Law360 Publishes Akin Gump Analysis of Lobbying and Campaign Finance Rule Changes

“Key Recent Changes To Lobbying, Campaign Finance Rules,” an article by Akin Gump public law and policy partner Melissa Laurenza and policy advisor Samuel Olswanger, has been published by Law360, analyzing some of the recent modifications in federal and state lobbying, gift and campaign finance laws and regulations. The article also looks at their significance and impact.

Laurenza and Olswanger begin with a discussion of recently enacted federal laws, going back to an executive order signed by President Trump during his first week in office last year “prohibiting executive branch appointees from accepting gifts from registered lobbyists and lobbyist employers.” It also bans those same individuals from “lobbying their respective agency for five years after leaving their position, engaging in an activity that would require registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and requiring that registered lobbyists appointed to an executive office recuse themselves from working on any matter on which they lobbied for the first two years of their appointment.”

The article then looks at new lobbying laws from the past year in California, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, Vermont and Virginia, noting that while states and localities “are actively expanding disclosure requirements and implementing new laws regulating political and lobbying activities within their jurisdictions,” Congress has not enacted any major legislative changes to the Lobbying Disclosure Act in the past decade or to the Federal Election Campaign Act since 2002.

Finally, the authors note that legislation has been introduced that would dramatically change the FARA disclosure regime, having an impact on domestic U.S. subsidiaries. If the legislation were to become law, Laurenza and Olswanger write that it would increase the regulatory burdens on “foreign-owned corporations as well as U.S.-based subsidiaries seeking to influence U.S. policy.”

Click here to read the full article, which originated as an Akin Gump client alert.