Watchdogs Urge FEC to Reject Democratic Super PACs’ Request to Green-Light Illegal Coordination with Candidates

The Campaign Legal Center, joined by Democracy 21, strongly urged the Federal Election Commission recently to reject the request from Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC to follow the lead of a number of GOP Super PACs in breaking a variety of laws through coordinated activities with candidates.

The watchdog groups filed comments on the Advisory Opinion Request 2015-09, where the Super PACs outlined a number of proposed interactions with candidates that the requestors admit are illegal but state they will undertake themselves in the event of an FEC deadlock on the request.

“These Super PACs are seeking FEC permission to break the law, as other candidates and committees have done, knowing full well that the commission will deadlock on the questions, and announcing that they will break the law if they do not get a yes or no answer from the FEC,” said Paul S. Ryan, Campaign Legal Center Senior Counsel. “Requestors are mistaken, however, in implying that an FEC deadlock amounts to approval of their proposed lawbreaking. The laws passed by Congress are the laws of the land despite the complete breakdown of campaign finance law enforcement at the FEC and we will not hesitate to urge the Department of Justice to criminally investigate what would be knowing and willful violations of the law if these groups proceed with their plans.”

The 12 questions submitted by the Super PACs involve pre-candidacy activities, the conduct triggering federal candidacy and post-candidacy activities.

Many of these proposed activities have already been undertaken by current candidates and Super PACs and have drawn numerous complaints with the FEC and the Department of Justice from the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21 and other groups.

The comments filed today emphasize that the Advisory Opinion Request is not valid because it outlines only theoretical acts by unnamed future candidates and Super PACs while FEC regulations require requestors of advisory opinions to set forth a “specific transaction or activity” that they, themselves, plan to undertake.

To read the comments filed today by the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 click here.

Fair Election Nonprofits Want FEC to to Prohibit Campaign “Contribution Laundering”

Two nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations have petitioned the Federal Election Commission to prohibit political campaign contribution laundering.

The two organizations, Make Your Laws PAC and Make Your Laws Advocacy Inc., which work to ensure that elections and their corresponding campaign finance activities are transparent and may be independently audited, wrote a letter to commissioners earlier this month with the request.

Here’s how the groups explain the move:

Current FEC and IRS regulations permit political committees with independent expenditure accounts (“Super PACs”) to receive contributions from corporations, including 501(c)(4) corporations, which themselves have no reporting obligations under the FECA regarding their contributions or expenditures.

This hole in the regulations, combined with recent court decisions in EMILY’s List, Citizens United, SpeechNow, Carey, and McCutcheon, has made it possible for unlimited, completely anonymous, potentially foreign-sourced money to be used to influence U.S. elections. In the 2012 federal election cycle, this “dark money” totaled roughly $257 million.

In effect, this is money laundering for political contributions (“contribution laundering”).

We believe that this plainly subverts the purpose of our campaign finance laws, as well as the assumptions of public disclosure relied on by our courts.

Recent court decisions have allowed corporations to purchase political speech through “independent expenditures”. However, this right does not extend to the purchase of anonymous speech.

The cure? Here’s an explanation from the petitioners:

Our proposal to cure this problem is simple and very narrowly tailored: we are asking the FEC to require that any corporation contributing more than $1k/yr to influence elections do so through a publicly reported bank account (known as an “SSF” or “Carey account”) — and that all reporting disclose not just the last hop in what is potentially a chain of shell corporations, but also the original, human contributor.

Want more details? Read the petition for rulemaking here.

Public Citizen: Federal Election Commission Is Failing

In a four-page release complete with charts and graphs, non-profit group Public Citizen has said the Federal Election Commission is failing.

According to the report:

In just the last few years, a sharply pervasive partisan split on the Federal Election Commission has largely prevented the agency from fulfilling its mission. In both numbers of actions taken and immobilizing deadlocked votes, the FEC is showing a dramatic and uncharacteristic inability to perform its duties more or less in all categories enforcement, audits, regulations and advisory opinions.

One of the most critical functions of the FEC is to enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act, nation’s campaign finance law, but today’s agency is falling desperately short in this mission.

The Public Citizen report continues:

In addition to enforcing the law, the FEC is charged with conducting audits of the financial activity of candidates and committees, in order to ensure compliance with the law. The audit function is designed to monitor compliance with the contributions limits, reporting requirements and handling of public funds by presidential candidates.

Audits are performed on a random basis or when preliminary investigations suggest a need for further review, except that all publicly financed candidates are subject to regular audits.

And that’s not all:

The Federal Election Commission is that agency responsible for promulgating rules and regulations to facilitate implementation of the nation’s campaign finance laws.

The Commission clarifies the FECA and the public funding statutes through regulations, codified in Title 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The agency has shown episodes of conflict and deadlocked votes when it comes to promulgating regulations, with the agency today rivaling its past episodes of indecision. Furthermore, the FEC is showing a strong disinclination to make use of its rule-making authorities.

Want to check out the whole thing? It’s available right here.

The DISCLOSE Act of 2014: What You Need to Know

Senate Democrats earlier this month reintroduced the DISCLOSE Act of 2014, a bill they say will crack down on what’s known as “dark money” by requiring organizations that spend money to influence elections to disclose their spending, as well as their major sources of funding in a timely manner.

Here’s are a few things you need to know:

WHEN? The legislation was introduced June 24.

WHO? The legislation was introduced by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island. It was cosponsored by 50 of his colleagues, including: Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Al Franken (D-MN), and Angus King (I-ME).

WHAT is the legislation all about? Here’s what Whitehouse had to say in a release his office issued after the DISCLOSE Act was introduced earlier this month:

Since the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision, a torrent of dark money has swept through our political system, giving corporations and billionaires the ability to secretly buy election influence.  The DISCLOSE Act will require political groups to list publicly their big donors, so voters can at least know who is trying to sway their opinions.

 

Our Republican colleagues have a history of supporting disclosure of election spending, and this bill will give them a chance to show the American people where they stand: with the individual voters they were sent here to represent, or with the billionaires and the corporations seeking to buy our democracy.

In the release, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy added:

“We know disclosure laws can work because they do work for individual Americans donating directly to political campaigns.  When an individual gives money directly to a political candidate, that donation is not hidden.  It is publicly disclosed.

 

By passing the DISCLOSE Act, we can restore transparency and accountability to campaign finance laws by ensuring that all Americans know who is paying for campaign ads.”

HOW big of an issue is so-called “dark money?” Whitehouse says it’s a serious problem, and cites statistics from the the Center for Responsive Politics, which reports that election spending from undisclosed sources in the 2012 election cycle topped $310 million—an increase from just $69 million in 2008, the last presidential election cycle before the Citizens United decision. 

WHY will the DISCLOSE Act help? The DISCLOSE Act requires any covered organization that spends $10,000 or more during an election cycle to file a report with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours, detailing the amount and nature of each expenditure of more than $1,000, as well as the names of all of its donors who gave $10,000 or more.  Also in the bill: Transfer provisions prevent donors from using shell organizations to hide their activities, according to Whitehouse’s release.

DISCLOSE Act In the News…

The reintroduction of the DISCLOSE Act garnered much press. Click on the headlines below to get more details:

• From Mother Jones: Senate Democrats Re-up Their Dark-Money Disclosure Bill—and Dare GOPers to Block It
• From The Hill: Dems Raise Dark Money Alarm
• And from Politico: Senate Dems Float Campaign Finance Bill

What are your thoughts? Let us know your opinion in the comments section below.