Elections

SCOTUS DECIDES. Politico. “The Supreme Court ruled Monday against an Arizona ballot measure requiring new voters to present proof of citizenship before being added to the voting rolls — but the justices dodged the question of whether states could ever impose such a requirement without federal approval.” CRUZ REACTION. Politico. “Ted Cruz didn’t wait long to mount a legislative response to the Supreme Court’s ruling against Arizona’s voter registration rule.” OFA MOVES. Story here. “Organizing for Action is launching a seven-figure ad buy championing President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, as POLITICO’s Playbook reported on Monday.” TIES CUT. Story here. “U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) has cut his ties to a Chicago lobbyist after a newspaper report revealed the lobbyist had paid more than $500,000 over the past 10 years to work in his congressional office.” ART OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING CONFERENCE DEVELOPMENTS. C&E. “For all of the digital hype surrounding the use of data and technology on President Obama’s reelection effort, it was the campaign’s building and nurturing of personal relationships that truly paved the way for success.” NEW RULES FOR NONPROFITS? Here. “It has engulfed all of Washington in scandal, but the Internal Revenue Service-tea party targeting debacle might finally bring some clarity to rules governing nonprofit organizations.” HI: WHAT LOBBYIST REPORTS SHOW. Story here. “Lobbyist disclosures in Hawaii may be a misnomer — the records don’t disclose much.” VA: MANSION RECORDS DIRTY LAUNDRY. The Post. “Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his wife, Maureen, have used taxpayer money for a range of small personal items they should have paid for themselves under state policy, according to spending records.” HAVE A GREAT DAY.

The Court ruled 7-2 that Arizona’s law was preempted by the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.

ABEDIN ARRANGEMENT QUESTIONS.  Politico.  “Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, is asking the State Department to answer a list of questions about Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s role there and whether she was allowed to trade on ‘political intelligence’ while she was a consultant allowed to represent other clients, POLITICO has learned.” GRASSLEY AIDE AND PROBE.  Story here.  “Congressional aides are rarely targeted in federal probes, as the official duties of legislative-branch employees are protected under the Constitution.” NOMINEES’ FUNDRAISING BACKGROUND.  The Post.  “A trio of money men who helped President Obama bring in record donations for his re­election last year were tapped Friday for highly sought diplomatic assignments in Europe.” NEW ZEALAND HIRES.  BLT.  “Covington & Burling in Washington has signed up to lobby for another country looking to make it easier for its citizens to enter the United States.” MN CAMPAIGN FINANCE RULING.  WSJ Blog.  “‘In short, the collective burdens associated with Minnesota’s independent expenditure law chill political speech,’ wrote Chief Judge William Riley for the majority. Judge Riley wrote that the law was ‘most likely unconstitutional.’”  The opinion is here. IRS SLOG.  The Hill.  “House Republicans are resigned to the fact that the investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups has gone underground.” WILL ON LERNER.  Here.  “Lerner, it is prudent to assume, is one among thousands like her who infest the regulatory state. She is not just a bureaucratic bully and a slithering partisan. Now she also is a national security problem because she is contributing to a comprehensive distrust of government.” CA:  ACCUSATION AGAINST BROTHERS.  Story here.  “The Fair Political Practices Commission has accused Sen. Tom Berryhill, R-Oakdale, and former Assemblyman Bill Berryhill of laundering more than $40,000 of campaign contributions in 2008.” CO:  GESSLER RULING.  Here.  “Secretary of State Scott Gessler ‘breached the public trust for private gain’ when he used his office discretionary fund to pay for a trip to a Republican lawyers conference in Florida, the state ethics commission ruled Thursday.” NC:  GAMING DONATIONS.  Story here.  “Sweepstakes operators, seeking legislation that would legalize their outlawed industry, have flexed their political muscle over the past three years, contributing as much money to N.C. candidates as large utilities.” TX:  ETHICS VETO.  Story here.  “Gov. Rick Perry came under withering criticism Friday after using his veto to eliminate two bipartisan ethics bills and erase all state funding for the prosecutor’s unit that is investigating his prized cancer research fund.” HAVE A GOOD DAY.

Washington Times calls it “an evolution of sorts on criminal justice policy” for the Republican Party. Previously, non-violent felons had to wait a minimum of two years and then petition for the restoration of their voting rights.

