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Blog
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Welcome to the Holtzman Vogel Law Blog. We aim to keep you
up to date on important legal developments and other items of interest. On this
blog, we'll track developments in the news and changes to the rules and regulations
affecting political committees, corporate PACs, trade associations, non-profit groups
and advocacy organizations. We'll also keep you updated on the lobbying and ethics
arena. The Law Blog is designed to supplement our regular newsletter.
On behalf of the Holtzman Vogel team, I hope you find this site helpful and interesting.
And we hope you'll become a regular visitor. (If you'd like to receive our newsletter,
please click here to sign up.)
Jill Holtzman Vogel
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Thursday, August 05, 2010
11th Circuit Rules Against Florida's Public Funding Program
The 11th Circuit's decision is here. AP's story is here.
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
St. Petersburg Times: Rick Scott sues to block public funds from going to rival campaigns
The St. Petersburg Times reports "Rick Scott, the deep-pocketed Republican front-runner for governor, is suing the state in an effort to prevent his personal wealth from helping his primary rival, Attorney General Bill McCollum. Scott filed suit in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee Wednesday challenging part of Florida's public campaign financing system known as the 'millionaire's amendment.' The provision lets traditional candidates such as McCollum get tax dollars to subsidize their campaigns when they are being vastly outspent by independently wealthy candidates like Scott. Scott must agree to limit his campaign expenditures to $24.9-million in the primary or else the state will give McCollum $1 for every dollar Scott spends over the cap." - This report refers to the provision at issue as a "millionaire's amendment." The federal "Millionaire's Amendment" that the Supreme Court found unconstitutional in 2008 did not involve any public matching funds. Rather, once the self-funding "millionaire" crossed a spending threshold, his or her challenger could raise funds under higher contribution limits. The Florida case here is a matching funds case.
The Times notes, "Scott's lawsuit comes on the heels of a similar case in Arizona, McCormish v. Bennett, where a trial court ruled that matching funds are a violation of the First Amendment. An appeals court reversed the decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court, without making a ruling in the case, issued an order blocking further disbursements of state matching money to candidates."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Florida Times-Union: GOP donors sue Crist
The Times-Union reports "A Jacksonville businessman who once was one of Gov. Charlie Crist's strongest allies in Northeast Florida is suing on behalf of Republican donors who feel cheated that Crist left the GOP without refunding campaign contributions. John Rood, a former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas who runs The Vestcor Cos., is one of two lead plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit asking a judge to block Crist from using Republicans' money to finance his U.S. Senate run."
Click here to read the entire post.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Removed From the Ballot Because of One Penny
The Ledger reports that Neil Combee was denied a place on the ballot because the check for his qualifying fee was one cent short. "The qualifying fee to get one's name on the ballot for a House seat is $1,781.82. Combee's check was for $1,781.81, 1 red cent short of the required fee....Combee said he will appeal his removal Monday. The irony, he said, was that he had always conducted every aspect of his past campaigns, but he agreed to family and friends' advice that he hire a professional treasurer, Jacquelyn Schall of Tallahassee, who made out the check for the filing fee."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Florida Revives Its Electioneering Communication Law
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Florida Google Ad Case Dismissed
The St. Petersburg Times reports "The Florida Elections Commission has decided that former mayoral candidate Scott Wagman should not be charged with violating the state's election laws. . . . During the mayoral primary, Googling the name of a mayoral candidate would produce an online ad for Wagman. Peter Schorsch, a local blogger and former campaign manager for former mayoral candidate Jamie Bennett, filed the complaint against Wagman in July. The complaint said Wagman's online advertisements should have had a disclaimer identifying them as paid political advertisements."
Click here to read the entire post.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Miami Herald: Rothstein `fraud' funded campaign donations
From the Miami Herald: " Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein doled out large bonuses to his firm's lawyers, purportedly for exemplary work -- but they would receive the awards only after they made fat campaign contributions in their names to political candidates of Rothstein's choice. That allegation, tucked into federal racketeering charges filed Tuesday against Rothstein, says the employees' donations to politicians -- including Gov. Charlie Crist -- were illegal because they were bundled and funded with money from the lawyer's $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. . . . All told, Rothstein and the lawyers associated with his firm gave more than $2.1 million to state and federal candidates and political committees since he allegedly began his scam in 2005."
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Miami Herald: Court rejects grand jury; The Florida Supreme Court said Gov. Charlie Crist's request for a grand jury to investigate political corruption fell short of requirements, so the governor refiled the request.
The Miami Herald reports "Gov. Charlie Crist's call for a statewide grand jury to investigate political corruption was rejected Monday by the Florida Supreme Court as too vague, so the governor's office quickly refiled its request. . . . The Republican governor, a candidate for U.S. Senate, called for the statewide grand jury on Oct. 14, citing a 'rash of crimes' by public officials in Florida."
Click here to read the entire post.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Miami Herald: 11 accused of faking voter registration cards in Miami-Dade
The Miami Herald reports " Eleven people hired to register potential voters in Miami-Dade County before last year's presidential election were sought Wednesday, accused of falsifying hundreds of voter registration cards. By late Wednesday, seven were in custody and being held without bond, authorities said. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office issued arrest warrants for each of the 11 suspects, all of whom worked for the local chapter of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN."
Click here to read the entire post.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
New "Electioneering Communications" Law Coming To Florida?
The Orlando Sentinel reports "Florida lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to be in agreement that the Legislature needs to put a new law in place regulating the stealthy, political groups now free to air campaign attack ads without disclosing who is paying for them. At least part of the motivation: the attack-ad warfare between trial lawyers and former GOP House Speaker John Thrasher over an open Jacksonville-area state Senate seat. Both sides are spending big ahead of the Sept. 15 special primary election, and the 527s, formerly known as electioneering communication organizations (ECOs), can do so without filing a single campaign-disclosure report until next year. House Speaker-designate Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, says legislators will need to put new regulatory structure in place ahead of the 2010 elections — perhaps in a fall special session, if one materializes to tackle the Seminole Tribe's gambling compact or Central Florida's off-and-on commuter-train legislation." At least they're open about their reasons: incumbent protection.
Click here to read the entire post.
Monday, August 03, 2009
WSJ: For State, Local Office Seekers, Web Ads Present Potential Pitfalls
From the Wall Street Journal: "The Florida Elections Commission has decided a mayoral candidate's ads on Google and Facebook appear to violate the state's election law because they don't include a disclaimer that indicates who bought them. Many other states, including Texas, Alaska, Connecticut and Ohio, also require similar disclaimers. The candidate's campaign, however, argues that the messages in question aren't technically ads, but rather links to ads, and that it doesn't pay for them unless a Web user clicks on them. When that happens, it says, the person is taken to a Web site that provides the appropriate disclosures."
Click here to read the entire post.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Federal Court Strikes Down Florida Electioneering Communications Law
The Center for Competitive Politics has this report ("Free speech victory in Florida"), noting a federal district court's invalidation of Florida's electioneering communications law, which was drafted far broader than its federal counterpart. Florida's law covered all types of media, rather than just broadcast communications.
Click here to read the entire post.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
CQ Politics: Eye on Redistricting: Florida’s Where the Early Action Is
CQ Politics reports "In Florida, an effort is under way to gather signatures for a 2010 ballot initiative that would require the legislature to draw congressional districts that are compact, contiguous and do not 'favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party.' The idea is to create more robust two-party competition in Florida, where Republicans control 76 of 120 seats in the state House and 26 of 40 seats in the state Senate — even though Barack Obama carried the state in the 2008 election."
Click here to read the entire post.
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