Anyone else miss this? Christie may be forced to quit as governor

What’s not getting much attention is the flip-side: the severe consequences that winning a second term as governor could have for Christie’s ability to raise money for a national campaign – and the possibility that he might be compelled to resign his office during his second term if he’s going to seek the White House.

This is the result of two federal rules, one from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board dating back nearly two decades and the other from the SEC in 2011, that drastically curb the ability of employees of Wall Street firms to donate to governors seeking federal office and of the uniquely broad appointment powers that come with the New Jersey governorship. Put together, they have the potential to prevent Christie from raising millions of dollars from a cash-rich sector – the financial services industry – that has been particularly enthusiastic about him.

“It affects a huge swath of potential donations,” Ken Gross, a former lawyer for the Federal Election Commission who now runs the political law practice at the firm Skadden Arps, said on Sunday. “Because it not only affects corporate donations where permissible at the state level to a governor or somebody, but also affects [corporation's] PACs and individual executives’ personal giving down to very, very low limits – $250 or $350, depending on what you’re talking about. So a tremendous impact.”

Enacted in 1994, the first of the MSRB rule bars employees of firms that underwrite state and municipal bonds from donating to any official seeking federal office who has any role in giving business to bond firms. That prohibition was expanded just over two years ago to include employees of firms that advise state pension funds – effectively doubling, from $2.7 trillion to more than $5 trillion, the market covered.

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