Essential Ethics

Latest Developments: The Michigan Secretary of State released inflation-adjusted lobby reporting thresholds, fees, and penalties for 2021. The changes include an increase in the threshold that requires registration from expenditures of more than $2,535 in a 12-month period to…

Latest Developments:  The United States Department of State issued a release requesting that U.S. “think tanks and other foreign policy organizations that wish to engage with the Department disclose prominently on their websites funding they receive from foreign governments,…

Latest Developments: The California Fair Political Practices Commission has proposed a series of regulations that would adjust contribution and gift limits in the state, beginning January 1, 2021. The commission will hold a hearing on the regulations at its…

Latest Developments: The Arizona Court of Appeals decided The Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation v. State of Arizona, which reinstates a statute that limits the Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s ability to require disclosure of political spending by nonprofit organizations. The…

Latest Developments: The New York Joint Commission on Public Ethics approved a new Advisory Opinion regarding gifts to third parties, including gifts from interested sources, that are solicited by public officials (also known as behested payments).  In addition, the Albany…

Latest Developments: The Mayor of San Bernardino City vetoed an effort to continue unlimited campaign contributions in municipal elections.  The measure, MC-1543 (see pp. 37-41), is designed to avoid a state-imposed limit of $4,700 per election that…

Latest Developments: The United States Department of Justice announced that a Glendale attorney pleaded guilty to “conspiring to make and conceal conduit and excessive campaign contributions during the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and thereafter.”  He was accused of making…

Latest Developments: A United Stated District Court in Missouri issued an injunction in Make Liberty Win v. Zigler.  The court enjoined the Missouri Ethics Commission from enforcing a requirement that committees file a statement of organization at least…

Latest Developments: The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an opinion in the case of CREW v. FEC, which struck down Federal Election Commission regulations and upheld the statutory requirement that contributors of $200 or more…

Latest Developments: The  United States District Court in Missoula, Montana, in Doctors for a Healthy Montana v. Fox, overturned Montana’s statute that requires that PACs use “a name or phrase: (i) that clearly identifies the economic or special…