Neil Reiff will speak at the Marshall Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary on the impact of the Citizens United decision on the 2010 elections. The event, sponsored by the William and Mary Election Law Society, will be held on November 17, 2010
Neil Reiff discusses the implications of Speechnow.org v Federal Elections Commission in a published comment in JURIST. In the comment, Mr. Reiff examines the momentum of recent campaign finance decisions and forecasts the impact of recent decisions on the changing political landscape.
Mr. Reiff writes, “The Speechnow.org decision (which also upheld political committee reporting requirements for independent expenditure committees) will bring more independent spending into the light by inducing committees to avoid the subterfuges of “issue advocacy” while subjecting their activity to the reporting regime of federal campaign finance law.”
Read the full comment here.
In “Beware the Fortunetellers” Mr. Sandler and Mr. Reiff discuss the fallout of last week’s Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. FEC. The authors argue that although the ruling will have vast implications for the future of campaign finance, that future is not as written in stone as many pundits would have the general public believe.
Joseph Sandler, Neil Reiff, and James Lamb were once again named in Washingtonian Magazine’s listing of Washington’s Best Lawyers (the top 1%) in the political law category (under the heading “On the Campaign Trail”). Sandler Reiff & Young is one of only two law firms to have three lawyers on the list in this category.
Joe Sandler and Neil Reiff testified before the Federal Elections Commission Wednesday in response to the notice of proposed rulemaking addressing the definition of “federal election activity.” Both proposed modifications to the definitions of “Get Out the Vote Activity” and “Voter Registration Activity” in response to the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Shays v. FEC (Shays III). Their testimony centered on the difference between encouragement and facilitation as far as federal election activity is concerned.
Read their comments and listen to the full testimony here.
Neil Reiff and Liz Howard were featured presenters at the recent compliance and finance training sponsored by Grassroots Democrats.
The training was designed to provide updated legal and strategic information to state party organizations from across the country. Attendees included executive and finance directors as well as state party comptroller staff. Reiff and Howard expect to do more training in the future.
Neil Reiff was quoted in a Roll Call article about the potential consequences of The Supreme Court deciding to re-hear the Citizens United Case. According to Roll Call, “The Citizens United case is expected to test a nearly 20-year-old Supreme Court decision, Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, which upheld a ban on “independent expenditures” by corporations and trade associations, including television ads that either endorse or attack candidates.” Reiff said that one of the consequences of Austin would likely be an “end the days of political ads by many outside groups and corporations that straddle a legal line between “issue advocacy” and “direct electoral advocacy.” Read the full article here.
Neil Reiff and Joseph Sandler spoke before the Federal Election Commission in its first-ever hearing under a new procedure that allows regulated political committees audited by the FEC to challenge staff audit findings before the FEC commissioners vote on whether to approve the findings.
According to BNA’s Money and Politics Report, Mr. Reiff and Mr. Sandler, Attorneys for the Tennessee Democratic Party, were there “to explain why they disagreed with conclusions of a staff audit of the state party’s activities during the 2006 Senate race in Tennessee.”
Read the full article here.
Neil Reiff of Sandler, Reiff & Young said the “Millionaires’ Amendment” decision leaves a handful of questions unanswered for House and Senate candidates. By Matthew Murray, Roll Call, June 30, 2008. Full Text here.