Other Related Legal Developments
News & Commentary | Archive

We also cover other developments under the campaign finance laws that may not flow directly from BCRA but significantly affect how monies are raised and spent in federal elections.

Lobbying as Problem and as Profession

Keynote Address to
Inside Counsel’s Ninth Annual Conference

by Robert F. Bauer

May 5, 2009

      I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today about the changing conditions in which business interests conduct their government relations programs.  The topic is, in a word, lobbying.  Other labels have been invented, "government relations" among them—but also "legislative affairs", or "government affairs"—and yet it seems to come back, sooner rather than later, to lobbying, the universal and customary shorthand. So I’ll use that word without any intended pejorative association.

 

Note to Readers, on a Change in the Plan

    For five years now I have posted to this site, each week and most days, and I have enjoyed the opportunity that a blog affords to engage regularly with a committed and often lively audience for election law issues. 

 

News, Here and Abroad, in Election Law

In Washington…

     The Federal Election Commission approved an Advisory Opinion, holding that an individual who was organized as an LLC could make independent expenditures, since he and the entity were functionally the same, only his funds were used, and he had not elected to be treated as a corporation for tax purposes.  The vote, on a question the agency had never before addressed, was 5-0:  hence it was not a deadlock, and it fell short of bi-partisan unanimity only because one Commissioner, not present, did not vote.

 

“Nothing Short of Amazing”

     The Center for Competitive Politics’ Sean Parnell scorns Senator Dick Durbin’s defense of public financing, ridiculing his concern with relieving elected officials of the time pressures of fundraising.  But of all the various defenses of reform—such as corruption, or its appearance, or the goal of political equality—Durbin’s is the simplest and easiest to support by reference to plain and visible fact.

 

Questions of Process and Constitutionality: The D.C. Voting Rights Bill

   The Washington Post this morning reports that Attorney General Holder turned to the Solicitor General’s office for an opinion on the constitutionality of the DC voting rights legislation, after having received critical views from the Office of Legal Counsel.   The story poses for its readers the question of whether, somehow, this is too much like the Bush Administration’s pressure on its lawyers to tailor legal conclusions to political preference. A former Bush Administration, true to expectation, is sure that Holder’s action is a “blatant abuse” of OLC.

Also...

John McCain, Negative about Presidential Public Financing  3/30/09

“Political Speakers Anonymous” and Their Defenders  3/20/09

On the Other Side of the "Contributions Limit" Debate...  3/19/09

Considering the "Disclosure Is Not Enough" Case for Contribution Limits  3/18/09

"The Allure of Law" and the Troubles with Buckley  3/16/09

Thinking about the Change Congress “Donor Strike”  3/13/09

Reconsidering “Corruption”  3/9/09

The Press: Covering—When Covered By—McCain-Feingold  3/6/09

Judicial Reform and Its Self-Imposed Limits  3/3/09

“Top Two” in California  2/23/09