Essential Ethics

Latest Developments: A Federal Grand Jury in Tennessee saw top state lawmakers, including the current state-House speaker, testify this week amidst a years-long “investigation [of]…a case involving the creation of a political vendor that gave kickbacks to…

Latest Developments: The Oregon Supreme Court issued a ruling in Ofsink v. Fagan, turning down an appeal asking the “Secretary of State to withdraw her orders that disqualified their  initiative  petitions  from  appearing  on the November 2022 general…

Latest Developments: The Governor of Wyoming signed SB 80, which requires “all campaigns and political action committees to file an itemized statement of contributions and expenditures,” not just those that expend funds during the reporting period, and increases the…

Latest Developments: The Wyoming Legislature approved and sent to the Governor HB 49, which requires corporations and other entities that spend $1,000 or more on independent expenditures or electioneering communications to register and file reports of their activity….

Latest Developments: The Alaska Public Offices Commission has advised us that, “In light of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Thompson v. Hebdon, APOC staff issued a draft advisory opinion concerning contribution limits. Staff recommended that the…

Latest Developments: The Iowa Ethics Commission issued Advisory Opinion 2022-01 permitting campaign contributions in cryptocurrency, and declaring that those contributions are to be reported as “in-kind contributions.” The currency is valued at the time of liquidation.  Committees are…

Latest Developments: The San Francisco Ethics Commission published a draft measure, which it plans to place on the June 2022 ballot, that would re-write existing ethics provisions. A special meeting to hear from the pubic is scheduled for…

Latest Developments: A United States District Court judge in Georgia issued a preliminary injunction barring the incumbent Governor from spending leadership committee funds on his reelection campaign. Leadership committees are not subject to the same contribution limits as…

Latest Developments: The Federal Election Commission announced its “Lobbyist bundling disclosure threshold increases” for 2022. The updated FEC rules “require certain political committees to disclose information about lobbyists/registrants and lobbyist/registrant PACs whose bundled contributions within a covered period exceed” $20,200. The Oakland, CA Public Ethics…

Latest Developments: The White House announced the nomination of Dara Lindenbaum to the Federal Election Commission. Politico describes Lindenbaum as “a campaign finance attorney,” who “was general counsel to Stacey Abrams’ 2018 Georgia gubernatorial run and deputy general counsel for…