October 2012

As attention turns to the importance of voter turnout in deciding this election, a complaint filed in Colorado last week highlights a perennial in election law: restrictions on paying people to register or vote.  While paying for votes with cash is rare, well-meaning offers of free pizza, coffee, t-shirts or…
Continue Reading Free for Anyone with an “I Voted” Sticker?

A proposed New York regulation would force trade associations to disclose the full dues payment of any member who pays over $5,000 in dues – and trade associations are not happy about it.

Trade associations are joining forces to scale back proposed ethics regulations implementing ethics reform legislation New York…
Continue Reading Proposed New York Regulation Worries Trade Associations

A federal appeals court last week dealt a blow to legislative efforts to limit the effects of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.  Following Citizens United, campaign finance reformers attempted to restrain independent corporate political speech by pushing for laws which prohibited corporations from funding independent political advertisements…
Continue Reading Recent Appeals Court Decision Could Send Campaign Finance Reformers Back To Drawing Board

Since the federal court decisions in Citizens United and SpeechNow, courts, state campaign finance regulators, and state attorneys general have consistently found that Super PACs—entities that make only independent expenditures—are not bound by contribution limits.  Yesterday, a federal court in New York bucked this trend—at least preliminarily.

For…
Continue Reading Federal Court Upholds Super PAC Contribution Limit in New York Races for Now

It may seem odd, given that we are still two weeks away from the presidential election, but we are already starting to get calls from both Republican and Democratic aspirants for presidential appointments in the next administration, even before we know whose administration it will be.  Presidential appointees must endure…
Continue Reading ’Tis the Season: Vetting and Confirmation Season For Presidential Appointees Is Already Underway

California voters will face 11 statewide ballot initiatives when they visit the polls in less than three weeks.  One, Proposition 32, has garnered significant media attention because it would bar unions from using payroll deduction to collect PAC contributions.  Its effects on corporate PACs — which could be just…
Continue Reading Ballot Initiative Could Put An End To Federal Corporate PAC Giving In California

Lesson one for any student of state and local pay-to-play laws: just when you think you have a handle on them, they change.  Recent developments in a small New Jersey township provide a case-in-point.

Last month, Upper Township, New Jersey, adopted an ordinance that forbids the township from entering into…
Continue Reading New Jersey Township Move Highlights Dynamic Nature of Pay-to-Play Laws

A recent complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission against an Ohio company, Murray Energy, alleging that its senior executive illegally coerced employees to contribute to the company’s political action committee is garnering a fair amount of attention.  It’s not unusual to see allegations of employer coercion emerge in the…
Continue Reading Allegations Of Employer Coercion of Political Activity Are On The Rise

With respect to the upcoming presidential election, it appears that the dust has settled on the Montana contribution limits litigation.  As a refresher, the district court invalidated the State’s contribution limits and the State appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit and requested an emergency stay pending appeal.  Yesterday…
Continue Reading Montana Contribution Limits Survive for Upcoming Election