NEWS ROUNDUP:

• Lobbying law loopholes may have allowed many individuals who were registered to lobby in 2011 to deregister in subsequent years while still working for the same companies, and possibly continuing to lobby. There are plenty of reasons why a lobbyist would want to deregister ranging from fear of stigma to the desire to land an administration job. (Roll Call)
• Mary Schapiro, the former head of the SEC, has found her way through the revolving door and into a job with Promontory Financial Group. The private consulting firm has a long list of former regulators on its roster. (POGO)
• Five New York state politicians were arrested yesterday in a bizarre case of attempted bribery. State Senator Malcolm Smith, a Democrat, was arrested for allegedly conspiring to bribe Republican county chairmen to support a plan that would have Smith run for Mayor on the Republican ticket. Unfortunately for Smith and his alleged conspirators, the wealthy real estate developer bankrolling the plan was really an undercover FBI agent. (NPR, National Journal)
• According to a new government report on Open Government Partnership compliance the U.S. acted on 24 of it's 26 initial commitments. One of the discarded commitments was ExpertNet, a government wide online community that would have allowed volunteer experts to give consultations. (Fierce Government)
• President Obama has taken a different, and in some ways much more limited approach, to dealing with the press than previous presidents. While he holds more formal press conferences and one-on-one interviews, he rarely faces the press in uncontrollable situations. (Huffington Post)
• Opinion: The Justice Department should do a better job of making its Office of Legal Counsel opinions publicly available. They currently withhold significant numbers of the documents and are fighting the Electronic Frontier Foundation over a request by the EFF for access to an OLC opinion on the FBI's authority to surveil American's without a warrant. (Washington Post)

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• For the second year in a row The Committee to Save New York, a group of business interests that work to support Governor Andrew Cuomo, spent more on lobbying in the state than any other organization. Overall lobbying in New York topped $200 million last year. (New York Times)
• The FEC reports for Sarah Palin's PAC indicate that she spent only $300,000 supporting candidates in the 2012 election cycle while directing almost $5 million towards GOP consultants. Presumably those weren't the same "big consultants" that she lambasted at her speech to CPAC last month. (Washington Post, Daily Beast)
• FCC commissioner Ajit Pai, who is about to become the senior Republican on the panel at the youthful age of 40, would like to use technology to improve agency processes and transparency. His major suggestion is a dashboard for information about license renewals, consumer complaints, merger reviews and more. (Federal Computer Week)
• The creators of Ubuntu are working with the Chinese government on Chinese-specific version of the operating system. The Chinese may be pushing an open source alternative to wean their citizens off western software products. (Tech President)
• Mark Zuckerberg's new issue advocacy organization is tapping outside lobbyists in addition to its in house team for a push on immigration reform. Zuckerberg signed up Peck, Madigan, Jones & Stewart as well as Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock lobbyists that have experience on immigration. (POLITICO)
• Congress might be on an Easter break, but that doesn't mean the influence industry ignores the holiday. The holiday, known in secular circles for the abundance of sweets that come along with it, has powerful backers like the National Confectioners Association which hired 20 lobbyists last year. (Public Integrity)

