The Supreme Court has denied a petition for a writ of certiorari challenging the limits a political party can spend in coordination with a candidate, leaving in place the $5,000 limits on party contributions to candidates. In Cao v. FEC, the Republican National Committee had argued making their expenditures in coordination with Louisiana Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao, as opposed to making completely independent expenditures for him, constituted both Representative Cao’s and the RNC’s free speech.

The District Court Eastern District of Louisiana, following a prior judgment from the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on other grounds, found 2 U.S.C. §441a(a)(2)(A), limiting the amount of the contributions, constitutional. The RNC’s appeal had been filed by James Bopp, Jr.

This post is follows two previous Lobby Comply articles by George Ticoras:

“$5,000 Contribution Limit Upheld” from November 22, 2010

“RNC Argues for Coordinated Campaign Spending” from December 13, 2010

Photo of the U.S. Supreme Court Building inscription by UpstateNYer on Wikipedia.

UTAH: Governor Gary Herbert has called a special session of the legislature to convene at noon on March 25. The governor stated the purpose of the special session will be to repeal HB477, an open records law which the governor had previously signed earlier this month. The legislature had adjourned on March 10.

LOUISIANA: The legislature convened on March 20 for an ‘extraordinary session’ to establish redistricting boundaries for all congressional, state and local entities’ elections. The session is scheduled for no later than April 13. The regular session of the legislature convenes on April 25.

Commissioners in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina have agreed to a change in the county’s ethics code preventing themselves and other county employees from soliciting or receiving tickets to cultural or sporting events supported by the county.

If the county has included money, either directly or indirectly, or if an employee knows or has reason to know county money may be requested for an event, employees will no longer be able to receive complimentary tickets. County employees are still free to purchase their own tickets to sporting and cultural events without violating the new policy.

Photo of the Charlotte, North Carolina skyline by Riction on Wikipedia.

Elizabeth Bartz, President and CEO of State and Federal Communications, and staff members attended Akron’s State of the City Address, which was presented by Mayor Don Plusquellic. The luncheon was held at the Tangier.

Mayor Plusquellic discussed the challenges Akron faces in the difficult economy amid state and federal budget cuts to local causes. He also praised the hard work of City of Akron employees, as well as the dedicated work of the police, the firefighters, and the school teachers.

Plusquellic spoke of balancing the city’s budget, of exciting economic opportunities with the development of Akron’s biomedical corridor, and of manufacturing initiatives such as $1 million in seed money from Medical Mutual to help establish small businesses.

You can read the full text of the address here.

You may live in a state where the state Legislature has the responsibility of drawing the congressional districts, or you may live in a state where an independent commission does the job. One thing is certain, now that the 2010 U.S. Census has published its findings, there is renewed interest by average citizens in the redistricting process.

Something is different this time around, though. We now have software that allows anyone with a computer to come up with their own redistricting plans. There are enthusiasts out there who would like to see fairer and more competitive races, some who would like to see their political party wipe out their opponents, and some who would just like to get rid of crazy-shaped gerrymander districts. For many hobbyists, this has been just for fun, but others are really trying to make a change. The Commonwealth of Virginia even held a Redistricting Competition.

Here are two interesting articles on the subject:

“Technology allows citizens to be part of redistricting process” by Gregory Korte in USA Today from March 21.

“Hobbyists Take Up Redrawing Congressional Maps” by Danny Yadron in the Wall Street Journal from March 21.

Are you eager give it a try? Fear not, you can use Dave’s Redistricting App. Now, go slay some Gerrymanders!

Last Friday when I was writing my Highlighted Site of the Week post about the Sunshine Week website, I added some links to places for further study. In my haste I showed the last link for the “Best Practices for State Campaign Finance Disclosure, 2010” as being a project of SunshineWeek.0rg. Well, this isn’t the case, and I knew better. It belongs to the site FollowTheMoney.org, a project of the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

I send a big thank you to the National Institute on Money in State Politics for emailing me, showing appreciation for our blog, and very kindly setting the record straight.

If you dig into FollowTheMoney.org, you will see what an important resource it is for government transparency. In addition to the Best Practices data, you will find the Legislative Committee Analysis Tool, Point of Interest interactive maps, and many other features and mashups. You can filter your search results to your own congressional district and even use an API to stream their data onto your own website. Their motto: Jump Into the Data!

The National Institute on Money in State Politics offers the public information on a scale we absolutely could not get for ourselves. Their site describes the feat better than I can:

“Every two years, Institute data acquisition specialists collect, input and upload more than 90,000 contribution reports filed by 15,500 statewide, legislative and judicial candidates, 250 political party committees and 500 ballot measure committees in the 50 states. Researchers standardize donor names and code over $2 billion in contributions to 400 business categories and other interests. Programmers create open access to the records and attract thousands of users to the information. Staff also introduce users to the tools and resources and work with dozens of reporters to answer questions and provide custom data sets for their investigation.”

Thanks again to everyone at the National Institute on Money in State Politics. I hope our readers take the opportunity to view their powerful website.

This week is Sunshine Week, when people across the country celebrate the importance of government transparency and warn against the dangers of government secrecy. The organization behind the celebration has a website, SunshineWeek.org, and this is our Highlighted Site of the Week.

