National:

Deep Sea Burial Forms First Corporate ‘Super PAC’

Federal:

ACLU Challenge to Small Piece of Campaign Finance Law May Lead to a Slippery Slope

Judge Sends Abramoff Deputy to Halfway House

K Street Suffers from Twitter Jitters

From the States and Municipalities:

Alaska

APOC Busy as Redistricting Raises Legislators’ Questions

California

California’s Center for Governmental Studies to Close

California

San Jose Eases Campaign Limits, Focuses Economic Efforts

Florida

To Interview Mayor, Reporters Must Register as Lobbyists

Kentucky

Judge Bars Group’s Ads Supporting David Williams from Airing

Massachusetts

Lally, DiMasi Conspirator Who Cooperated with Prosecutors, Sentenced to 18 Months

Montana

Group Asks Judge to Toss Campaign Finance Ruling

Pennsylvania

Nutter, Green Unlikely Allies in Same-Sex Ethics Bill

Tennessee

Corporations Signing Up to Donate Under New State Law

Texas

HISD Tightens Ethics Rules

 
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.

In the New York Times, Nicholas Confessore examines the dilemma of reporting about presidential candidate filings and campaign finance figures minus the “super-PAC” dollars in the third quarter.

Here is the article on NYTimes.com: “Without ‘Super PAC’ Numbers, Campaign Filings Present an Incomplete Picture”

Yesterday, techPresident published “New Obama for America Page is a Jungle Gym for Donation Data” by Nick Judd.

Everyone has been talking about the new role social media is playing in the 2012 presidential campaigns. But I think Judd brings up an often missed point: The importance of social media’s role is not so much to be found in the social networks themselves, but in the vast amount of information the campaigns have about each of us, and how they are using that information on social media. Judd writes about campaigns “micro-targeting” potential political campaign donors with personalized messages geared toward attracting the most money.

The article showcases the Obama 2012 campaign website, which boasts its one million donors. The site allows you to drill down into a great deal of information about the contributions. The aim of the site is that the visitor will come to the conclusion that the donors are broad-based and grassroots.

Have any of our readers seen any similar examples on other campaign websites? Please share it on Lobby Comply!

I saw a pattern on Eric Brown’s Political Activity Law Blog entry for today – articles talking about lobbying spending. Each one comes to us from The Hill and each one tells of dropping numbers. I thought they were significant, so here they are:

Staff article: “Lobbying Revenue – Third Quarter 2011”

“Influence industry officially in a funk” by Kevin Bogardus and Rachel Leven

“Chamber of Commerce and legal affiliate report spending $45.8M on lobbying” by Kevin Bogardus

Photo of the U. S. Capitol dome and flag by Florian Hirzinger on Wikipedia.

Who can possibly top New York City? This week’s Highlighted Site of the Week is the city government’s NYC Digital. Their statistics are staggering: a four million digital audience, 202 million pageviews of NYC.gov in 2010, 52 agencies represented, 4000 points of engagement, 98% residential broadband access, 200 social media channels, and – as they are proud to say – it is all because they have one plan for New York City’s digital future.

According to the site: “New York City is one of the world’s leading digital metropolises. As Part I: State of the Digital City illustrates, New York City government engages over 25 million people a year through more than 200 digital channels including NYC.gov, mobile applications, and social media.”

They work hard to promote civic engagement, encourage new business startups with their Business Solutions Centers, and host hackathons where they provide city data to programmers so they can write cutting edge web and mobile applications to help the city. For those involved in government relations, their Lobbying Bureau page has many links in its helpful FAQ list.

The hundreds of NYC Social Media Sites range from the mayor’s office Twitter feed and Children’s Services’ Facebook, to the Departments of Aging,  Buildings, Business, Community Affairs, Education, and many more. Take a look at their 21 Mobile Apps, where you can have information about the road conditions, sports events, Department of Health updates, directions for getting around the city, sanitation department info, and the latest news from the mayor’s office sent directly to your mobile phone.

NYC Digital is as big as the city itself and just as humbling, I must say. Have a terrific weekend, everyone!

Photo of the New York City skyline at night by Francisco Diez on Wikipedia.

A court in British Columbia has ruled the province cannot restrict election spending in the 60 days leading up to an official election call.

In British Columbia Teachers’ Federation v. British Columbia (Attorney General), the British Columbia Court of Appeal panel upheld a lower court ruling finding portions of Election Act sections 235.1 and 228 are unconstitutional, and are of no force and effect insofar as they relate to the pre-campaign period as defined in the Act. Therefore, the court affirmed the British Columbia Attorney General cannot restrict election spending in the pre-campaign period 60 days before the election period begins.

Election advertising preceding a 28-day campaign period is considered a “pre-campaign” period. In the decision Justice Catherine Anne Ryan wrote, “[R]estricting third-party advertising during the pre-campaign period would unjustifiably interfere with third parties’ issue advocacy, lobbying activity, and other advertising endeavours unrelated to the election.”

Lobbyists are prominently mentioned in this Wall Street Journal piece, “Washington Area Is Tops in Income” by Elizabeth Williamson.