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• Rockstar, Inc., the maker of Rockstar Energy Drink, has hired a team of influence rockstars to make its case in Washington. Rockstar isn't pulling punches for or its first foray into the influence game. The company signed on a team from the Podesta Group that includes at least 7 former congressional staffers. (Public Integrity)
• The SEIU is opening its wallet to support the idea of comprehensive immigration reform over the airwaves. The $300,000 ad buy is the latest in a series that the union plans to air as the debate continues in Congress. (Roll Call)
• A new report from US PIRG showing that many states made progress in how they make spending data available online over the past few years. There is still plenty of room for improvement though. PIRG only handed out 7 "A"  and 9 "B" grades. (Government Technology)
• The LGBT rights lobby has made some significant strides in the past few years, including a high profile hearing in front of the Supreme Court yesterday, and they've spent accordingly. The Human Rights Campaign dropped more than $1.3 million on lobbying last year and its PAC has given to key lawmakers, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) who announced her support for gay marriage on Sunday. (Public Integrity)
• Organizing for Action is looking to raise as much money as humanly possible, but they're also butting into a battle for campaign finance reform currently raging in New York. On Tuesday they contacted 744,000 members in New York endorsing reforms that would include public financing of elections in the state. (Huffington Post, POLITICO, New York Times)
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is getting into the political game with a new 501(c)(4) that will be supported by a number of other tech executives and led by Joe Green, founder of Causes.com and Zuckerberg's former roommate. The organization will focus on maintaining the US's economic competitiveness and its first issue will be immigration reform...(The Hill)
• Opinion: ...Meanwhile Micah Sifrey, a technology advisor to the Sunlight Foundation, is urging Facebook to "start taking its own civic responsibilities more seriously, especially as it comes to how Facebook implicitly influences political processes all over the world." He suggests that the company should start Facebook.org as a place to aggregate everything the company does " that affect the civic arena."(Tech President)

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• Some of the more pragmatic Republican fundraisers see big money making opportunities as some members of the GOP begin to embrace the idea of gay marriage. In recent elections some deep pocketed Republicans kept their wallets closed due to the party's position on the issue. (POLITICO)
• The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is upping their fundraising pace as they pick up seats and influence in Congress. The Caucus' PAC has been raising larger sums of money recently and it's members have seen their clout increasing with the current immigration debate. (Roll Call)
• The budget that Congress sent to the Department of Agriculture last week bears a brand of influence from meatpackers, Monsanto, and other big farm industry players.  (POLITICO)
• Michelle Bachmann is being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics for allegedly misusing campaign funds. The former national field coordinator for the Congresswoman's 2012 presidential campaign filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that Bachmann's leadership PAC was improperly used to pay campaign staff. (Washington Post)
• A new pro-Rand Paul PAC was registered using MyPAC, a service of DB Capitol Strategies that lets customers spend $700 to set up a hybrid PAC. Hybrid PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to run independent ads and donate directly to politicians. (Public Integrity)
• San Francisco might be feeling a little left out of all the good press that New York City has gotten recently for their open data portal and data driven governance strategies. In an attempt to put the spotlight back on their city the Mayor and Board of Supervisors president are planning to remind everyone about a law they recently passed to create a "chief data officer."  (Tech President)

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• A review of regulatory filings from major Wall Street firms found that they are making it attractive for executives to take government jobs, often including special clauses that provide bonuses when senior staff take jobs in the public sector. (POGO)
• Another recently retired Rep. has found steady paycheck (or tw0) on the other side of the revolving door. Dale Kildee (D-MI) is slated to serve as a senior consultant at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld as well as a policy advisor to Akin Gump's strategic partner Ietan Consulting. (The Hill)
• Michelle Bachmann is working hard to secure some "pork" in her district, but being very careful to avoid calling her preferred project an earmark. Because, as everyone knows, earmarks are the devils work and the House doesn't do that sort of thing. (Politico)
• K Street is packing its bags and heading across the Atlantic to Brussels as America and the EU prepare to negotiate, what could become, a major trade deal. (The Hill)
• A new study from the Center for Responsive Politics found that almost half of the lobbyists who de-registered between 2011 and 2012 stayed with the same employer and continued their influence work, taking advantage of major loopholes in lobbying disclosure laws. (Roll Call)
• Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID) is hosting a fundraising event for his Freedom Fund PAC this week at a townhouse owned by Diageo, one of the worlds largest alcohol companies. The event comes only a few months after Crapo was arrested for drunk driving late last year. (Roll Call)
• Marco Rubio (R-Running for President) spent nearly $100,000 on campaign consultants for his Reclaim America PAC in the past month. The PAC has also been spending on polling and research and ramping up its fundraising efforts. (Politico)
• Is there such a thing as too much transparency? That's the question asked by Camille Tuutti in this short column. (Federal Computer Week)