According to the site, Sunshine Week is “a national effort spearheaded by the American Society of News Editors. The key funder has been the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with significant support from ASNE Foundation. In 2011, The Gridiron Club and Foundation contributed $10,000.” The week-long celebrations include groups across the country finding creative ways to raise awareness for freedom of information – through songwriting, hosting public forums, having classroom discussions, writing editorials to newspapers, and much more. This week also marks the 12th National Freedom of Information Day on the 16th.

The White House honored the week. Steve Croley, Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy, offered this blog post on the White House blog in honor of Sunshine Week. They have provided their analysis of how transparency improvements have been made on their Open Government Initiative web page.

For more information about Sunshine Week, you can follow their blog. You can also find many resources on the United States Department of Justice’s Freedom of Information Act website (foia.gov). Another item of interest to our readers is the “Best Practices for State Campaign Finance Disclosure, 2010” from the National Institute on Money in State Politics found on followthemoney.org.

Have a terrific weekend everyone!

With the advent of Gov 2.0 technology, there has been a hopeful movement toward government transparency, with state government spending being one key area. For those interested in following transparency news that affects government procurement, Govtech.com published an article by Matt Williams called “State Spending Transparency Greatly Improved from 1 Year Ago, Survey Says.”

Williams draws his information from U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, which published their Executive Summary of 2010.

This quote from U.S. PIRG’s website gives us an idea of what they were evaluating:

“State governments across the country have been moving toward making their checkbooks transparent by creating online transparency portals – government-operated websites that allow visitors to see who receives state money and for what purposes. Forty states provide transparency websites that allow residents to access databases of government expenditures with ‘checkbook-level’ detail. Most of these websites are also searchable, making it easier for residents to follow the money and monitor government spending.”

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The FEC has released an Interpretive Rule Regarding Electronic Contributor Redesignations. A contribution made for one election may be applied to another election if the redesignation is in writing and signed by the contributor, according to commission regulations.

The commission has found a certain method of electronic redesignation meets this requirement. The method, described in the commission’s interpretive rule, requires the contributor visiting a website to fill out an electronic form authorizing the redesignation and to verify their identity by entering their personal information, including his or her first and last name, address, phone number, e-mail address, occupation, and name of his or her employer. The commission found this process sufficiently equivalent to a written signature.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we thought we would raise up everything we could find that is Irish.

A great place to start would be the Irish-American lobby – the Irish National Caucus website. They have a blog, too, so you can keep up on government relations news of Irish-American interest. The big news item right now is the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe will be holding a congressional hearing on Northern Ireland: “Northern Ireland: Why Justice in Individual Cases Matters”.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny is in Washington today for the St. Patrick’s Day festivities and will be meeting with both Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama.

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Governor Deal signed House Bill 232 on Tuesday, March 15, 2011. The law, which is effective retroactively to January 10, 2011, redefines the term “lobbyist” to require a person to be compensated specifically for lobbying activities before being required to register and report as a lobbyist. Also, a person is now only deemed a “lobbyist” if more than 10 percent of his or her working hours are spent engaged in lobbying activities.

A “lookback” period is included for each calendar month, requiring lobbyist registration and an initial disclosure report within five days if at the end of any month a person has met the 10 percent test. Further, the expenditure triggers for lobbyist registration have been increased from $250 to $1,000.

Additionally, lobbyists are granted a grace period of three business days in filing all disclosure reports. Finally, persons who are employed as bona fide salespersons are exempt from regulation as vendor lobbyists.

Photo of the dome of the Georgia State Capitol by Connor.carey on Wikipedia.

The complaint filed by the American Education Association seeks to have the law overturned on grounds of violating free speech and equal protection.

Even though the law prohibits the use of payroll deductions from all public employees for such activities, the teachers’ group says the law, passed and supported by Republicans, is discriminatory and specifically aimed at them because the A.E.A. has traditionally been a strong supporter of Democratic candidates.

The statute in question has been a source of controversy since it was passed in December during a special legislative session which saw an overhaul of several aspects of the Alabama ethics laws.



On March 14, Politico published an  interview of political consultant Joe Trippi.  He speaks about what should be clear to everyone after the 2008 presidential election – social media has changed the rules of engagement in political campaigning.

What will startle many people is his set of predictions: By 2012 or 2016, Trippi sees an end to the two-party domination of presidential elections (thanks to social media) and a level of fund raising that will eclipse what we saw with the Obama campaign. He also sees such funding going to a third-party candidate who is smart enough to use social media in an innovative way. The result could be a great political upset for Democrats and Republicans.

Whatever unfolds in the coming year, the missing piece from the discussion is consideration of the ramifications for campaign finance regulation. In the scenario  Trippi depicts, how will the new issues of advertising on social networks be handled? How will the source of funding be disclosed for a Facebook or Twitter message that is primarily a political advertisement and could social media efforts fall under the category of in-kind contributions?

The developments could complicate state elections, too. We have Maryland’s State Board of Elections and California’s Fair Political Practices Commission as examples of the first efforts at the regulation of political campaigning on the internet. I wonder how many oversight agencies will get out ahead of the issue by the next election?

For the Politico interview, read “Joe Trippi: Social media will kill two-party system” by Mike Zapler.

The House has included a provision in their appropriations bill which would double lobbyists’ registration fees. House Bill 3700 increases lobbyist and lobbyist’s principal registration fees to $200. The State Ethics Commission would retain fifty percent of the increased fee and the remaining fifty percent would go to the state’s general fund.

Also included in the bill is a provision precluding the State Ethics Commission staff from making any public comment which in any way reflects a personal opinion on any matter which is before the commission.