Campaign Finance

“McCain predicts ‘huge’ U.S. campaign finance scandals” by Alina Selyukh (Reuters) in the Chicago Tribune.

“McCain Calls SCOTUS Decision on Campaign Spending ‘Stupid’” by Rebekah Metzler in the Chicago Tribune.

“Beware of the super-PAC: More lawmakers are fearing an ad ambush” by Joe Picard in The Hill.

Montana: “Conservative groups challenging campaign finance law formally seek Supreme Court intervention” by The Associated Press in The Republic.

Lobbying

“Lobbyists reaping $220M bonanza” by Rich Karlin in the Albany Times Union.

“Memo details oil, gas industry lobbying expenditures” by The Associated Press in the News Tribune.

“Review of lobbyist spending prompts House ethics meeting” by Jason Clayworth in the Des Moines Register.

The Philadelphia Board of Ethics issued an advisory alert announcing a delay in the availability of their online filing system for receipt of lobbyist and principal’s quarterly expense reports. The board’s online expense report function will not be available by April 30, the next date the reports are due.

However, because the quarterly expense reports, covering January 3 through March 31, remain due on April 30, the board intends to create an interim paper form expense reporting method. Lobbyists and principals will be able to fill out the interim form on the board’s website, which can then be downloaded and signed. The signed copy must be mailed or delivered to the board by the same April 30 deadline.

The board will advise all registered principals when the interim reporting method becomes available.

The current registration procedure is unaffected by the board’s announcement.

Federal

“Generation X joining K Street” by Jonathan Allen and Jennifer Martinez in Politico.

“Administration Staffers Head Out the Revolving Door” by Kate Ackley in Roll Call.

In the States

Illinois: “Illinois Senate panel blocks lobbyist ethics legislation” by Shannon McFarland (Associated Press) in the Jacksonville Journal Courier.

Illinois: “Lobbying reforms buried in subcommittee” by Rick Miller in Capitol Fax.

Iowa: “Iowa’s lobbying free-for-all” by Jason Clayworth and Jeffrey Kummer in the Des Moines Register.

Massachusetts: “AP: Mass. health care 5-year lobbying topped $51M” by Steve LeBlanc (Associated Press) in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Minnesota:  “$61M spent on lobbying in 2011” by Matt Herbert in Minnesota Daily.

National:

Study: State governments at high risk for corruption

Federal:

Federal Contractors Donate to Super PAC Backing Romney

GOP Super PAC Men Seek to Overturn Donation Limits

Insider Trading Ban for Lawmakers Clears Congress

Senate Dems Push ‘Disclose Act 2.0’

From the States and Municipalities:

Alabama

Key Corruption Trial Attorneys to Be in Benefit

Georgia

Atlanta Ethics Nominee Withdraws Name; Legislation to Give City Council More Power is Shelved

Illinois

Democrats Now Press Smith to Resign

Kansas

Kansas Bill Would Allow Officials to Explain Ballot Items in ‘Plain English’

Wisconsin

Ethics Violations Filed against Prosser

Wisconsin

Supreme Court Dismisses Case Challenging Political Ad 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.

Governor Dennis Daugaard has signed House Bill 1196. The bill amends the lobbyist reporting requirements to reflect the secretary of state’s electronic filing capabilities.

The employer authorization and lobbyist expense report may be submitted in writing or electronically. The completed reports are open to public inspection and will no longer need to be notarized before filing.

Although the bill has an effective date of July 1, 2012, the EZ Lobby system is already accessible at the secretary of state’s website.

The site allows lobbyists and their employers to register, pay fees, update information, and report expenses electronically. Paper forms are still available for lobbyists who chose to register by mail.

“Revolving Door: Hill Staffers with Retiring Bosses Hit K Street” by Andrew Joseph in National Journal’s Influence Alley.

“Minnesota Capitol the recipient of $59 million lobbying effort” by Megan Boldt in the Grand Forks Herald.

“Business groups spent $14 million lobbying Minn. Legislators” by Rachel E. Stassen-Berger in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

“Democrats propose new Missouri ethics bill” by Elizabeth Crisp in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. According to the article, “the bill would restrict the amount lawmakers and their immediate family members could accept from lobbyists, prohibit lawmakers from working as paid political consultants while in office and limit the investment of campaign contributions to interest-bearing checking or savings accounts.”

“Utah’s revolving door keeps spinning out lobbyists” by Britny Mortensen in The Salt Lake Tribune.

Take a tour of our site and click on the “Free Live Online Demo” on the middle of the left column of the home page. You will open a page with three blue links, located in the middle of the page:

•Executive Source Guide on Lobbying Laws
•Executive Source Guide on Political Contributions
•Executive Source Guide on Procurement Lobbying

Click on any one – or all three – to view the state of Alaska compliance information we provide to clients. This comprehensive and vital compliance information is updated continuously.

We have this same online information for all 50 states, the federal government, and 226 municipal and regional governments.

If you would like to view everything we have for online clients, contact us at info@stateandfed.com or 330-761-9960 and ask about our two-week trial. There is no cost for the trial, and you are under no obligation to purchase.

We can think of no better way for you to see the value in our online resources than for you and your team to actually use them for two weeks in your compliance efforts.

Howard Marlowe, president of the American League of Lobbyists, recently sent a letter to President Obama asking him to change his tone toward lobbyists and the lobbying profession. The organization is making a connection between the administration’s anti-lobbyist rhetoric and the rising number of unregistered lobbyists.

