Essential Ethics

Latest Developments:  Montana and Oregon Join Hawaii to Address Corporate and Dark Money The measure on Montana’s November ballot considers a “dark money” ban barring businesses, unions and nonprofit groups from making donations to candidates…

Latest Developments:  SEC Issues Proposal to Rescind “Pay to Play Rule” for Investment Advisers The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a proposal to rescind the “pay to play rule” of the Investment Advisers Act…

Latest Developments: Shareholder Proposals on Political Transparency Show Support, Despite Challenging Environment The Center for Political Accountability reports “strong shareholder support” during the 2026 proxy season for its corporate political disclosure and accountability effort in…

Latest Developments:  California Bill Advancing to Fine Campaign Influencers California requires content creators to say if they’ve been paid by a political campaign to post content. Legislation is advancing to amend the law to impose…

Latest Developments:  Federal Government Issues Guidance Document and Website for Contractor Lobbying As previously reported in this blog, Section 851 of the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) established new contracting restrictions intended to…

Latest Developments: Supreme Court Justices’ Required Disclosures of Gifts From Private Sources Four Justices received millions of dollars in earnings from books, and several reported income for teaching law courses in the U.S. and abroad….

July 6, 2026 Latest Developments: U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Limits on Political Parties’ Coordinated Spending The Court struck down federal limits on political party spending in coordination with individual candidates, holding that the limits in…

Latest Developments:  Los Angeles County Supervisors Move to Create New Ethics Commission The L.A. Board of Supervisors passed a motion May 19th directing departments to take steps needed to “launch” a new L.A. County Ethics…

Latest Developments: How Buckley Changed the Rules for Spending More than 50 years after Buckley v. Valeo, the New York Times analyzed how it led to the end of post-Watergate campaign finance restrictions that would…

Latest Developments: Lobbyists Indicted for Paying for Lawmakers’ Bourbon Trail Tour Four lobbyists have now been indicted on misdemeanor charges for violating North Carolina’s ban on gifts to state legislators. As reported previously in Essential…