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.”
On January 13, 2015, Josh Rosenstein was quoted in The Hill, regarding a change to House of Representatives rules on what witnesses must disclose before they testify on House panels:
“Conceivably, it’s filling what some people see as a gap in FARA’s registration requirements,” said Joshua Rosenstein, a partner at Sandler, Reiff, Lamb, Rosenstein & Birkenstock.
. . .“Disclosure in the context of advocacy is a good thing. This [rule] addresses some of the areas where there’s been under-disclosure,” Rosenstein said. “If the rationale is simply disclosure and seeking to undermine undue influence of foreign interests in U.S. policy, those interests may outweigh any potential chilling effect on speech as a legal matter.”
In late 2014, Joe Birkenstock discussed the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Pay to Play Rule with The Wall Street Journal:
Joseph Birkenstock, a campaign-finance lawyer with Sandler Reiff, said he asks clients to give him a full explanation of what strings are attached to a contribution before they give to super PACs, including whether their contribution will allow them new access to a candidate or official.
Joe Birkenstock and David Mitrani discussed a recent charge of coordination between a party committee and outside groups with Talking Points Memo, and with the Wall Street Journal. These groups allegedly used twitter accounts to share polling data.
“Joseph M. Birkenstock, a lawyer for Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock P.C. who previously served as the chief counsel for the Democratic National Committee, said couldn’t quite say that the tweets were “clearly illegal” but added “no way would I advise a client to distribute polling information this way, or use polling info they got this way.”
“The FEC has established protections around information obtained from a “publicly available source,” but judging by the character-salad tweets I’ve seen, *the information* actually conveyed in those tweets really isn’t public,” Birkenstock told TPM via email. What’s missing is the “decoder ring” used to decipher the gibberish cluster of numbers, Birkenstock said.
“So in other words, unless the decoder ring is publicly available too, I’m not at all convinced the tweets I’ve seen would count as a ‘publicly available source’ even if you put them on a billboard in Times Square,” Birkenstock continued.
Birkenstock’s response was similar to the other election law experts reached by TPM on the story. They all said that what’s missing was a clear sign that there was coordination around these Twitter accounts.
. . .”I’m not sure ‘public’ has to mean ‘completely free of pre-arrangement,’ but I think it definitely needs to mean ‘actually available to the public,’ as opposed to some subset of the public that happens to know how to read the private Dothraki dialect you and your allies came up with over beers one night,” Birkenstock added.”
The Talking Points Memo article can be found here.
“David Mitrani, a Democratic campaign-finance lawyer, said he expects several complaints to be filed. “This arrangement is incredibly risky,” he said. “It really pushes the boundaries of the law, and it violates the spirit of the law.”
The Wall Street Journal article may be found here.
On November 12, 2014, David Mitrani discussed campaign finance in judicial campaigns with Politico:
Many state judges across the country who are elected to their positions face special restrictions on their fundraising and campaign spending. Some are even prohibited from soliciting funds for their own campaigns, said David Mitrani, a Democratic campaign-finance lawyer with the firm Sandler Reiff.
Meanwhile, super PACs and independent groups can do whatever they like. “It’s absolutely an uneven system,” Mitrani said.
In a case set to be argued this term, Williams-Yulee v. The Florida Bar, the court will consider the case of a Florida judicial candidate Lanell Williams-Yulee, who was charged with professional misconduct for trying to raise money for her own campaign.
More than three dozen states elect many judicial offices — and more money is likely to flow into that system if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the plaintiff.
This past Sunday, Joseph Sandler was featured on Channel One Russian TV, furthering the discussion of the funding of think tanks by foreign powers, an issue which was recently brought to light by an article in the New York Times.
To watch the entire Channel One Russian TV segment, click here.
This past weekend, Joseph Sandler and Joshua Rosenstein were quoted in a New York Times article, discussing the funding of think tanks by foreign powers, in order to gain influence within U.S. policy.
Joseph Sandler noted that the arrangement between foreign states and think tanks, “opened a whole new window into an aspect of the influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed. It is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you expect them to be an advocate. Think tanks have this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being compromised.”
Joshua Rosenstein noted that the issue of foreign powers funding research within influential U.S. based think tanks is something that, “the Department of Justice needs to be looking at.”
To read the entire New York Times article, please click here.
On August 15, David Mitrani discussed corporate political contributions in state elections with Politico, noting:
“Unlike federal contributions, which are regulated through the FEC, states have a wide range of rules for how corporations can contribute to campaigns — and how much they have to disclose.
“Getting into state elections is a whole other ballgame,” said David Mitrani, an attorney at Sandler Reiff who specializes in campaign finance law. “There is absolutely a compliance burden to operating at the state level.”
![Invite[1]](https://sandlerreiff.com/wp-content/2014/09/Invite1.jpg)