Reports that America posted the largest oil production increase in the world last year – rising more than 1 million barrels – come at a time when gasoline prices have increased for U.S. motorists. Because oil prices are priced globally, the domestic oil boom can’t – and won’t – provide relief for consumers. Unfortunately, Congress is wasting time passing legislation (HR 2231) that opens more federal areas to new drilling but won’t result in lower prices for American households because it won’t provide enough oil to have a significant impact on the world market. Consumers need more tools to help avoid exposure to increasingly high gas prices. Real legislative solutions to help families would expand access to mass transit and provide greater incentives for fuel-efficient and alternative fuel vehicles, investments in energy efficiency and rooftop solar technology. Simply expanding access to an increasingly expensive, globally priced commodity like oil may make oil companies and their shareholders wealthier, but it dooms consumers to a future of monetarily and environmentally costly energy. Give consumers more tools to fight high prices, not corporate gifts and empty political rhetoric like “Drill Baby Drill.” Tyson Slocum is the director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. Sign up to receive a weekly email highlighting the best from Public Citizen’s blogs. Share/Bookmark

WHERE ARE THE SUPER PACS? Roll Call. “American Crossroads, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups generally supportive of Republican candidates have so far declined to jump into the race. They have not spent a dollar in the Bay State, although the contest has become more competitive than expected in recent weeks.” POKER PULL. Story here. “Since the federal government largely shut down the Internet poker industry in April 2011, poker players and the casino industry have been lobbying furiously for the legalization and regulation of the online game at the federal level.” CREW AND YOUNG SUIT. BLT. “A Washington federal judge today ordered federal prosecutors to disclose more details about a past probe into alleged misconduct by U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) or prepare to better justify the continued secrecy.” EDSALL ON “DARK MONEY”. The Times. “It is by now abundantly clear that abuse of the 501(c)(4) loophole corrupts and corrodes a campaign-finance system that was hardly a model of rectitude to begin with.” POLITICAL LAW MOVERS AND SHAKERS. Politico Influence. “Sean Cairncross, former chief counsel at the Republican National Committee, is joining the law firm Holtzman Vogel Josefiak as a partner.” CFR VIDEO. The Times: “It may not have the political sex appeal of fighting climate change, ending the war on drugs or thwarting hydrofracking, but the issue of campaign finance reform is getting a little celebrity spin this week, compliments of a series of Web videos being released on Wednesday.” For the first time, I might have to give a “NSFW” warning for a link… ENFORCEMENT MANUAL POSTED. Via @marceelias.  More here. MIAMI HEARING SET. News here. “The bipartisan election reform commission established by President Barack Obama will meet later this month in Miami — the focal point for the state’s most-recent election meltdown.” DC: DEVELOPERS EYED. The Post. “Federal investigators appear to have opened a new front in their probe of campaign finance matters in the District.” DC:  SWEEPING PROBE.  Here.  “A sweeping federal investigation of political corruption in the District has entered a new and fast-paced phase targeting suspected violators of city campaign finance laws, authorities said.” DC: VIEW ON BROWN CASE. The Post. “So unless citizens and voters make themselves heard, business as usual in D.C. — and the corruption it has bred — will continue.” MD: MAYOR AT THE BEACH HOUSE. Story here. “Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake acknowledged Wednesday that she spent Memorial Day weekend at the Delaware beach house of a top lobbyist, Lisa Harris Jones.” OH:  POLITICAL COMMITTEE CASE CERT.  CCP.  “The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP) petitioned the US Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari late Tuesday in Corsi v. Ohio Election Commission. The petition challenges a recent decision by the Ohio Court of Appeals that upheld the Ohio Election Commission’s (OEC) interpretation of the major purpose requirement in determining whether or not a group must register as a political action committee (PAC).” VT: PRISON IN CASE. Story here. “Middlebury resident David ‘Buffalo’ Moffa was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for his role in a scheme that funneled illegal contributions to the failed congressional campaign of former Connecticut House Speaker Christopher Donovan.” WI: BILL PASSES . Story here. “The Assembly approved a bipartisan bill Wednesday to double the size of donations politicians can receive and allow Wisconsin residents to register to vote online.” HAVE A GREAT DAY. I’ll send around the next set of links on Monday. Have a great weekend.

