Campaign Finance
Winter Reading: "Access and Lobbying"
"Access and Lobbying: Looking Beyond the Corruption Paradigm</a>," by
Dorie Apollonio, Bruce E. Cain, and Lee Drutman, <i>Hastings
Constitutional Law Quarterly</i> 36:1 (2008) (attached; see below), has some very valuable
things to say about local government lobbying, even though it
focuses on federal government lobbying.<br>
<br>
The authors note that, despite the greater focus of academics and
good government groups on campaign finance regulation, more money is
Winter Reading: Rick Hasen's "Lobbying, Rent-Seeking, and the Constitution"
UC at Irvine Law School professor Richard Hasen's essay, "<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1734428" target="”_blank”">Lobbying,
Rent-Seeking, and the Constitution,</a>" 64 Stanford Law Review
Vote Buying, A Different Sort of Gift
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/us/politics/texas-vote-buying-case-ca…; target="”_blank”">An
interesting article in today's New York <i>Times</i></a> focuses on an
unusual feature of an unhealthy local government ethics environment.
This feature is payment for votes, something we think of in terms of
NY's Moreland Commission Recommendations Too Criminally Oriented
New York State's Moreland Commission to Investigate Public
Corruption filed <a href="http://publiccorruption.moreland.ny.gov/sites/default/files/moreland_re…; target="”_blank”">a
preliminary report</a> on Monday. Most of the report involves
state campaign finance and election laws, but many of these laws
Nagle on Withdrawal As Cure for Campaign Contributions
It was pointed out to me by Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law
School Los Angeles, that back in 2000 John Copeland Nagle, a
professor at Notre Dame Law School, wrote a law review article
suggesting what I call the Westminster Approach to campaign
contributions from those seeking benefits from the recipient
official's government. The article, which focuses on Congress, is
Old and New Local Independent Spending in Elections
<b>Update:</b> February 7, 2014<br>
It took the Jon Stewart Show three months to catch up with the City Ethics blog, but it was worth the wait. You have to watch <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-february-5-2014/koch-blocked">the video they made about the Coralville, IA situation I discuss below</a>. The defense of what occurred is truly incredible.<br>
<br>
DeKalb County (GA) Grand Jury Report on Procurement-Related Misconduct
It all started with the indictment, on charges of bribery and theft,
of a Fats, Oil & Grease inspector back in November 2010. It led
to <a href="http://www.ajc.com/documents/2013/aug/21/document-dekalb-special-grand-…; target="”_blank”">an 83-page grand jury report in August 2013</a>, which set out the misconduct involving the DeKalb County (GA) Department of
Watershed Management (DWM) procurement process, and made
The Launching of a Collaborative Government Ethics Website
A new online collaborative effort in the field of campaign
finance was launched yesterday. Known as <a href="http://fppc.ca.gov/suncenter/" target="”_blank”">the SUN Center</a> (SUN
stands for States’ Unified Network, even though it includes cities
Isolated Scheme or Commonplace Corruption?
Yesterday, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/25/nyregion/25rapfogel-felon…; target="”_blank”">a
felony complaint</a> was issued against William Rapfogel, the CEO
of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a large nonprofit
social service agency that received millions of dollars in grants
and contracts from New York City, New York state, and the federal