On September 24, Partner Joshua Rosenstein will speak on the panel “Contracting with Foreign Principals” at the 2026 FARA Conference alongside Daniel Pickard of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney P.C. and Josh Galper of Trident GMG. The panel will focus on the practical realities and considerations facing firms agreeing to do work for foreign principals: due diligence, “know your customer” requirements, contingent fee restrictions, reputational considerations, and more.
The FARA Conference brings together practitioners, government officials, scholars, and journalists shaping the landscape for a full day of substantive discussion in Washington, D.C. Sessions will examine recent enforcement actions, evolving compliance expectations for businesses and nonprofits, FARA’s intersection with the Lobbying Disclosure Act, and where the law is headed. Designed for attorneys, compliance professionals, registrants, and advisors, the conference emphasizes practical insights and meaningful dialogue.
Hosted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics & the Rule of Law and Lawfare, the conference features leading law firms and academic institutions. Sandler Reiff is proud to co-sponser this year’s program.
For more information and to register, visit The FARA Conference’s website here.
Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock P.C. (Sandler Reiff), a pre-eminent political law boutique in Washington, D.C., is pleased to announce the promotion of Christina Bustos to the position of Partner of the Firm.
Sandler Reiff advises clients involved in the business of politics, including candidates and officeholders, political committees, party committees, nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, communications, consulting, and government relations firms, as well as major contributors to political and nonprofit groups.
Christina advises clients on political and issue advocacy efforts nationwide. Her practice focuses on voter registration and elections, campaign finance, lobbying and related advocacy efforts, and nonprofit tax law. She combines expertise in a wide range of political law with practical, strategic judgment, making her an invaluable resource for clients navigating complex regulatory requirements.
“Christina’s promotion reflects the exceptional lawyer and trusted advisor she has become. She combines significant expertise across the political law landscape—from voter registration and campaign finance to lobbying and advocacy regulation—with outstanding judgment and an unwavering commitment to client service. Her deep relationships with our clients are a testament to her skill and acumen, and to the fact that she is an indispensable part of the Sandler Reiff team. We are delighted to welcome her to the partnership,” said Joe Sandler, co-founder of the Firm.
Prior to joining Sandler Reiff, Christina practiced trial and appellate level civil litigation at a law firm in Richmond, Virginia. Christina graduated from the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law.
Neil Reiff was quoted in a story today in the Wall Street Journalabout the effects that the Supreme Court’s ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC might have on future court challenges to campaign finance laws. While the Court left in place limits on contributions to individual candidates and committees, the Court did not offer a robust endorsement of said limits.
Mr. Reiff pointed out that further loosening of campaign finance restrictions could create a catch-22 for Democrats. On one hand, fewer restrictions would allow Democrats to raise more money. On the other hand, Democrats generally favor tighter restrictions on money in elections.
Mr. Reiff told the Journal “There is always that tension.”
David Mitrani told Reuters today that the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC are already being felt at the state level, even a few days after the ruling. At issue in the case was aggregate contribution limits, which limited the total amount of money that individuals could give to all federal candidates ($48,600) and political committees ($74,600) per election cycle. While the Supreme Court left base limits intact, they struck down the aggregate limits on First Amendment grounds.
However, in addition to the federal government, twelve states plus the District of Columbia had similar aggregate contribution limits. Mr. Mitrani that campaign finance officials in Maryland and Massachusetts had already begun changing state regulations:
In Maryland, which has limited donations to party committees in state elections to $10,000 every four-year election cycle, state regulators already have told election lawyers that they will stop enforcing the limit, said David Mitrani, a lawyer who specializes in campaign finances cases.
Massachusetts officials also said they would stop enforcing the state’s limit on candidate donations, but are reviewing a limit on contributions to political parties.
Other states with such limits almost certainly will face lawsuits challenging the limits, Mitrani said.
Joseph Sandler defended MoveOn.org in a court appearance before a US District Judge in Baton Rouge, Lousiana yesterday. At issue was a billboard that MoveOn.org critical of Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s rejection of Medicaid expansion. MoveOn.org parodied the state’s tourism slogan “Pick Your Passion” in the billboard, which then said “But hope you don’t love your health. Gov Jindal’s denying Medicaid to 242,000 people.”
