Joshua Rosenstein was quoted in a Mother Jones article regarding Jeb Bush’s lobbying reform plan that would impose a six-year ban on lawmakers becoming lobbyists:
“You have countless cases of very high-profile former members who may well be in contact with their former colleagues, but don’t meet the threshold and therefore aren’t subject to the restrictions,” says Joshua Rosenstein, an attorney with Sandler Reiff who advises clients on compliance with lobbying regulations. “You can already sit on the sidelines and advise clients on congressional policy or the reality of moving a bill through either chamber without ever running afoul of anything.”
Rosenstein said that without tightening up the definition of “lobbying,” prohibiting members from doing it doesn’t mean a whole lot.
“The law defines lobbying and if the definition is too permissive having restrictions on lobbyists doesn’t really matter because there are so many holes you can drive a truck through,” he says.
Joshua Rosenstein was quoted in an Open Secrets article about Jeb Bush’s call for a six-year ban on lobbying for former lawmakers:
When it comes to a revolving door ban, the key is what it restricts, according to Joshua Rosenstein, a Washington, D.C. lawyer and expert on lobbying. If they want to, for instance, former members can structure their new careers so that they don’t have to register as lobbyists by spending less than 20 percent of their time per quarter working on lobbying-related activity.
Often, when former lawmakers do that, they’re “selling their Rolodex,” Rosenstein said. Per quarter, “they can make several very important contacts to former colleagues…for which the client would be very grateful,” he said. Then the former lawmakers simply wait for the day they’re eligible to lobby.
It’s unclear from Bush’s speech how he himself defines lobbyist or lobbying activity, but to have a no-contact rule for 6 years–so that all advocacy contact by former members of Congress would be banned–would be substantive, Rosenstein said.
“What’s unclear is whether Jeb’s proposal means to extend the current precise ban to six years, or instead ban Members from becoming lobbyists for six years. And that makes a difference,” he said. “If it’s a ban on advocacy contacts, that’s a stronger prohibition than merely a prohibition on becoming a registered lobbyist.”
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“Congress will normally revamp a lobbyist regulation scheme in the wake of a scandal involving lobbyists,” Rosenstein said of the likelihood of passing a lobbying regulation bill. “Absent that, it’s probably hard to do, as a practical matter.”
Dara Lindenbaum will join former Sen. Nina Turner (D-OH), Sen. Roger Katz (R-ME) and Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-VA) on a panel moderated by Michele Jawando to discuss the challenges and opportunities to removing structural barriers so that voters have a voice in the democratic process.
The panel is on July 7, 2015 at 10 a.m. at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Joshua Rosenstein was quoted in article on Open Secrets about lobbying donations for presidential candidates in the Senate:
“Both [Paul and Sanders] have publicly decried the influence of corporations in American public life,” Joshua Rosenstein, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer and expert on lobbying, said. “If you are a corporation, is it possible that you view each of them as relative lost cause? Sure.”
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Despite that fact that making contributions may be good for business, Rosenstein noted, many lobbyists also donate for ideological reasons.
“While they certainly have to be pragmatists about what they’re doing…and that certainly drives some of the giving,” he said, “there might very well be an equal or greater ideological segment of the lobbying community that aren’t driven by pragmatic reasons,” Rosenstein said.
On Tuesday June 16th, Joe Birkenstock was a guest on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, where he discussed campaign finance deadlines and filings for the presidential election.
Neil Reiff discussedcampaign/Super-PAC coordination this week with Campaigns & Elections:
Get the firewalls up before working on expanding the clients, advised Neil Reiff, a campaign finance attorney at Sandler, Reiff, Lamb, Rosenstein & Birkenstock, P.C. “The big thing is having enough personnel to properly service both sides of the firewall. There’s no mobility between the independent and coordinated sides.”
Before going through the effort and time consuming expense of structuring a firewall, though, firms should take stock of their client list and what business they’re pitching, said Reiff. “Just because you create a firewall doesn’t mean the business is necessarily there.”
This week, Neil Reiff discussed donor-operated Super PACs with Bloomberg Politics:
“On some level, it’s showing the system works,” says Neil Reiff, the former deputy general counsel at the Democratic National Committee, now a partner at Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock in Washington. “Someone can just go out and do this on their own.”
The entire Bloomberg Politics article can be found here.
Sandler Reiff and several of our attorneys were recently recognized for outstanding client service and cutting-edge legal work by two prominent legal ranking services.
Chambers USA 2015 ranked firm co-founder Joe Sandler and recent recruit Joe Birkenstock in the Nationwide Government: Political Law category, explaining that the firm “offers a breadth of expertise across a spectrum of issues including election law, lobbying and campaign finance.” They noted that Sandler is regarded by the market as “one of the most respected election lawyers in the country,” and offers clients a breadth of expertise in the political law field, including strengths in campaign finance, lobbying regulations, government ethics and tax issues.
Chambers described Birkenstock as “an established political law practitioner with a fine reputation,” adding that his peers describe him as “very smart and analytical.” They explain that Birkenstock is well versed in handling federal compliance and regulatory issues as they pertain to political parties and candidates, as well as corporations and nonprofit organizations.
SuperLawyers listed firm co-founders Joe Sandler and Neil Reiff, along with Joe Birkenstock, in the Legislative and Government Affairs category. Sandler Reiff is the only firm outside the AmLaw 200 megafirms with three attorneys listed as DC SuperLawyers, reflecting our firm’s prominence among boutique political law practices and our ability to deliver sophisticated, first-rate legal services in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Last week, Joe Birkenstock discussed connected PACs with Yahoo Politics:
“You really can’t solicit for a connected PAC outside the connected organization’s restricted class,” says Joseph Birkenstock, an attorney with Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock and a former chief counsel of the Democratic National Committee. “That’s really not a gray area of campaign finance law; that’s pretty much ‘first principles.’” (The “restricted class” concept applies to corporations and unions. A corporation can raise money from its own executives and shareholders. Tax-exempt corporations like the NRA and labor unions can raise money from their members.)
On February 16, Joe Birkenstock and David Mitrani were featured in a CNN article on how the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Pay-to-Play rule will influence Governors running for President in 2016.
“Big money is at stake. Wall Street poured nearly $80 million into the 2012 race — some of which could be off limits for governors vying for the White House now.
“It’s a significant amount of money that could potentially be out of reach for these 2016 candidates that are governors simply because of this SEC rule,” said David Mitrani, an attorney and campaign finance law expert. “It’s absolutely not a level playing field.”
There are also big consequences for financial companies themselves. The rule imposes a significant fine and a two-year “timeout period” on companies that are found to be in violation. In many cases, these contracts can be worth millions of dollars over time and serve as the lifeblood for smaller Wall Street firms.
“It’s a very, very, very scary rule,” said Joe Birkenstock, a political law attorney who has written extensively about the pay-to-play rule.
The restrictions are on the radar of governors, who must carefully plan their fundraising strategy with the rule in mind.”
“Given the murkiness of the rule’s enforcement, some firms are cautious.
The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that helps manage the New Jersey state pension fund, has a blanket prohibition against donating to state politicians there.
“We require that all contributions be cleared and prohibit any to PACs that fund, are controlled by, or primarily benefit state and local candidates or office holders,” Blackstone spokeswoman Christine Anderson told CNN.
Mitrani, the attorney and campaign finance expert, said such restraint is wise.
“A lot of companies live and breathe based on these government management services. There’s so much money involved,” he said. “The consequence of losing this business for even a three-figure contribution is not worth the risk for a lot of companies.”