Latest Developments:
- The Illinois Legislature, after rebuffing the Governor’s request to amend SB 539 earlier, passed the requested amendments to the ethics bill at the beginning of a one-day session called to “consider a comprehensive energy package.” The Mattoon Journal-Gazette & Times-Courier explains that the week before, when the ethics bill was brought up at the end of a one-day session on redistricting, “Republicans pulled their support while several Democrats had already left the building, leaving the amended bill with only 59 votes, far short of the 71 votes needed to pass.” The amended measure makes extensive changes to ethics, campaign finance, and lobbying laws. The bill will take effect January 1, 2022, after approval by the Governor.
- The Federal Election Commission “found no reason to believe that Twitter, Inc. violated [certain election laws] by making a corporate in-kind contributions” when it “blocked users from sharing links to and posting certain information from the New York Post articles relating to hacked and personal information” about Hunter Biden. The decision in Twitter, et al found that “because Twitter’s actions reflect a commercial, rather than electoral purpose, they were not contributions.” Moreover “Twitter’s actions… were not coordinated with the Biden Committee, and as such also did not constitute contributions.”
- The Governor of New York appointed James Dering as the new acting Chair of the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. Dering is a holdover appointee from the Cuomo administration. According to CBS6 Albany, the appointment occurred “Just four minutes before Tuesday’s JCOPE meeting…” The Governor’s office issued a statement to CBS6 indicating that the Governor is “‘actively working to make more appointments and pursue bold reforms to JCOPE to improve ethics oversight and support the Governor’s efforts to restore trust in government.’”
- The Chicago Board of Ethics imposed a $5,000 fine in an enforcement action (see pp. 31-32) for failing to register when “lobbying the Mayor to influence [an] ‘administrative action.’” The Chicago Tribune explains that the Board issued the fine against the owner of Chicago’s WNBA team because the owner emailed the Mayor’s wife seeking help on legislation that could lead to his acquisition of a gaming license. She forwarded the email to the Mayor and said the Mayor would call him.
Reminder:
Corporate Political Activities 2021 – Latest Developments: The Pracitising Law Institute (PLI) will conduct its annual two-day conference on October 12-13, 2021, both in-person and online. You may register here.
In Case You Missed It:
- Guilty Plea: According to the NBC News, Igor Fruman “pleaded guilty to a single count of solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national, who was not identified by prosecutors.” According to the article, he “sent text messages to the foreign national and that person’s agent seeking $1 million in political contributions and that the foreign national wired two $500,000 installments for that purpose.” Fruman “said he was not aware of laws prohibiting foreign campaign contributions at the time he engaged in the donation scheme.” Fruman is best known for making “headlines for helping Rudy Giuliani seek damaging information on Joe Biden in Ukraine.”
- Campaign Finance Disclosure Sought: The Baltimore Sun reveals that the Maryland State Board of Elections sent a letter to former Lt. Governor Steele following receipt of a complaint that he was “using a federal account to raise and spend money for a future state campaign in Maryland.” His spokesperson indicated that the letter is a “vindication that they are properly using their federal account in advance of potentially launching a gubernatorial campaign and creating a state campaign finance account.” The article explains that “a [federal] 527 account has significant advantages, such as no limit on how much an individual or company can donate to the committee. A campaign committee organized under Maryland law can accept only a maximum of $6,000 per donor for each four-year cycle.”
- New Jersey Complaint Disposal: Politico reports on the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission’s practice of “quietly” deleting complaints from its website after disposing of them in executive session. A vocal critic asserted that “‘The public has no clue as to why the dismissals occurred…’” The Commission’s Executive Director countered that “‘Even after dismissed complaints have been taken down from our website, members of the public still are entitled to obtain copies under the Open Public Meetings Act…’”