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  • 01.31.2024Pennsylvania Government Contractor Pay-to-Play Disclosure Deadline – February 15, 2024 Under Pennsylvania's pay-to-play disclosure law, any business entity that has been awarded any no-bid contract by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of its political subdivisions must file a disclosure with the Pennsylvania Department of State by February 15, 2024.
  • 01.11.2024Political-Law Calendar for 2024 With the new year comes an opportunity to review and re-set the political-law compliance for campaigns, PACs, lobbyists, businesses, and individuals. The following checklist provides a brief overview of upcoming dates on the political-law calendar for 2024.
  • 10.30.2023Important Changes to ELEC Pre-Election Reporting With just over a week remaining until election day, now is the time for reporting committees, individuals and corporations, and organizations to prepare for and understand their ELEC reporting obligations. Under the Elections Transparency Act, a wider range of organizations are required to file ELEC reports, and a broader range of transactions are subject to pre-election reporting.
  • 10.17.2023Political Law With The Simpsons - A Four Part Series By Avi Kelin As far back as 1995, The Simpsons established that you don't win friends with salad. Even though you may not make any friends with salad, it still has a monetary value. This dichotomy can actually teach us something about political-law compliance. We present to you: Political Law With The Simpsons - A Four Part Series.
  • 04.03.2023The New Jersey Elections Transparency Act is Here to Stay: What you need to know right now about NJ’s newest campaign-finance (and pay-to-play) law Governor Murphy signed the Elections Transparency Act (the “ETA”) into law today. The ETA marks the first major and sweeping changes to New Jersey’s campaign-finance and pay-to-play laws in almost two decades (when statewide pay-to-play laws first came on the scene), and with it a myriad of new rules, risks, and perhaps even some uncertainty for contributors, government contractors, 501(c) organizations, and campaigns.
  • 03.06.2023Compliance Corner: Calling all NJ Government Contractors—The ELEC Pay-to-Play Annual Disclosure March 30th Filing Deadline is Approaching New Jersey’s annual pay-to-play filing deadline will be here at the end of March. If your business entity received payments of $50,000 or more (in the aggregate) as a result of New Jersey government contracts during the 2022 calendar year, the time has come to begin preparing your Business Entity Annual Statement (“Form BE”).
  • 02.07.2023Pennsylvania Government Contractor Pay-to-Play Disclosure Deadline – February 15, 2023 Under Pennsylvania's pay-to-play disclosure law, any business entity that has been awarded any no-bid contract by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of its political subdivisions must file a disclosure with the Pennsylvania Department of State by February 15, 2023.
  • 12.13.2022Gift Rules for Elected Officials and Government Employees Secret Santa, Pass the Parcel, White Elephant, Mystery Maccabee—whatever you call it, this is the season of gift giving. But private individuals, businesses, and elected officials need to think carefully before providing or accepting any gifts or other things of value this holiday season. New Jersey’s gift-and-ethics rules can restrict even such innocuous seeming items as gift baskets, meals, or entertainment—providing anything of value to an elected official or government employee can have important legal and compliance implications.
  • 11.07.2022How to Ensure Political Compliance Before Election Day With only days to go before the momentous 2022 midterm elections, the time is right to review last-minute political-compliance tips.
  • 03.14.2022Calling all NJ Government Contractors—The ELEC Pay-to-Play Annual Disclosure Filing Deadline is Approaching New Jersey’s annual pay-to-play filing deadline will be here at the end of March. If your business entity received payments of $50,000 or more (in the aggregate) as a result of New Jersey government contracts during the 2021 calendar year, the time has come to begin preparing your Business Entity Annual Statement (“Form BE”).
  • 03.10.2022Deadline for New Jersey's Annual Pay-to-Play Disclosure is Approaching Does your company do business with New Jersey government entities? Does your company make political contributions to New Jersey political recipients? Does your company have a political action committee/continuing political committee that is active in New Jersey? Do your officers, directors, partners or their spouses make political contributions to New Jersey recipients? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you are most likely required to file an Annual Pay-to-Play Disclosure Form for calendar year 2021.
  • 02.09.2022Pennsylvania Government Contractor Pay-to-Play Disclosure Deadline – February 15, 2022 Under Pennsylvania's pay-to-play disclosure law, any business entity that has been awarded any no-bid contract by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of its political subdivisions must file a disclosure with the Pennsylvania Department of State by February 15, 2022.
  • 06.22.2021The IEs are Coming: Regulated-Industry Companies Now Free to Make Independent Expenditures in NJ Late yesterday, the United States District Court of the District of New Jersey held that a century-old statute “does not ban any entity from making independent expenditures” in New Jersey. The decision comes just in time for the 2021 general election in New Jersey with the governor’s race and all 120 seats in the New Jersey Legislature up for grabs.
