rssDid Outside Groups ‘Fail’ to Disclose With the FEC?
Friday, August 13, 2010 at 1:36 pm
- 4 Comments
The trendy way to influence elections this cycle is through “independent expenditure committees,” and as I wrote yesterday, these committees are, in most cases, failing to disclose their receipts and expenditures to the FEC. But is “failure” the proper way to describe this reticence? Turns out there’s an active debate about how much, if anything, these committees are required to disclose.
It all relates back to the aftermath of 2004, when 527 groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had spent like mad during the election but hadn’t registered with the FEC as political action committees (and therefore hadn’t submitted themselves to the restrictions and disclosure requirements entailed in the designation). The Campaign Legal Center and other campaign finance and elections groups filed complaints with the FEC arguing these organizations were effectively skirting the law, and in response, the FEC made some new rules.
In an “Explanation and Justification” of its rules governing electioneering communication (or EC — essentially, political TV or radio ads run just before an election), the FEC determined that they could require disclosure about two kinds of donations — “funds received in response to solicitations specifically requesting funds to pay for ECs” and “funds specifically designated for ECs by the donor.” In other words, if a group received money in response to a solicitation that advertised their spending on electioneering communications, that money would be regarded as a “contribution” — an important designation that meant it would most likely have to be disclosed.
When the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United earlier this year, it freed up limits on independent expenditures by corporations* but it didn’t necessarily change present disclosure laws. That was accomplished, instead, by a different ruling late last year, in which a federal appeals court decided in a case brought by EMILY’s List to strike down the “solicitation” regulation the FEC had drawn up.
In response to that court’s decision, the FEC got rid of the first requirement for disclosure (“solicitations specifically requesting funds to pay for ECs”) and keeping only the second (“funds specifically designated for ECs by the donor”). As a result, the conventional wisdom is that if a 527 group or 501(c)(4) group wants to keep their political spending in the dark, all they have to do is direct the donor to not specify what specific purpose their donation should be used.*
Some argue the FEC still has some legal leeway to compel these groups to disclose more about its EC spending — it’s just being timid about doing so. Others, however, maintain that it’s bound by the current law and, unless the courts or congress change things, there’s not much more the FEC can do — nor it there much more organizations should feel like they have to do.
*Update: An earlier version of this post said Citizens United vs. FEC freed limits on corporate campaign contributions. Instead, it freed independent expenditures on campaigns by corporations. An earlier version also said groups can avoid disclosing their expenditures through the use of separate funds. Instead, it can do so by directing their funders to not specify the purpose of their donations.
As an additional side note, legal scholars point out that the FEC could easily make a new rule, without the help of congress, to counteract the current avalanche of undisclosed electioneering communications. Partisan gridlock on the commission, however, makes the chances of such a scenario quite unlikely.
Follow Jesse Zwick on Twitter4 Comments
Pingback posted August 13, 2010 @ 2:22 pm
[...] View full post on The Washington Independent [...]
Pingback posted August 13, 2010 @ 7:38 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Shannon Grow-Garrett, WashIndependent. WashIndependent said: Did Outside Groups 'Fail' to Disclose With the FEC? – http://bit.ly/cyT89r [...]
Pingback posted August 23, 2010 @ 12:56 pm
[...] inability to monitor political donations to the Citizens United decision. In truth, donors were already evading the FEC with increasing frequency by creating 527, 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) groups that claimed they [...]
Comment posted August 25, 2010 @ 2:14 am
IT'S NOT THE ECONOMY STUPID ~ IT'S KARL ROVE
5 ANTI~ABORTION U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICES GAVE BIRTH 2 THESE KARL ROVE BILLIONAIRE'S future U.S. ABORTION ABATEMENT PLAN….
KARL ROVE IS THE MOST HIGHLY PAID DELIVERY BOY 4 INTERNATIONAL & U.S. ELITE BILLIONAIRE'S AGENDA…MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS !!!
