Pay-to-Play

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New Jersey is well-known for having strict, comprehensive, and complex pay-to-play laws.  Two new changes to an annual pay-to-play filing required of some government contractors will only enhance that reputation.

State law requires a company that receives $50,000 annually through government contracts in New Jersey to file a report by March 30 of the following…

On Wednesday, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) announced that its expanded pay-to-play rules will cover municipal advisors, including third-party solicitors, as of August 17, 2016.

As we noted previously and discussed during Covington’s Corporate Political Activity & Government Affairs Compliance Conference earlier this month, the MSRB has been drafting an expansion to its pay-to-play…

A $12 million settlement announced last week by the Securities & Exchange Commission suggests that the SEC will aggressively pursue alleged schemes connecting political contributions to government contracts even if the political contributions do not violate its 2010 pay-to-play rule.  According to the settlement order, in 2010, the head of Public Funds at State Street…

Yesterday’s D.C. Circuit opinion upholding the SEC’s burdensome “pay-to-play” rule on procedural grounds is bad news for those questioning the rule’s constitutionality.  Nevertheless, the rule is still far from invincible.

The SEC pay-to-play rule, among other things, effectively prohibits investment firm executives from making certain political contributions to state and local officeholders and candidates.  Last…

The Wagner case, decided today by the D.C. Circuit, is important because of its analysis of the constitutionality of federal campaign contribution restrictions and, by extension, of pay-to-play laws generally. Covington has been monitoring this case since the district court decision in 2012, to the argument before the D.C. Circuit in 2013, and the decision…

Despite potential vulnerabilities, Hawaii’s pay-to-play law survived a significant challenge in the Ninth Circuit last week.  The matter involved an electrical-construction company, its CEO and a second individual who challenged several sections of Hawaii’s campaign finance law, including a requirement that the company register and report its activities once it crossed a $1,000 threshold, and…

Earlier this week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed key aspects of a bill that would have imposed new restrictions on the ability of national and federal political party committees to raise money from Wall Street and financial executives.  The bill, as we have previously discussed, sought to apply the state’s notoriously stringent pay-to-play…

A little-noticed sentence in a bill sitting on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s desk could, if it becomes law, threaten to curtail the ability of national party committees to raise money from Wall Street and financial industry executives.  The Republican and Democratic Governors Associations, the Republican National Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and the federal…

In our discussion of the Securities & Exchange Commission’s (SEC) actions over the past year, we described how the SEC is ramping up enforcement of its pay-to-play restrictions.  We also pointed out an acknowledgment by an agency enforcement official that the agency is “actively looking” for violations and that the agency does its own “surveillance.”…