  • 03.04.2021Calling All New Jersey Government Contractors: Is Your Company Prepared for the March 30th Business Entity Annual Disclosure Filing Deadline? New Jersey’s Pay-to-Play Annual Disclosure filing deadline is less than one month away. New Jersey law requires each business entity that received payments of $50,000 or more (in the aggregate) as a result of New Jersey government contracts during the 2020 calendar year to electronically file a Business Entity Annual Statement (“Form BE”) with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (“ELEC”) no later than Tuesday, March 30, 2021.
  • 02.17.2021The Power of Refunds Although refunds can be a powerful tool under New Jersey’s pay-to-play laws, all contributions should still be carefully reviewed for compliance with appliable limits so that a company or individual is not in the position of having to ask for a refund. Many companies think that if somebody makes or approves a contribution that they should not have made or approved, the company will simply request a refund. It’s not quite so simple…
  • 02.02.2021Pennsylvania Government Contractor Pay-to-Play Disclosure Deadline – February 15, 2021 Under Pennsylvania's pay-to-play disclosure law, any business entity that has been awarded any no-bid contract by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or any of its political subdivisions must file a disclosure with the Pennsylvania Department of State by February 15, 2021.
  • 01.28.2021The Importance of Election Cycles In our last blog, we addressed the applicability of reduced pay-to-play limits for government contractors and prospective government contractors. In this blog, as the first month of 2021 comes to a close, it is an opportune time to review the varying time periods applicable to traditional New Jersey campaign-finance limits. While some contribution limits operate on a calendar-year basis, not all contribution limits re-set in a new calendar year.
  • 01.21.2021Know Your Pay-to-Play Limits: Taking Stock of Covered Contributors 2021 has been off to an eventful start politically. Although a lot is happening on the national stage, we cannot forget that 2021 is a big election year in New Jersey. Not only do we have an upcoming gubernatorial election, but all 120 seats in the New Jersey Legislature are up for grabs and hundreds of local candidates will be on the ballot.
  • 01.18.2021Bergen County Twice-Annual Pay-to-Play Disclosure Deadline Approaches Vendors that hold government contracts with Bergen County are required to file pay-to-play disclosures in January and July of each year. This requirement to file the Bergen County Sunshine Form and the REVUE 2 Form was enacted in 2013 when the County adopted its own local pay-to-play ordinance.
  • 11.03.2020Know Your (Pay-to-Play) Solicitation Limits: Fundraising for New Jersey’s 2021 Gubernatorial Election Has Begun Our last blog post focused on the reduced contribution limits to New Jersey gubernatorial candidates that apply to business entities that hold or seek to remain eligible for New Jersey Executive Branch contracts. But it is not only directly making a contribution to a gubernatorial candidate that can jeopardize eligibility for State of New Jersey contracts.
  • 03.31.2020COVID-19 Political Law Updates As the entire globe faces the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19, the political world is working to adjust to the new normal. Campaign ads are already focusing on COVID-19 claims, and we are also seeing in-person events being replaced with virtual conference calls, events, and rallies. But, with very few exceptions, the existing legal framework still governs political activity.
  • 03.05.2020New Jersey’s “Dark Money” Law is Effectively Dead For more than a year now, New Jersey non-profits and politically active groups have been following the saga of S150, the so-called Dark Money law. This law would have dramatically increased the reporting obligations of 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations and political organizations operating under Section 527 of Internal Revenue Code that engaged in a wide range of New Jersey political activity and advocacy.
  • 02.20.2020Ethics Reform is Coming to Trenton: Is Your Company Ready? It has been a little over a month since Governor Murphy delivered his State of the State address in Trenton. In that speech, the Governor promised to deliver sweeping ethics reform to Trenton. Last night, in a live address, the Governor unveiled a comprehensive plan which promises to be the most sweeping changes to ethics reform in Trenton in more than a decade.
  • 01.23.2020Citizens United Turns Ten With Citizens United reaching double digits this week, now is an opportune time review the landmark case’s impact on campaign-finance law.
  • 01.16.2020Governor Murphy, in State of the State Address, Focuses on Ethics and Pay-to-Play Reform In Governor Murphy’s January 14, 2020 State of the State address, the first-term governor promised to propose, in the coming weeks, reforms to the State’s ethics laws, financial disclosures, and pay-to-play laws. The Governor highlighted that it has been more than a decade since the Executive and Legislative branches “undertook comprehensive ethics reform.”
  • 03.25.2019New Jersey “Dark Money” Bill Poised to Include 501(c)(6) Trade Associations
  • 03.11.2019New York Senate Passes State Pay-to-Play Bill
  • 03.06.2019Deadline for New Jersey's Annual Pay-to-Play Disclosure is Approaching: Is Your Company Ready to File?
  • 02.15.2019FEC Announces Increased Contribution Limits for 2019-2020 Cycle
  • 02.04.2019New Jersey Annual Lobbying Reports - Due February 15, 2019