WHAT'S GOOD 4 KARL ROVE IS GOOD 4 U.S ELITE BILLIONAIRE'S VISION OF AMERICA ….
*KARL ROVE WAS BEHIND THE CURTAIN WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH JR DELIVERED HIS FAMOUS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PR MESSAGE.
*KARL ROVE WAS BEHIND THE CURTAIN WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH JR SIGNED THE BOGUS TARP $ 750 BILLION U.S.BILLIONAIRE WALL STREET~BANKERS PONZI BAILOUT SCHEME.
*KARL ROVE WAS BEHIND THE CURTAIN WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH JR GAVE WEALTHY AMERICAN BILLIONAIRE'S THEIR 10yrs OF TAX CUTS.
*KARL ROVE IS EVEN NOW BEHIND THE CURTAIN ATTEMPTING TO AGAIN MISLEAD ALL OF us little Americans TO ACCEPT BILLIONAIRE TAX CUT ENTITLEMENTS AND THEIR PLANNED ESTATE TAX ABATEMENT !!!
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
On Karl Rove’s Crossroads starts TV ads attacking Bennet
August 18, 2010, 1:15 am
Karl Rove’s Crossroads starts TV ads attacking BennetBy Michael Booth Denver Post Staff Writer
Share7Ken Buck benefited from major outside spending in defeating Jane Norton for the Republican U.S. Senate primary, and outside groups are now jumping in to help him against Sen. Michael Bennet.
The Karl Rove-constructed group Crossroads GPS launched an ad in Colorado markets attacking Bennet for voting to spend the average of billions of dollars every day since he took office 20 months ago. Though the outside groups can’t coordinate with the candidate campaigns, the ad creators didn’t need a secret handbook to load an anti-spending, anti-tax broadside against Bennet and Democrats.
Crossroads GPS, affiliated with American Crossroads, first started getting publicity back in the spring, when Republican organizers were looking for ways to gather major GOP donors for what they hoped would be a productive 2010 election fight. As The Spot has reported before, Buck made up for his own lack of fundraising with help against Norton from Americans for Job Security.
The Bennet campaign jumped on the sponsors of the ad initially, rather than the substance on the profligate spending issue.
“Ken Buck has received twice as much money from a secretive group of corporations and billionaires than he has raised from supporters,” said Bennet campaign spokesman Trevor Kincaid. “Ken Buck has claimed to be a man of principle but stays silent while Karl Rove and his secret allies flood the airwaves with misleading attack ads. Ken Buck should either support transparency or explain why he doesn’t.”
Later, though, the Bennet campaign hit back on the spending issues, noting that Bennet has said he would have voted against the controversial bailout fund (TARP) if he had been in the Senate at the time. The campaign also notes Bennet’s sponsoring the “Pay it Back” provision, which requires TARP paybacks from banks to go toward paying down the deficit.
IRS records show large donations to American Crossroads from various millionaires and smaller donors, including the billionaire chairman of Public Storage, B. Wayne Hughes. American Crossroads is a 527 group, while the affiliated Crossroads GPS is registered as a 501c(4) organization, further obscuring its sources of funding.
The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza writes that the American Crossroads arm is also launching Senate ads in Ohio, with a more positive message supporting Republican candidate Rob Portman.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
LAWYERS FOR POOR AMERICANS IS A VOLUNTEER WWW INDEPENDENT LOBBY FOR OUR MIDDLE~CLASS & WORKING POOR AMERICANS.
WE CAN BE FOUND WITH ANY AND ALL WEB SEARCH ENGINES BY OUR NAME,TELEPHONE NUMBER OR E MAIL ADDRESS.
GOOGLE,YAHOO,AOL,MSN & BING ALL CARRY VARIOUS DIFFERENT LISTINGS OF OUR PREVIOUS WRITTEN COMMENTARY STUFF.
**we enjoy bringing the good life to all our fellow little Americans living in our BILLIONAIRE ELITE'S AMERICA **
lawyersforpooreramericans@gmail.com
424-247-2013
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
