corporate Lobbying Is a Very Exclusive Club

Gingrich Said to Be Paid By Freddie Mac to Court Republicans

Obama Administration Extends Review of Lobbyist Gift Ban

From the States and Municipalities:

Alaska

FEC Rejects Miller’s Senate Race Complaint

Arizona

Former Fiesta Bowl Employee Indicted

California

FPPC Sticks with $30,000 Fine for Lobbyist Frank Molina

California

New Gift Rules Would Benefit Legislators Dating Lobbyists

Colorado

Judge Says Gessler’s Campaign Finance Change Unconstitutional

Michigan

No Such Thing as Free Lunch? There Is for State Lawmakers in Lansing

Missouri

Missouri High Court Hears Challenge to 2010 Ethics Law

Nevada

No Vote on Transparency Bill Lets Lobbyists Keep Paying Tab

New Mexico

Gov. Martinez Says Officials and Lobbyists Are Too Cozy

New York

Appeals Court Allows New Trial for Bruno

State and Federal Communications produces a weekly summary of national news, offering more than 80 articles per week focused on ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance.

News You Can Use is a news service provided at no charge only to clients of our online Executive Source Guides, or ALERTS™ consulting clients.

Mashable posted the feature article “Lobbyists and Politicians Beware: First Street Reveals Your Hidden Connections” by Zachary Sniderman, detailing a new service Congressional Quarterly Press is offering. First Street is a database that can show the connections between lobbyists and political officials.

The article’s following description gives you an idea of the magnitude of First Street: “The database currently contains more than 660,000 lobbying forms, 240,000 congressional and federal staffers, 32,898 clients of registered lobbying organizations and 20,000 congressional and federal organizations. In total, First Street says it covers more than 2 million connections.”

First Street comes with a price tag of $3,000 for a single license, according to Sniderman. He points out there are other services like OpenSecrets.org, but First Street claims to have the most comprehensive database.

Here is the link to the First Street website.

The New York Times has sent out a request. They are looking for photos of buttons and brochures, screenshots of campaign messages, and photos of campaign signs and billboards for what they are calling an archive of the “ground game” of the 2012 presidential race.

According to the newspaper’s “Submit Photos of Campaign Materials” page, “Have you spotted interesting flyers around town or in local publications? Take a picture and send it to us. We’ll even accept screenshots of text messages and materials from candidates and other groups. We’re looking more for the raw materials of the campaign — postcards, posters and the like — than pictures of campaign events.”

They have an online form you can fill out to submit photos. The pictures can be up to 5 MB in size.

Jon Green, the executive director of Connecticut Working Families has been fined $10,000 by the Connecticut Office of State Ethics for not wearing a badge while he lobbied on legislation in the 2010 election cycle.

You can find news coverage of the story here:

“Working Families Official To Pay $10,000 Ethics Fine” by Jon Lender in the Hartford Courant.

“WFP Director Fined For Lobbying Without Badge”  by Christine Stuart in CT News Junkie.

“CT levies $10K fine against unsanctioned lobbyist” in the Hartford Business Journal.

Social media has been seen as a catalyst for change  in world events in the past few years. It remains to be seen what role it will play in our presidential elections in the upcoming year. As groups and individuals use social media strategies for promoting candidates and causes, they will want to be able to measure their efforts. This week’s Highlighted Site of the Week is VoterTide, which sets out to do just that.

PACs and lobbyists take note:

“Whether you’re a candidate, consultant, fundraiser, lobbyist, or media professional, you have no choice but to follow the conversation online. VoterTide Pro makes it easy with comprehensive, easy-to-read metrics that put the data at your fingertips.”

If you are using any of the forms of social media in support of a candidate, VoterTide can measure the comments, retweets, and the buzz that result and put the data  into their political context. You can also keep track of your opponents!

VoterTide claims to revolutionize the way political polling is conducted. All of the information you need to track the conversations surrounding your candidates and issues would be available on a social media monitoring dashboard.

According to the site: “You go to the boards for your candidate – tweeting, sharing links on Facebook, posting YouTube videos, and doing all you can to persuade your friends to vote for the one who you know is best. But do your efforts matter? At VoterTide, we show you that they do. You may not have the resources to contribute big bucks, but you do have the power to Rise the Tide in your candidate’s favor.”

I have not been able to determine whether there is a free version of VoterTide, but there is VoterTide Pro for a fee, and the site offers a free demo. Take a look. I think we’ll be seeing many more services targeting this need in the near future.

