Latest Developments:
- The Governor of Illinois signed SB 539. The comprehensive ethics reform bill expands lobbyist registration and reporting to include lobbying local government, and revises provisions relating to procurement, revolving door restrictions, and campaign contributions. The measure takes effect on January 1, 2022.
- The Alaska Public Offices Commission imposed a fine of $38,500 against the Mayor of Anchorage’s campaign committee for violations of campaign contribution and disclosure laws. The Midnight Sun explains that the fine was imposed “for a repeated pattern of incomplete and misleading reports that had the result of never giving the public a clear picture of campaign was up to until well after he won office… The final report takes note of the ‘pervasiveness of the violations’ and how ‘despite filing a total of seventeen amendments to the four reports, Bronson for Mayor never fully complied with its reporting obligations.’”
- The New Mexico Secretary of State issued its 2020 Campaign Finance Random Examination Report. According to the Associated Press, “After a four-year hiatus, state election regulators have resumed spot-checks on campaign finance disclosures by politicians, election candidates and political committees, with 10 accounts referred to New Mexico’s fledgling State Ethics Commission and state prosecutors for possible enforcement action.”
In Case You Missed It:
- SEIU Chief Charged with Embezzling Campaign Funds: The Sacramento Bee reports that the California Attorney General charged the Executive Director of Service Employees International Union California with “multiple counts of tax fraud, embezzlement, perjury and failure to pay unemployment insurance taxes.” The charges stem from an investigation started by the Fair Political Practices Commission into an “allegation that [she] as treasurer for a 2014 state senate campaign directed spending to her husband for campaign services he did not provide.”
- Matriculation on the Government Dime: The Associated Press reports on corruption allegations involving a father-son pair of former state legislators. The father, now a Los Angeles City Councilmember and a former Los Angeles County Supervisor, “promised to steer millions of dollars in [Los Angeles County] contracts to the [University of Southern California] if his son got a scholarship and a teaching job.” The Dean of USC’s School of Social Work promised “a full-tuition scholarship and a paid professorship, and concocted a scheme to funnel $100,000 in [the father’s] campaign funds through the university ‘to a non-profit to be operated by the [son]’…” The U.S. Department of Justice statement on the matter notes that the latter kickback scheme “violated multiple university policies regarding the funding of nonprofits”; the DOJ also indicted the now former dean on corruption charges. The DOJ did not charge the son, who resigned from the legislature in 2017 following sexual harassment allegations.
- Campaign Finance Trial Begins:Reuters notes that the trial of Lev Parnas began in New York City this week, with the prosecutor alleging that he “used $100,000 from a wealthy Russian businessman to make illegal donations to U.S. politicians.” The New York Times frames the arguments of the two sides with the questions, “Was Lev Parnas a businessman who cared about energy independence and marijuana legalization? Or a conniver who flouted campaign finance laws?”
- No Guns, No Government Contracts: The Dallas Morning News reports on the impact on banks of a new Texas law that bans state and local governments from doing business with vendors “that limit business with the firearms industry.” SB 19 requires companies with government contracts of $100,000 or more to certify that they do not discriminate against a “firearm entity or firearm trade association.” The measure took effect September 1, 2021.
- Beware Scam PACs: The Daily Beast reminds us that scam PACs are still operating, navigating in a gray area. Those organizations purport to support a political cause but the money “goes almost entirely to telemarketing and consulting outfits… One way to identify a scam PAC is by comparing how much money they spend on ‘operating expenses,’ which go to overhead, fundraising, and administrative costs, with how much they spend on ‘independent expenditures,’ which go to support candidates. These groups all report vast discrepancies between those two types of payments, spending nearly all their money on ‘operating expenses’ to sketchy companies, and hardly any on politics.”
- Federal Prison for Contract Kickback: The Associated Press reports that a federal judge sentenced a former Indiana Mayor to 21 months in federal prison for accepting what the former Mayor called a “payment for consulting work” and that his attorney called a “gratuity.” A trucking company paid him $13,000 “in return for steering about $1.1 million in city contracts to the company.”