NCSL published “Social media tools can pose ethical problems for lawmakers,” by Judy Nadler. The article explores the ethical considerations lawmakers face when using social media tools. The article raises the question about the types of relationships that are established on a network like Facebook by citing the example of someone running for office: “A ‘push’ was organized to add key lobbyists, government contractors and others as ‘friends.'” Nadler discusses government-using-social-media issues such as transparency, playing favorites, and the obligation officeholders have to choose the words they use online carefully.

The Fierce Government IT article, “‘Snapshots cannot accurately archive gov 2.0 content, says Navy official” by Molly Bernhart Walker, discusses the challenges posed by the need to keep a record of government presence in social media platforms.

From Federal Computer Week: A recent survey takes a look at mobile device trends in “Government workers using mobile to access social media, survey shows” by Alice Lipowicz.

Individuals with federal contracts should be allowed to make political contributions to federal candidates or political parties, a lawsuit filed yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argues.

The suit, Wagner v. Federal Election Commission, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, challenges the constitutionality of section 441c of Title 2 of the U.S. Code, which prohibits any vendors with contracts with the federal government from making such contributions.

According to its press release, the ACLU is asking the Court, on behalf of the three named plaintiffs, to declare the law unconstitutional as applied to individuals who have personal services contracts with federal agencies. Because federal workers who are not contractors may make federal political contributions, while contractors performing the same work may not, the suit argues section 441c violates both the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and the First Amendment.

Photo of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia courtesy of the Court’s website.

With eight tweets and more than 700 followers, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is now Tweeting about court decisions and other news.

The Associated Press covered the story, as well as the Philadelphia Inquirer-Daily News in this article, “Pa. Supreme Court to go on Twitter” by John P. Martin.

You can find the Supreme Court’s Twitter feed here: @SupremeCtofPA.

Photo of the mural on the wall of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s chambers by Ruhrfisch on Wikipedia.

The San Jose City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, October 18 to change the city’s campaign finance laws. Changes approved include the elimination of the city’s blackout periods which prohibit campaign contributions within 17 days of a regular election and within seven days of a special election.

Per the new law, the voluntary candidate campaign expenditure limits will increase from $1.00 per resident per election to $1.25. The rate for mayoral elections will remain the same at $0.75 per resident per election.

Further changes implemented by the new law eliminate an increase in the voluntary expenditure cap triggered by the fundraising efforts of other candidates and independent committees who do not choose to accept the limit.

Elizabeth Bartz, President and CEO of State and Federal Communications, is attending the Council of State Governments 2011 National Conference & North American Summit in Bellevue, Washington.

This year’s National Conference is being held from October 19-23 and for the first time will include representatives from Canada and Mexico.

Elizabeth Bartz was recently appointed to CSG’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee for 2011/2012 term.

Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate issued a restraining order against an independent political group running political ads against Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear on Monday, October 17. The order prohibits the attack ads paid for by the group Restoring America from running on television and radio stations.

In his order, Judge Wingate called the ads “an illegal attempt” to influence the outcome of Kentucky’s 2011 gubernatorial election due to a failure by Restoring America to properly report the source of contributions funding the ads as required under Kentucky law. Restoring America had reported a solitary contribution from Restoring America, Inc. of more than $1.3 million to run the ads, but the judge ruled the use of the additional entity was simply masking the identities of individual donors.

Judge Wingate’s order, thought to be the first such order to halt political advertising by a third party in the state, was quickly met with opposition by First Amendment rights activists who have argued it is no more than a state-level assault on the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case.

Restoring America did file an initial appeal on Tuesday, October 18, but that appeal was rejected due to a technical deficiency. Another appeal is expected.

Watch How New York City Government Is (and Isn’t) Using Social Media on PBS. See more from Metrofocus.

Govloop blogger Scott Burns was on a panel discussing the use of social media by New York City government. He gives us a glimpse into that discussion with his blog post: “How New York City Government Is (and Isn’t) Using Social Media” from October 17.

The panel included New York City’s Chief Digital Officer, people from the MTA and the New York City Council, as well as representatives from Microsoft and GovDelivery. If you are interested in social media strategy, measurement, as well as its limitations, this video offers a wealth of information straight from the city’s agencies. You can also find New York Public Media’s Metro Focus coverage of the event here.

Dave Levinthal just published the article “K Street suffers from Twitter jitters” in Politico, where he talks about how lobbyists face a world increasingly using social media.

Members of Congress and their staff are communicating more and more via Facebook and Twitter. So too, many of the companies and organizations that hire lobbyists are employing social media platforms in their communications strategies.

Levinthal’s article explains how lobbyists prefer face-to-face meetings over video conferences or Facebook updates as a way of getting their message across to lawmakers. He also stresses that lobbyists are eager to keep their clients’ information from being broadcast in all directions over social networks.

The article quotes Patton Boggs Chairperson Nick Allard in order to highlight the dilemma: “I’m sure when lawyers or lobbyists used the telegraph for the first time, they faced this kind of issue …  But you cannot be a Luddite and a lobbyist. Luddite lobbyists go out of business.”

What communications will lobbyists embrace in the face of social media? Don’t miss Politico’s analysis.

Photo of the K Street street sign by Ben Shumin on Wikipedia.