Essential Ethics

Latest Developments: The Governor of California signed a suite of bills related to the state Political Reform Act.One of those bills, AB 1798, requiring certain disclosures on electronic advertisements, is inoperative. That bill defers to SB 1360, which “[r]evises…

Latest Developments: The Governor of California signed AB 1783, which, among other things, amends the Political Reform Act of 1974 to expand the definition of lobbyist “administrative action.” According to the legislative summary, while “[e]xisting law requires the…

Latest Developments: The United States Senate defeated S 443, otherwise known as the so-called “DISCLOSE Act” on a 49-49 party-line vote. The Act would have “provide[d] for additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations, Super PACs and other…

Latest Developments: The United States Department of Justice indicted a Hawaii businessman developer as well the Maui County official he allegedly bribed with over $2 million in exchange for favoritism with government contracts. The DOJ contends that the…

Latest Developments: A US Federal District court convicted former Atlanta city official Mitzi Bickers in the latest development of a pay-to-play scandal which also ensnarled two city contractors and the former mayor. The DOJ alleged that “Bickers…

Latest Developments: The Attorney General of the United States released a memorandum concerning new restrictions on political activities of non-career department employees. The memo provides these employees with new admonishments, cautioning that they “may not participate in any partisan…

Latest Developments: The US Department of Justice arrested the former speaker of the Tennessee state House of Representatives Glen Casada as part of a larger corruption probe involving other legislators. PBS reports that Casada and a top aid stand accused of…

Latest Developments: The Federal Elections Commission advised a tech giant with a ubiquitous email platform “that a proposed pilot program allowing political campaigns to evade automated spam detection would not violate federal campaign finance law.” The Washington Post reports that the…

Latest Developments: The US DOJ Office of Government Ethics released a report detailing the finding of “its annual survey of prosecutions involving the conflict of interest criminal statutes…and other related statutes for calendar year 2021.” According to FedWeek, [t]he cited…

Latest Developments: A District Court Judge in Alaska dismissed a lawsuit “request[ing] to block campaign finance provisions of a ballot measure approved by Alaska voters in 2020, finding that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated a likelihood…