Campaign Finance

<p>We are seeing the first detailed evidence of the tampering that went on during the 2016 campaign for U.S. President.  This is a whole new category of "nasty" that allows people without scruples to feed false information into the mix without any transparency.  In this article, the NY Times lays out a host of Facebook and Twitter advertising that was purchased (estimated at $100,000 in paid advertising) but sources were never  revealed - as you might expect.</p>

I have all but called for prohibiting mayoral golf tournaments and similar pet nonprofit events,
because they are an unnecessary form of pay to play that is legal primarily
because they help good causes in the community. China, which tends
to take things too far, has gone extremely far in the latest order

Seattle's public campaign financing <a href="http://honestelectionsseattle.org/what-is-initiative-122/&quot; target="_blank">Initiative
I-122</a> passed easily on Tuesday. It should prove to be an
excellent experiment in campaign finance vouchers, an idea that has
been batted about at the federal level, as well.<br>
<br>
Here's how it works. Each election cycle (two years) the city's

<b>Lobbyist Extortion</b><br>
According to <a href="http://nbc4i.com/2015/10/15/redflex-lobbyist-expected-to-plead-guilty-t…
article yesterday on Columbus, Ohio's NBC 4 website</a>, a
lobbyist for a red-light camera company pleaded guilty to charges
that he solicited campaign contributions for elected city officials
from his client by creating the impression that the money was needed

It was only a matter of time before the U.S. Supreme Court's
campaign finance opinions (and decisions at the trial and appellate
level that have applied them to other situations) would be used to
argue that conduct prohibited or limited by government ethics
provisions are also protected as free speech by the First Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution.<br>
<br>
In August 2015, a complaint against the state legislative ethics
commission (attached; see below) was filed in the Eastern District

<p>Philadelphia's Democratic mayoral primary this week brings the national focus on Super PACs to the local level. In that primary, which is the most important election in that Democratically-inclined city, most of the money that was spent was spent by Super PACs, not by candidates.<br />
<br />

<p>This is the first of four blog posts in which I will look at Zephyr Teachout's excellent new book, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=dctwBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=one…; target="”_blank”"><em>Corruption in America</em></a>: <em>From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United</em> (Harvard Univ.

<p>According to <a href="http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/government/inside-the-mayors-nonp…; target="”_blank”">an article yesterday on the Voice of San Diego website</a>, yet another mayoral pet charity has been created in San Diego, called <a href="http://www.1sandiego.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">One San Diego</a>.

<p>Yesterday, two members of a New York City council member's election campaign were indicted on criminal charges brought by a special prosecutor, who was appointed in 2012. Read this <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/let-campaign-finance-board-do-it…; target="”_blank”">December 2014 New York <em>Law Journal</em> op-ed piece</a> by Brennan Center (NYU) Chief Counsel and longtime New York City Corporation Counsel Frederick A.O.

<p>Is it, as Every Voice says <a href="http://everyvoice.org/press-release/chicago-votes-overwhelmingly-empowe…; target="”_blank”">in its celebratory e-mail</a> last night, an "exciting victory [that] sent a loud and clear mandate to city and state governments to fundamentally reform the way we fund elections so that everyday Americans can take back control of their democracy"?<br />
<br />