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has issued an advisory opinion approving plans of a for-profit company’s mobile-based financial processing platform to collect and distribute funds to candidates, committees, and PACs.

GivingSphere, which allows individuals to make donations to charitable groups through the internet and mobile devices, requested an opinion about implementing contributions to political entities. Customer funds for contributions are accumulated by rebates earned by purchasing goods from merchants who participate in the GivingSphere affiliate program.

Advisory Opinion 2011-19 allows GivingSphere to transmit its customers’ funds in the form of political contributions. Additionally, the company may sell advertising space to political committees on its website, provide a searchable database of political committees to its customers, and permit political committees to post a ‘badge’ of the GivingSphere on their website.

Because GivingSphere is merely processing contributions, it will not be subject to any reporting requirements. The FEC press release can be found here.

The National Bureau of Economic Research published a new study about lobbying called “The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying.”

For a good summary of the results of this study, read the Washington Post’s article “Corporate lobbying is a very exclusive club” by Brad Plumer. The article says the report shows a small percentage of firms are lobbying and the companies that are lobbying are big, with large budgets. They describe the challenges facing companies and organizations that wish to promote their issues in Washington.

According to the article: “Washington is teeming with lobbyists. In 2009, there were 13,700 of them. So you’d think it would be easy for any company to stride into town and start pressing its issues on members of Congress. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Only a relatively small number of firms lobby each year. What’s more, the turnover is quite low. Lobbying, it seems, is not a game that just anyone can play.”

Photo of the United States Capitol by Florian Hirzinger on Wikipedia.

CHARLES COUNTY, MARYLAND: Commissioners made the decision to pass an ethics ordinance required by the state after removing a key amendment Tuesday. The amendment would have included stricter campaign finance and reporting laws.

After debate, the commissioners elected to remove the amendment and take up campaign finance and reporting as a separate piece of legislation in the future. The ordinance, as passed, states that commissioners can only represent the county, prohibits gifts over $20, and requires lobbyist registrations to be filed by January 15th.

All counties, municipalities, and school districts are required by law to pass an ethics ordinance.

Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is under investigation for violations of campaign finance laws. The Associated Press covers the story in “Lawyers: Feds investigate Richardson fundraising,” by Barry Massey.

The New York Times reports that a fundraiser for New York City Comptroller John C. Liu was arrested for illegally funneling contributions.  Read the full story at “Fund-Raiser for Liu Is Accused of Role in Illegal Donations” by William Rashbaum, David Chen, and Benjamin Weiser.

An Associated Press article reports that Mitt Romney’s emails from when he was governor of Massachusetts were removed at the end of his term. Read “Report: Romney-era emails wiped from Mass. Records” from today’s Boston Herald.

Budgets cuts are further threatening government transparency initiatives. Nextgov reports about it in “E-gov cuts could endanger digital transparency initiatives, groups say” by Joseph Marks.

The first reporting period will be the first quarter of 2012, and the first expense report is due April 30, 2012.

Regulation No. 9, regarding lobbying, will become effective January 3, 2012. The Board of Ethics intends to recommend amendments to Regulation No. 9 to bring it into conformity with amendments made to Philadelphia City Code Chapter 20-1200 by Bill No. 110556.

In the event an online filing system is not available by January 3, 2012, an interim registration method will be provided by the Board of Ethics.

National Journal reported on a recent Public Affairs Council survey about the public’s opinion of businesses and lobbying. Depending on how the questions about lobbying were posed, public opinion ranged from unfavorable to acceptable.

Here is the National Journal article “Poll: Americans Divided on Companies That Hire Lobbyists” by Andrew Joseph.

You can read the Public Affairs Council’s full report of the survey, “What Americans Think About Business,” as well as their press release and Executive Summary.

The survey was conducted by the Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

State and Federal Communications’ President and CEO Elizabeth Bartz and Federal Compliance Associate Rebecca South are attending the American League of Lobbyists Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. today.

According to the American League of Lobbyists website: “Amidst Administration attacks on registered lobbyists, calls for increased transparency, and restrictions on lobbyists attending White House meetings and serving on Advisory Committees, what does the coming election year mean for the lobbying profession?

On Wednesday, November 16th, the American League of Lobbyists Annual Meeting will feature a panel of some of the nation’s top reporters who cover lobbying. Brody Mullins of the Wall St. Journal, Tory Newmyer of Fortune Magazine, and John Bresnahan of Politico will discuss the business, profession, and ethical quandaries of lobbying in today’s challenging environment.”