Campaign Finance

An article today in the New York Times describes a situation that sheds light on pay to play. It involves the Westchester County (NY) county executive, who is getting special scrutiny because he is running for governor and has, throughout his career, as well as in this election, been openly critical of pay to play. He is being accused of hypocrisy, but it may just be that he does...

Chicago's Legislative IG
The battle continues in Chicago over government ethics authority and funding. According to the cover letter to the legislative inspector general's semi-annual report dated August 22, 2014 (attached; see below), the IG's office has expended its 2014 budget and the city council is not willing to provide it with more funds. The council has also transferred campaign finance authority from the IG's office back to the ethics board, over the opposition of both the...

Ferguson, MO — where Michael Brown was recently killed by a police officer, and the police department's first reaction was to protect the officer and keep the facts secret — is an unusual case of a local government where a scandal is likely to actually increase rather than decrease citizen participation in government.

There is...

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, Oakland's council approved an amendment to the city charter, to go before voters in November, that would increase the authority of the city's ethics commission and...

I keep thinking about the recent line of U.S. Supreme Court campaign finance cases that limit corruption to "quid pro quo" situations. A few months ago, I wrote a blog post explaining that the Court's picture of campaign finance as about political beliefs is not how things work at the local level, where politics is more about power and spoils than about beliefs. But the "quid pro...

Is it appropriate for a mayor — especially a mayor in a city with strict gift rules and a public campaign financing program that has strict campaign contribution limits — to work with an organization that lobbies the state on behalf of his policies and sponsors ads and materials that support his views and, especially, celebrate his successes?

This is the situation in New York City, where Bill de Blasio, in his first year in office, is being celebrated by an entity called Campaign...