Congress

Assistance from congressional offices can be invaluable to an organization with interests before executive branch agencies.  But it also can pose legal and optics risks to both the organization requesting the assistance and the congressional office and Member of Congress doing the outreach.  A number of high-profile scandals, including the Keating Five matter in which

The influential Washington publication, National Journal, published this week a lengthy examination of two exceptions to the congressional travel rules.  The exceptions have permitted Members of Congress to participate in extensive overseas travel, paid by outside interests and often organized by registered lobbyists, in spite of earlier reform efforts designed to restrict privately organized

Yesterday, 10 Republican members of the U.S. Senate, led by Senator Orrin Hatch, wrote to the IRS and urged it to resist calls to limit the amount of political activity that 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations are permitted to engage in under a Treasury Regulation that has been in effect for 52 years.  Yesterday’s letter follows