RENZI CONVICTED. Politico. “A federal jury on Tuesday convicted former U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi on more than a half dozen corruption charges accusing him of using his office for personal financial gain and looting a family insurance business to help pay for his 2002 campaign.” CA: FORMER CANDIDATES FINED. LA Times. “Two former state lawmakers have agreed to pay fines for violating campaign finance rules, according to documents released Monday by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.” CT: RELL CHIDES. Story here. “Former Gov. M. Jodi Rell is criticizing legislative Democrats and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for undoing many of the changes to campaign finance she signed into law in 2005.” NY: BILL WOULD LIMIT PARTIES. Story here. “A bill proposed today by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to fix New York’s lax campaign finance laws would turn the $518,000 Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver spent on Al Stirpe’s last campaign for Assembly into just $5,000 in future campaigns.” PA: LOBBYIST FEE HIKE. Story here. “State officials are proposing to have lobbyists completely underwrite the cost of the program that regulates them through a major hike in their registration fees.” PA: UNIONS NOT FOLLOWING RULE. Story here. “Despite a contract requiring unions representing Pennsylvania state workers to reimburse the state for deducting voluntary contributions to political action committees, no such payments have been made, according to a sworn affidavit obtained by the Tribune-Review.” UK: NEW SCANDAL. Story here. “A lobbying scandal that has tarnished the reputation of Britain’s parliament widened on Sunday after a newspaper secretly filmed a senior lawmaker from Prime Minister David Cameron’s party making what is said were improper remarks.” HAVE A GOOD DAY.

On June 12, it is likely that junior Democrats in the House will join the majority of Republicans in supporting HR 1256, or the “Swaps Jurisdiction Certainty Act.” The bill would be more aptly titled: “The AIG Bailout Certainty Act,” so we hope that some members decide to vote differently. This bill allows American banks to escape important public protections built into the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, by booking their high-risk swap transactions abroad. Proponents claim the bill helps Wall Street’s competitiveness in the global arena, but in truth, the bill exposes American taxpayers to high-risk gambles and actually exports jobs. If these offshore swaps deals blow up, as did AIG’s London book of CDS (credit default swaps) in 2008, American (not British) taxpayers will foot the bill.  And because British taxpayers won’t be on the hook, , British supervisors will not have the same supervisory incentive to avoid reckless risks. Proponents of HR 1256 argue that American banks must remain “competitive” and shouldn’t be burdened with tougher rules than their foreign rivals.  This is deceit of chutzpah dimension.  HR 1256 will encourage U.S.-headquartered banks to employ highly paid traders in foreign jurisdictions with lax oversight, not American traders working in the U.S.  These traders will pay personal income tax not to Uncle Sam, but to those foreign jurisdictions. Wall Street banks are not patriots with exclusive allegiance to the stars and stripes. JPMorgan employs 18,000 local bankers in more than 80 countries. Total employment at regional U.S. bank PNC, by comparison, is 20,000.  Of Goldman Sachs 32,000 employees, more than half are foreign nationals working abroad, with 5,300 in London’s Canary Wharf alone. Goldman Sachs describes itself as a “a leading global investment bank.”  Citi operates in 140 countries. US bank shareholders are not all Americans, so Wall Street bank profits aren’t exclusively paid to Americans.  Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is one of Citi’s largest shareholders. (Conversely, some of the largest holders of the UK’s HSBC are American institutional investors.) U.S. banks operating in a foreign country pay taxes in that country. Goldman Sachs paid $465 million in payroll taxes in the UK last year. Some banks attempt to record U.S. profits to convenient oversees tax havens. It might be desirable to help U.S. factories employing U.S. workers remain “competitive” in the manufacture of cars for domestic and export sale. But subsidizing U.S.-headquartered banks with taxpayer-backed federal deposit insurance (FDIC) funding so that their London employees can gamble in Canary Wharf CDS index parlors cannot be justified. Proponents call the bill the “Swaps Jurisdiction Certainty Act”, implying that traders simply want to know the rules.  However, the CFTC has promulgated nearly all the necessary rules, and provides that “certainty” already. Technically, the bill would allow U.S. regulators to de-certify a specific nation from overseeing U.S. banks operating there. However, that is only allowed following a joint finding and vote by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission that the nation’s rules are not “broadly comparable.” Given that Wall Street has already blocked regulations in court on technical definitions, “broadly comparable” represents a standard that nearly any set of rules might meet.  Politically, de-certifying a nation will be difficult, and is an empty threat. CFTC Chair Gensler has said the results of such a bill “blows a hole” in Wall Street reform; we agree. Bartlett Naylor is the financial policy reform advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. Follow him on Twitter at @BartNaylor. Sign up to receive a weekly email highlighting the best from Public Citizen’s blogs. Share/Bookmark