Whether they are calling themselves consultants or advisers, Marlowe points out that these people are lobbying and their activity thus goes on without any oversight:

“Those who are not registered are protected from discovery by the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism. Our primary concern with incentivizing deregistration is that the public loses knowledge of who these people are lobbying, who is paying for their advocacy work, how much they are being paid, and what issues are they being paid to work on.”

For full news coverage, please read “Lobbyists to Obama: Tone down the rhetoric!” by Byron Tau in Politico.

Photo of the White House by UpstateNYer on Wikipedia.

The Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners has passed an ordinance requiring registered lobbyists to complete ethics training. The effective date of the ordinance is March 16, 2012.

Registered lobbyists must, within 60 days of registration, submit to the clerk of the board a certificate of completion of an ethics course offered by the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. Lobbyists must also complete a refresher course every two years. The cost of the ethics course will be $100.

Additionally, the requirement is not applicable to any municipal lobbyist in the county unless the municipality has adopted an ordinance requiring ethics training and an agreement with the county authorizes the county ethics commission to provide an ethics training course.

Finally, the executive director of the Miami-Dade County Ethics Commission may waive the ethics course requirement for a particular lobbyist when it is determined that the lobbyist has taken an initial or refresher ethics course offered by a municipality satisfying the requirements pertaining to the Miami-Dade County ethics course requirements.

The Miami-Dade County Ethics Commission has noted their intent to contact all registered lobbyists in regards to this course once the course is prepared and ready to be offered.

Campaign Finance

“The Super PAC Paradox” by Eliza Newlin Carney in Roll Call.

“The year’s busiest day of campaign fundraising shows how Springfield really works” by Ray Long and Alissa Groeninger in the Chicago Tribune.

“Group to appeal Iowa campaign finance ruling” by The Associated Press in the Globe Gazette.

Lobbying

“Retiring lawmakers openly eye K Street” by Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman in Politico.

“Lobbying pays off big for business” by Toluse Olorunnipa in the Miami Herald.

“Facebook ‘friends’ a new lobby firm” by Rachel Leven in The Hill.

Campaign Finance

“FEC told to tread carefully with post-Citizens United rule” by Rachel Leven in The Hill.

“FEC moves on outdated rules” by Robin Bravender in Politico.

“DC mayor defends himself amid probe into campaign finance irregularities” by The Associated Press in The Washington Post.

Super PACs

“Super PACs Outspent Candidates in Run-Up to Tuesday” by Brody Mullins and Alicia Mundy  in The Wall Street Journal.

“Super PACs Could Drive Total 2012 Election Spending to $9.8B” by Cotton Delo in Ad Age.

Lobbying

“Son of legendary lobbyist starts own firm” by Kevin Bogardus in The Hill.

Redistricting

“Between the Lines: The Last Two Redistricting Holdouts” by Shira Toeplitz, Abby Livingston, and Joshua Miller in Roll Call.

The State Integrity Investigation, a project by the Center for Public Integrity and other partners, is giving each state a grade in various areas of accountability and transparency. “Keep Government Honest” is their motto.

Lobbying is one of the categories they are measuring. The report considers a state’s definition of lobbying, its registration and reporting requirements, disclosure by lobbyist employers and principals, its citizen access to data, and the monitoring of lobbying requirements. The grades they are giving are “weak,” “fair,” or “strong”.

What is the corruption risk data for your state? It is easy to check by using this interactive map. (Some states’ grades are still being compiled.)

Take a look at “Michigan ‘weak’ in lobbying oversight,” where Peter Luke of Bridge Magazine discusses the mixed grades in Michigan’s report card.

California: “Teachers union leads in record year of lobbying lawmakers” by Patrick McGreevy in the Los Angeles Times.

Michigan: “Report: As Michigan economy floundered, spending by Michigan lobbyists soared 86%” in the Detroit Free Press.

New Jersey: “N.J. lobbyist spending hits new high at $73M; teachers union tops list again” by Matt Friedman in the Star-Ledger.

New Jersey: “N.J. Teachers Union Spent Record $11.3 Million on Ads Criticizing Christie” by Terrence Dopp in Bloomberg.

Q.  As an organization employing in-house lobbyists, what expenditures am I required to capture for inclusion in the aggregate dollar amount reported on my quarterly Federal LD-2 report?

A. There are a variety of expenditures that Federal registrants are required to track and report in an effort to provide a good faith estimate of their activity.  These expenditures include:

• Compensation, expenses and overhead associated with “registered” lobbyist employee activity.  For Federal purposes, a “registered” lobbyist is an individual who meets the statutory definition of a lobbyist and is listed by name on the LD-2 report;
• Compensation, expenses and overhead associated with any non-lobbyist employee who engaged in lobbying activity during the quarter (even though they do not meet the statutory definition of lobbyist).  Their names are not listed on the report, but the value of their activity is included;
• Dues paid to an association or membership organization during the quarter that are attributable to lobbying.  This amount is typically a percentage of the overall payments made to the membership organization and is ascertained by speaking with the outside entity directly.  Importantly, dues payments for lobbying activities should be included in the estimate for the quarter in which they are paid and cannot be apportioned over a longer period of time;
• Retainers/fees incurred during the quarter to outside consultants/firms for lobbying activities.  These fees are required to be included during the quarter in which they are incurred regardless of whether billing or payment has been made.

If we can be of assistance in helping to identify reportable expenditures, please let us know.

You can directly submit questions for this feature, and we will select those most appropriate and answer them here. Send your questions to: marketing@stateandfed.com.

(We are always available to answer questions from clients that are specific to your needs, and we encourage you to continue to call or e-mail us with questions about your particular company or organization. As always, we will confidentially and directly provide answers or information you need.) Our replies to your questions are not legal advice. Instead, these replies represent our analysis of laws, rules, and regulations.