Latest Developments:
- The United States First Circuit Court of Appeals, in Gaspee Project v. Mederos, upheld Rhode Island’s “limited disclosure of funding sources responsible for certain independent expenditures and electioneering communications.” The court found that the laws bore “a substantial relation to a sufficiently important governmental interest and are narrowly tailored enough to withstand exacting scrutiny.” The Providence Journal reports that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is planned.
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:
- Contractor Sentenced: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a city contractor was sentenced to two years in federal prison for his part in bribing the former head of the San Francisco Department of Public Works in exchange for “a lucrative contract to build and operate an asphalt recycling plant on land owned by the Port of San Francisco.”
- Pay-to-Play Mayor Sentenced: The Mayor of Fall River Massachusetts was sentenced to six years in prison for corruption. The Fall River Herald News reminds us that the Mayor “was convicted in May of devising a pay-to-play scheme in Fall River, extorting bribes from marijuana businessmen looking to open up shop in the city.”
- Fine for Soliciting Contractor Contributions: The Bowling Green Daily News reports that the former Director of the Rhode Island Department of Administration, which “oversees hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of state contracting and spending” agreed to “pay a $4,500 fine to settle an ethics complaint over his solicitation of campaign donations from state vendors for a mayoral run.” The article notes that the former director “admitted in the settlement [with the State Ethics Commission] that six separate solicitations from an owner or officer of a company that does business with the state violated the code of ethics.” He previously obtained an advisory opinion from the Ethics Commission outlining what fundraising was permissible, and asserted that “he ‘never knowingly solicited contributions from vendors.’”
- Foreign Solicitations Result in Indictments: Politico describes two new federal indictments for “facilitating a campaign contribution by a foreign national, acting as a straw donor and causing the filing of false campaign finance reports.” The pair of fundraisers are accused of “funneling $25,000 from a Russian national into the Trump campaign in 2016.”