Covington’s Election and Political Law practice is one of the oldest in the Nation. In addition to our high-profile election law litigation and Federal Election Commission enforcement practice, we advise numerous Fortune 500 corporations, trade associations, financial institutions, political party committees, PACs, candidates, lobbying firms, and high net-worth individuals concerning compliance with the increasingly complex array of laws governing the political process. These include federal and state campaign finance, lobbying disclosure, and government ethics laws.
Covington has litigated some of the most important election law cases of the last thirty years. We were counsel in the two seminal U.S. Supreme Court cases interpreting the Federal Election Campaign Act -- Buckley v. Valeo and McConnell v. FEC. In McConnell, we prepared the consolidated Supreme Court brief on behalf of both Republican and Democratic political party committees. The firm regularly defends corporate and political clients in Federal Election Commission and U.S. Department of Justice civil and criminal campaign finance investigations.
In the current enforcement environment, corporations, political figures, and lobbyists face unprecedented scrutiny of their compliance with campaign finance, lobbying disclosure, and ethics laws. To help our clients keep out of harm’s way, we provide a range of compliance services, including:
- Formation of political action committees, and advice concerning PAC governance and compliance.
- Drafting and implementation of organization-wide political law compliance programs and policies.
- Training for corporate executives and lobbyists on political law compliance.
- Compliance audits to identify and resolve existing weaknesses in internal controls and compliance practices related to political fundraising and lobbying.
- Review of proposed state and local political contributions by corporations and their PACs for compliance with the 50 states’ range of conflicting campaign finance rules.
- Advice concerning state and local “pay to play” laws for government contractors and the rules governing political contributions by municipal securities dealers and investment advisers.
Our Election and Political Law Practice Group is often engaged to conduct internal investigations for major corporations when potential violations of campaign finance and lobbying laws are discovered. We have extensive experience conducting sensitive and highly confidential investigations, as well as with managing the aftermath of such investigations.
Representative Matters
Although many of the most significant matters that we handle are not matters of public record, some recent representative matters include the following:
- We represented Freddie Mac in the largest-ever FEC enforcement action against a corporation, and negotiated a global FEC settlement on behalf of the corporation and its former officers, which resulted in no penalties for individual Freddie Mac officers and executives.
- For a Fortune 100 multinational corporation, we recently developed and conducted a federal PAC compliance and training program, and have provided government ethics training to senior executives and company lobbyists.
- For several Fortune 100 multinational corporations, we review all political contributions that the companies and their PACs make to state and local candidates and committees, while routinely monitoring changes in state campaign finance laws.
- We represented the Republican National Committee in a high-profile election-related civil litigation in New Hampshire concerning alleged phone-jamming on election day. The firm has served as election law counsel to the RNC for many years, handling a range of litigation and advisory matters.
- The firm has also been counsel on election law matters to the National Republican Congressional Committee and conducted the NRCC’s internal investigation concerning allegations of a misappropriation of funds by its former treasurer.
|
|