February 2013

One issue that confronted many public companies this year was how to respond when they received multiple shareholder proposals relating to political contributions and lobbying matters. One approach that some companies have turned to relies on Rule 14a-8(i)(11) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which allows a company to exclude from its proxy materials…

Yesterday’s guilty pleas in the Danielczyk criminal trial leaves open an important question that campaign finance practitioners must consider closely going forward: when does the government consider a sua sponte submission itself to constitute a criminal violation, and seek to compel counsel to become a witness against their client?  As BNA first reported, the Justice…

This morning the Supreme Court denied review in Danielczyk v. United States, a criminal case in which the defendants challenged the century-old federal ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates.  The district court had granted a motion to dismiss Count Four of the indictment, alleging that the defendants had directed corporate money to a…

When is an independent expenditure-only committee, or Super PAC, truly independent of the candidate the Super PAC supports?  Surprisingly few courts in the post-Citizens United world have decided this question.  A recent Vermont Superior Court decision, however, provides a rare example of a court grappling with this issue.

The case involved allegations of coordination…

The top story in today’s campaign finance press is the Supreme Court’s decision to hear McCutcheon v. FEC, a challenge to the Federal Election Campaign Act’s biennial limits on individual contributions to candidate and non-candidate committees.  Here are a few key take-aways.

Timing.  The Court’s argument calendar is full for the remainder of…

The FEC is often caricatured as either a “sleeping watch dog” or the “speech police.”  We decided to take a more balanced look at the agency’s work in 2012, to see if we could identify broader trends or decisions that were overlooked at the time, but which seem likely to have long-term significance.  The results…