Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play

Last month, the Obama administration drafted an executive order that would require those seeking federal government contracts to disclose their political contributions, and those of their directors, officers, affiliates, and subsidiaries, made in the two years before they bid for a contract. This draft executive order has been the subject of a great and unusual controversy.

It's been a year since I last wrote about placement agents, so it's time for an update, based on an article put up yesterday on the Forbes Magazine site, designated for the May 23 issue.

This is a very serious blog post, but I want to start it with a game. Here are the headlines of stories that are said to be "related" to an article on the WLTX website yesterday relating to local government ethics in South Carolina:

• Naked Woman Creates Ruckus on Delta Flight
  
• Latest Forecast Update on Storm Potential

Local governments cannot afford to do the level of due diligence that corporate compliance offices do on a regular basis. But it is worth looking at how corporate compliance offices and corporate executives deal with other entities that are found to be involved in unethical activities.

Update: February 10, 2011 (see below)

In a Pay to Play Law Blog response to my recent blog post on a discussion that had appeared in the Pay to Play Law Blog, the argument is made that pay-to-play laws that go beyond disclosure, such as prohibiting campaign contributions from government contractors, set up a slippery slope toward the undermining of constitutional rights and toward higher compliance costs by law-abiding companies. This argument turns out to be a logical fallacy, which allows me to get bac

This week, the Pay to Play Law Blog took a snapshot of the status of pay-to-play laws across the country, breaking them down into four categories:  jurisdictions that impose significant restrictions, including debarment; jurisdictions that require disclosure; jurisdictions with limited requirements; and jurisdictions that are considering pay-to-play laws.

The recent arrest of the Prince George's County (MD) executive and his wife, who is a new member of the county council, shows how wrong it is to give the county executive and individual council members power over development projects, a topic I've written about with respect to Dallas and Chicago.

According to an Associated Press article yesterday, a New York City school principal "didn't think there was a conflict of interest because there was no exchange of money."

U. S. Senate candidate for Connecticut Linda McMahon was, until she announced her candidacy, the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and her management of that company has been her principal argument for electing her. WWE announced yesterday that it will be "giving away WWE merchandise near select Connecticut poll locations on Election Day."