In response, Louisiana sued MoveOn.org claiming trademark infringement. However, Mr. Sandler defended MoveOn.org, claiming that the billboard was clearly a parody, which is protected speech. He told the (Baton Rouge) Advocatethat the billboard “an appropriate and constitutional use of parody. The idea of the billboard is here the state promotes itself as a great place to live and visit yet we … want to make a point that it’s not such a good place to live and visit because of health care policy decisions of the governor. … This is a noncommercial use of the mark.”
Neil Reiff was quoted today in a story in Bloombergon the effect that the Supreme Court’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC will have on campaign fundraising in the coming months and years. With aggregate contribution limit declared unconstitutional, it is possible that super-Joint Fundraising Committees could come into existence that support dozens of candidates. With a super-JFC, an individual could write one massive check that would then be distributed among many candidates.
However, Mr. Reiff tampered expectations of such a rise:
Whether the McCutcheon ruling will lead to “a groundswell of money in the system, I don’t know,” Neil Reiff, a Democratic campaign-finance lawyer with Sandler, Reiff, Young & Lamb, said in an interview. Writing a big check to a super-JFC is “still not as efficient as writing a check to a super-PAC, so I can’t necessarily compare this to the revolution of super-PACs in Citizens United. But obviously it’s something,” Reiff said.
David Mitrani was quoted today in a story in Mother Jones about the far-reaching impact of McCutcheon v. FEC. He told the magazine that although the case dealt only with federal aggregate contributions, it will ultimately apply at the state and local level as well.
“The McCutcheon opinion is right from the Supreme Court and what the Supreme Court said is state aggregate limits on top of the federal limit are unconstitutional today, unconstitutional yesterday, unconstitutional 20 years ago,” said Mr. Mitrani. And in the case of states with low aggregate contribution limits, Mr. Mitrani added that “There are going to be pretty big changes in how money flows into those states.”
The article further detailed the aggregate limits that exist in the twelve states (plus the District of Columbia) who have such limits.
David Mitrani told WAMU that in the wake of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, it is unlikely that similar limits at the state level will stand.
“[The ruling] certainly calls into question the laws, and it’s unlikely that given [Chief Justice John] Roberts’ opinion these laws would survive,” said Mr. Mitrani. ‘It’s unlikely that these aggregate limits by themselves will survive.”
In addition to the FEC, twelve states and the District of Columbia have similar aggregate contribution limits that capped how much donors could give to candidates such as gubernatorial candidates, state legislators, and judges at the state level.
Yesterday’s decision by the Court nullified the federal aggregate limit that individuals could give to all candidates and committees. Previously, donors could only give $48,600 to all federal candidates, and $74,600 to all PACs and party committees. With these limits nullified, donors are only restricted by base limits: $2,600 per election per federal candidate, $32,400 per year per national party committee, $5,000 per year per PAC, and $10,000 per year to the federal accounts of state and local party committees.
Neil Reiff was quoted in Campaigns & Elections magazine’s write-up on today’s McCutcheon v.FEC Supreme Court decision, striking down federal aggregate contribution limits. He told Campaigns & Elections that the “real winners will be national party committees. It’s been the national committees who are able to find and cultivate these larger donors. If an individual wants to triple max each year to the three national committees, that is $194,400 for the two-year cycle, way more than the aggregate limit.”
Under the old rules, an individual could only donate an aggregate of $74,600 per 2-year election cycle to all PAC and party committees, with a maximum contribution limit of $32,400 to any individual party committee. In addition, an individual could only donate an aggregate of $48,600 per cycle to all federal candidates, with a maximum contribution limit of $2,600 per candidate per election. Today’s decision strikes down the aggregate limits while preserving the contribution limits to individual candidates, PACs, and party committees.
David Mitrani was quoted in an article by the Center for Public Integrity today about today’s decision in McCutcheon v. FEC. The Court cited the First Amendment to strike down the aggregate limit that individuals could give to candidates and parties. Mr. Mitrani told the CPI that the decision doesn’t just affect federal contributions, but state law as well. Twelve different states plus the District of Columbia impose some form of aggregate limit on contributions. Since the Supreme Court struck down the federal aggregate limit, similar limits at the state level “are unlikely to survive under the logic of the McCutcheon opinion.”
