Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Spring 2014, Vol. 40, No. 1 | Page 26

Restoring Citizen Representation

on a monthly basis how much time they
spend engaging in fundraising while the
Congress is in session.
The Act will expand the definition of
“lobbyist” to include every person who,
for compensation, (1) makes two or more
lobbying contacts or who provides strategic advice or directs or supervises lobbying
efforts, and (2) spends more than twelve
hours on lobbying activities on behalf of
a client. The Act will broaden the definition of lobbying to include the provision
of strategic advice, advice and assistance
with earned media related to legislation or
legislative issues, polling related to lobbying goals, and advice on the production of
public communications related to lobbying goals. The Act also will require the clients of lobbying firms to register and file
disclosure reports, and require registrants
to identify the funders of their lobbying efforts.
Finally, the Act will require lobbying disclosure reports to include more detailed information about lobbying activities, such as
the specific congressional offices, committees, subcommittees, and members contacted.
The Act will also require federal candidates to disclose the names of individuals
who “bundle” contributions for the member or candidate, regardless of whether
such individuals are registered lobbyists.
The Act also will require any organization
that spends $10,000 or more on advertisements to elect or defeat federal candidates
to file a disclosure report with the Federal Election Commission within twenty-four
hours of airing the advertisement. This report would be immediately available on the
FEC website, and must list each of the organization’s donors who donated $10,000
or more to the organization to run such
ads.
D. Enforcement
The Act will establish a bipartisan, bicameral task force in Congress to examine
and provide specific recommendations to
fix the shortcomings of the Federal Election Commission and the House and Senate ethics investigation and enforcement
processes, and to examine the IRS’s enforcement of regulations governing the political activity of tax-exempt organizations.
Until these recommendations are developed and enacted, the Act will, in the interim, strengthen the Federal Election Commission’s independence and enforcement
powers. The Act also will provide federal
prosecutors additional tools that are necessary to combat public corruption and will
prohibit lobbyists who fail to properly register and disclose their activities from engaging in federal lobbying activities for a
period of two years.

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Reform by Constitutional Amendment
Although much more difficult, reform by
amendment of our constitution, as set forth
in Article V,13 offers the possibility of longer lasting improvement. In many ways Citizens United14 was a gift from the U.S. Supreme Court, for it galvanized and upset
many in America, thus promoting a backlash. More recently, on April 2, 2014, the
U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in
McCutcheon et al. v. Federal Election Commission15 that overruled aggregate limits on campaign contributions. Its opinion
made clear that the current five-to-four majority believes the only type of corruption
that Congress may target is quid pro quo
corruption. Thus the Court offers no help at
all for the vast majority of Americans who
believe that the great issue of our time is
the much more subtle systemic corruption
in outcomes of law, regulation, and policy caused by politicians who subtly “lean
to the green” in formin