Pop Quiz: what’s the most powerful government office you’ve never heard of? Maybe a secretive national security office or covert operations outfit? Think again. Actually the most powerful government office you’ve never heard of, according to the former head of the office, is called the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, referred to as OIRA for those in the know. To be fair, many readers of this blog are probably in the know — which is a good thing, since tomorrow is the Senate confirmation hearing for the new nominee to head OIRA, Howard Shelanski. But for those who aren’t familiar with OIRA, a little background is in order. OIRA is a small office within the Office of Management and Budget, meaning, for all intents and purposes, that it’s an extension of the White House. Its job, in a nutshell, is to review regulations from agencies and give the green light before agencies can go ahead with putting those regulations in place. Sounds pretty banal and technical, right? Not quite. On the surface, OIRA seems like any other White House office that Republicans love to bash (particularly since this one deals with so-called “job-killing” regulations). But scratch below the surface, and you find that Republicans have actually been proposing numerous pieces of legislation in the last few years that would give much more power to this small White House office. In fact, when it comes to Republicans giving the White House more authority, it’s hard to find a better example than OIRA. If you’re like me, you’re probably starting to hear the “Twilight Zone” music somewhere in the background … Why is this happening? Because Republicans and the Big Business interests that bankroll their campaigns believe that OIRA is their ally in seeking to stall, water down and even roll back crucial new regulatory standards. OIRA’s recent track record, not to mention historical record, bears this out. OIRA was established in the Reagan administration to counter what Republicans saw as “overzealous regulators.” Under the Obama administration, OIRA still routinely overrides decisions from the Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other agencies working to protect the public. OIRA, as it was first conceived, is working, and Republicans want to make sure it only gets stronger. Last week, a group of prominent Congress members sent a letter to newly appointed OMB director Sylvia Burwell asking her to inform Congress of the status of rules that have been “badly delayed” by OIRA review. They rightly point out that a fundamental lack of transparency has kept the explanation for those delays hidden behind closed doors. For example, the silica rule, a crucial worker safety rule that would protect workers from exposure to a known carcinogen, has been under review at OIRA for an astonishing 814 days. What could possibly warrant such a lengthy review? Don’t bother asking anyone at OIRA … they won’t tell you. Instead, urge HSGAC members to ask Shelanski if he’ll end the gridlock or continue to thwart life-saving regulations. Amit Narang is the regulatory policy advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. Sign up to receive a weekly email highlighting the best from Public Citizen’s blogs. Share/Bookmark

FEC MEETING. The agenda for Thursday’s Federal Election Commission meeting is online here. POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE ALERT. The Post. “Hundreds of federal employees were given advance word of a Medicare decision worth billions of dollars to private insurers in the weeks before the official announcement, a period when trading in the shares of those firms spiked.” LDA ENFORCEMENT ACTION. InsidePoliticalLaw.com. “On Friday, June 7, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia filed what appears to be the first ever complaint in a Lobbying Disclosure Act (‘LDA’) enforcement action that was not the product of a negotiated settlement.” SEBELIUS FUNDRAISING SPOTLIGHT. WFB. “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius solicited funding from a foundation that holds a significant share of its assets in Johnson & Johnson stock, a move that appears to run afoul of ethics rules, according to a former chief White House ethics counsel.” “DARK MONEY” AND MARKEY. WFB. “Two liberal dark money advocacy groups have dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past week either supporting Markey’s candidacy, or attacking Gabriel Gomez, his Republican opponent.” “DARK MONEY” TARGETED. USAT. “Political spending by groups that don’t disclose their donors has exploded after a recent series of court rulings relaxing longstanding spending and advertising restrictions.” CO: GESSLER WAITS. Story here. “For Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, next Thursday’s ruling by the state ethics commission means very little. In another sense, it means a lot.” DC: BROWN PLEADS GUILTY. The Post. “Former D.C. council member Michael A. Brown pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to accepting $55,000 in bribes, and he agreed to serve up to three years and one month in prison in a deal worked out with federal prosecutors.” VA: MCDONNELL DEVELOPMENT. Here. “A Virginia state delegate has confirmed that he’s been called to appear next month as a witness before a federal grand jury as part of an investigation related to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell.” HAVE A GREAT DAY.